This Healthcare application has been developed to harness the power of blockchain technology, more specifically to ensure data integrity, security and privacy.
The application is designed to be used both by healthcare professionals and patients and/or their caregivers. Some of the main features include:
- Checking the patient's medical history.
- Saving and modifying medical reports and services securely
- Checking the integrity of the saved data
All of this is achieved through the use of a private blockchain network and a smart contract, to ensure maximum security and guarantee data integrity and safety for the end user.
Every user has a unique blockchain address and a private key, which are used to sign and verify the transactions. Every time a new medical report or service is saved, a new transaction is created and signed by the user.
On the blockchain, the addresses of both the healthcare professional and the patient are stored in a smart contract, along with a hashed version of the data.
Every time a user tries to access the data, the smart contract checks the integrity of the data by comparing the local hash with the one stored on the blockchain.
The Healthcare application is built using the following technologies:
- Python as the main programming language
- Django as the web framework
- Gunicorn as the WSGI server
- Nginx as the reverse proxy server
- Hyperledger Besu for the blockchain network
- ConsenSys Tessera for private transact
- Solidity for smart contract development
- Web3.py for interacting with the smart contracts
- Docker and Compose for containerization
- PostgreSQL as the database
In order to run a local copy of the application, you need to follow the steps below.
The only real prerequisite needed for the project is to have a working installation of Docker and Docker Compose. Based on your operating system, you can install Docker following this link.
Otherwise, you can always install Docker Desktop for the GUI version.
To install Docker Compose, you can follow the instructions here.
As far as hardware requirements go, running the blockchain network can be quite resource-intensive. The application has been successfully tested on a machine with 8 GB of RAM and 4 cores, but performances may vary.
⚠️ NOTE: The official Quorum Dev article recommends to limit Docker's memory usage to 6GB when working with the blockhain. The method for doing this varies greatly based on the operating system. It is up to the user to decide whether to limit Docker's memory usage or not.
The easiest way to install the application is to clone the repository on your local machine:
git clone https://github.com/NicolaPicciafuoco/SoftwareSecurity_blockchain
cd SoftwareSecurity_blockchainOnce cloned, you can build the images using Docker commands:
docker-compose build After successfully building the images, you should setup the environment variables.
In order to do so, place a .env file in the root directory and fill in the following variables:
DATABASE_NAME: the name for the databaseDATABASE_USER: the name for the database userDATABASE_PASSWORD: the password for the database userDATABASE_HOST: the host for the database. Should be the same name as the PostgreSQL container in thedocker-compose.yamlfile. Default name should bemy-postgres.DATABASE_PORT: the port on which the database will run. Recommended to use the default PostgreSQL port5432. Be sure to check that the port is not already in use and that it is able to accept TCP/IP connections.ADMIN_ADDRESS: the blockchain address of the admin user. Since this is a private blockchain network, the address is purely arbitrary.ADMIN_PRIVATE_KEY: the private key of the admin user. Same as above, the key is arbitrary.LOG4J_CONFIGURATION_FILE: the path to the log4j configuration file. Needed for besu to run properly. Default path should be/config/log-config.xml.
The application has been tested and has been designed to run on Linux machines, and it is recommended to use a Linux distribution to run it.
More specifically, the application has been tested on these distributions:
The application has been tested both on Windows 10 and Windows 11, and it should work on both.
However, several problems may arise if you choose to run it on a Windows machine, especially with the blockchain network.
⚠️ NOTE: It is heavily recommended to have the Windows Subsystem for Linux installed on your machine and to have Docker configured to use WSL2 as the default engine.
⚠️ NOTE: The official Besu Docker image should not run on Windows, as per its documentation. Despite this, all tests have worked succesfully on Windows machines. It is still recommended not to run the application on Windows.
The application has NOT been tested on macOS machines, neither on Intel nor ARM architectures.
Despite this, the application should still run on Mac, if the prerequisites are met.
Once the setup has been completed, you can follow the steps below to get the application up and running.
To run the application, simply run the respective Docker command:
docker-compose -p NAME up where NAME is the name you want to give to the project containers.
When you run the application for the first time, before you can access the application proper, you will need to wait for the deployment of the smart contract on the blockchain. This process can take up to a few minutes to complete.
⚠️ NOTE: Sometimes the smart contract is deployed twice on two separate adresses. This is harmless, as one of the two contracts will never get used by the application.
After the contract setup is complete, you should be able to access the application landing page on http://localhost:1337.
⚠️ NOTE: It is recommended to use Firefox as the preferred browser to access the application. This is due to some quirks with the request handling on Safari and Chromium-based browsers. Aside from that, all other features still work perfectly fine on the aforementioned browsers.
When the server has finished the deploy process and is ready to go, you need to setup the database.
To run database migrations, you need to access the terminal in the web container:
docker-compose -p NAME exec web bash Once you've accessed the container terminal, you can proceed to run the commands.
First, you need to create the migration files using manage.py:
python manage.py makemigrationsTo effectively run the migrations:
python manage.py migrateIt is recommended to seed the database to setup the appropriate role permissions. Seeding also sets up a few default users to test the application with.
python manage.py populate_dbAlternatively, you can run the above commands directly without accessing the container shell
by usingdocker-compose exec web <command>.
If you encounter any problems while running the application, you can follow the steps below to troubleshoot it.
In order to test out the server, you might want to create a Django super user to better debug the application.
To do so, access the web shell like in the above section and run the following command:
python manage.py createsuperuserThe user's parameters can be inserted as optional parameters while running the command, otherwise the program will ask for them gradually. The parameters are as follows:
--email: the superuser's email. Used for login.--nome: the superuser's name.--cognome: the superuser's surname.--sesso: the superuser's sex. Can be0(male) or1(female).--data-nascita: the superuser's birthdate. Follows theYYYY-MM-MMformat.--luogo-nascita: the superuser's birthplace.--indirizzo-residenza: the superuser's home address.
Once prompted to choose a password, you can choose not to follow the standard requirements.
You can run tests for the application by entering the following command in the web container:
python manage.py test MODULE_NAMEwhere MODULE_NAME is the name of the Django module (folder) you want to test.
⚠️ NOTE: Running the tests renders the application unstable and is sure to cause unintended behaviour regarding mismatched primary keys and file integrity, due to how Django handles the database during testing. You should ALWAYS restart the blockchain after running the tests.
To access the Hyperledger Besu node explorer, you can use the following URL:
http://localhost:25000
If you want to check the status of the blocks, transactions and deployed contracts, Explorer has an appropriate section, available at the following URL:
http://localhost:25000/explorer/explorer
Besu and Tessera logs can be found under /besu-network/logs/.
They contain information about the various instances of the blockchain and the signing of the transactions.
This project has been developed as part of the Software Security and Blockchain course, held by Prof. Luca Spalazzi at the Università Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy.
The project has been developed by the following students: