[WIP] Installation doc improvement suggestions / beginner perspective experience description

[holgerd77]

Hi, this is Holger from ethereumjs, I am just doing my first Hive experience
to prepare for maybe help with the ethereumjs-vm issue here: #93

I will write up stuff I stumbled over during installation here, maybe you can
use this to improve docs a bit.

Doing this with the following pre-requisits:

• Little to no Go experience
• Good ethereum/tests insight, practical testing experience
• CI experience

Environment:

• MacBook Air, High Sierra 10.13.1
• Docker version 17.03.0-ce, build 60ccb22
• go version go1.10 darwin/amd64

Note: will live-update 🎥 this during the next two hours and then remove the WIP label in the title. If you read-up to the last line and have a suggestion during this, feel free to drop a note! 😄

---

Stumbled over following things:

Installation

1. Didn't know what to make with the "Note" addition from the install section https://github.com/karalabe/hive#installing-the-hive-validator and how it plays together with the go get install command from above. Do I have to run the command AND install from Git? Does the command installs somewhere and I have to go there?

2. Ended up using the command (producing absolutely no output, which irritated me a bit) AND doing a git clone.

Validation

2. Then I went into the repo and tried the hive command. Failed with "Command not found". Investigating. A note here would be nice.

3. Tried with go hive.go ... (first guess :-)), didn't work either.

4. Figured out 3), had a look at my GOPATH with go env and found the bin/hive script.

5. Tried again, run into:

CRIT[03-12|14:01:47] failed to retrieve docker version        error="cannot connect to Docker endpoint"

A note that docker has to be up-and-running and in which version would be helpful.

6. Running again, getting...

INFO[03-12|13:09:42] building new docker image                client=go-ethereum:master nocache=false
EROR[03-12|13:09:57] failed to build docker image             client=go-ethereum:master error="error creating aufs mount to /var/lib/docker/aufs/mnt/2c62f45e9b58ecaad23ab6cf7128ad8f6eb7786574732f62a4bb4fb66102b625-init: function not implemented"
CRIT[03-12|13:09:57] failed to retrieve client versions       error="clients/go-ethereum:master: error creating aufs mount to /var/lib/docker/aufs/mnt/2c62f45e9b58ecaad23ab6cf7128ad8f6eb7786574732f62a4bb4fb66102b625-init: function not implemented"

7. Running again, testing another client ethereumj:develop, getting:

INFO[03-12|13:14:27] building new docker image                client=ethereumj:develop nocache=false
EROR[03-12|13:16:16] failed to build docker image             client=ethereumj:develop error="failed to register layer: Error processing tar file(exit status 1): link /usr/share/terminfo/L/LFT-PC850 /usr/share/terminfo/l/lft-pc850: no such file or directory"
CRIT[03-12|13:16:16] failed to retrieve client versions       error="clients/ethereumj:develop: failed to register layer: Error processing tar file(exit status 1): link /usr/share/terminfo/L/LFT-PC850 /usr/share/terminfo/l/lft-pc850: no such file or directory"

8. Running go-ethereum:stable produced the same error as in 6).

9. Updated docker to Docker version 17.12.0-ce, build c97c6d6, still failing.

10. Tried this mac specific fix, not working.

11. Tried this generic fix, at least a new error:

INFO[03-12|13:59:42] building new docker image                client=go-ethereum:master nocache=false
EROR[03-12|13:59:42] failed to build docker image             client=go-ethereum:master error="open /var/lib/docker/aufs/layers/c0a2d5e1b904067dd4c3ea2f052c2ea3bffd58ef5a6b6a9940f8d6ad471bf72d: no such file or directory"
CRIT[03-12|13:59:42] failed to retrieve client versions       error="clients/go-ethereum:master: open /var/lib/docker/aufs/layers/c0a2d5e1b904067dd4c3ea2f052c2ea3bffd58ef5a6b6a9940f8d6ad471bf72d: no such file or directory"

3h. Will give up for now. Any suggestions welcome!

[cdetrio]

Try running with --loglevel 6 to get more log output.

[jwasinger]

@holgerd77 this worked for me: hive --client='go-ethereum:master' --sim=ethereum/consensus --test=NONE

[holgerd77]

@jwasinger Thanks for letting me know. Not sure when I can re-take on this one though.