Phala Blockchain

Phala Network is a blockchain-based confidential computing cloud. This repo includes:

• node/: the main blockchain built on Substrate
• standalone/pherry/: the message relayer to connect the blockchain and pRuntime
• standalone/pruntime/: the contract execution kernel running inside TEE enclave

Overview

The blockchain is the central component of the system. It records commands (confidential contract invocation), serves as the pRuntime registry, runs the native token and on-chain governance modules.

pherry is the message relayer. It connects the blockchain and pRuntime. It passes the block data from the chain to pRuntime and passes pRuntime side effects back to the chain. A multi-client version of the runtime bridge is being developed here and now in alpha version.

pRuntime (Phala Network Secure Enclave Runtime) is a runtime to execute confidential smart contracts, based on confidential computing.

Native Build

Dependencies

Expand

• Rust

  curl https://sh.rustup.rs -sSf | sh

• Substrate dependencies:

  git submodule update --init
  sh ./scripts/init.sh

• LLVM 10

  wget https://apt.llvm.org/llvm.sh
  chmod +x llvm.sh
  ./llvm.sh 10

Build the blockchain and bridge

Make sure you have Rust and LLVM-10 installed.

Note for Mac users: you also need llvm and binutils from Homebrew or MacPort, and to add their binaries to your $PATH

cargo build --release

The build script enforces LLVM-10 or newer is used. LLVM-10 is needed because of the wasm port of rust crypto library, ring. We have to compile the C code into wasm while keeping the compatibility with the current rustc.

Run

1. Launch a dev node:

   ./target/release/phala-node --dev

   • Can be purged by ./target/release/phala-node purge-chain <args like --dev>
   • The Polkadot.js UI can connect to the node at port 9944.

2. Compile & launch pRuntime

   Read docs/sgx.md, Install SDK section, to determine how to install the Intel SGX PSW & SDK. If not using Docker, you may need the following final steps:

   sudo mkdir /opt/intel
   sudo ln -s /opt/sgxsdk /opt/intel/sgxsdk
   sudo pip install meson ninja

   Run make (SGX_MODE=SW make for simulation mode if you don't have the hardware).

   cd standalone/pruntime
   SGX_MODE=SW make

   Apply for Remote Attestation API keys at Intel IAS service. The SPID must be linkable. Then put the hex key in plain text files (spid.txt and key.txt) and put them into bin/.

   Finally, run pRuntime:

   cd bin/
   ./app

3. Run pherry (node and pRuntime required):

   ./target/release/pherry --dev

4. Web UI (TODO: still being refactored)

Sub-pages

• RPC: RPC documentations
• Test: How to test the components

External Resources

• phala-wiki: The technical documentation.
• phala-docker: The production dockerfiles, including the blockchain, pherry, and pRuntime.
• Code Bounty Program
• Responsible Disclosure