This guide provides step-by-step instructions for setting up the Credential Constructor and Datastore services. You will learn how to make the API accessible from your host for seamless interaction, explore the API using the Swagger UI, and enable tracing with Jaeger. This setup is part of the VC Project, a suite of services designed to manage verifiable credentials.

Prerequisites

Before starting, ensure that you have the following tools installed:

• Docker: Ensure Docker is installed and running on your system.
  
• Docker Compose: If you're using Docker Compose separately, install it. It may already be integrated into Docker.
• Git: Required to clone the repository.
  

What is VC?

VC stands for Verifiable Credential, a set of services that provide functionalities for handling verifiable credentials, including:

• ApiGW (API Gateway): Acts as the frontend for backend services, handling external connections and distributing messages to other VC services. It’s stateless, so it can run across multiple servers or data centers.

• Datastore: An integration point for storing documents (e.g., PDA1, EHIC) with metadata. It aims to be flexible for various use cases.

• Issuer: Issues verifiable credentials based on documents from the Datastore or an authentic source, currently focused on Selective Disclosure JWT (SDJWT).

• Verifier: Verifies credentials issued by the system.

• Persistent: Stores persistent data, such as authentic source documents, in MongoDB.

• Registry: Manages credential registration (still under development).

1. Clone the Repository

To begin, clone the vc_up_and_running repository from GitHub. This contains all the necessary files to set up the VC services.

git clone git@github.com:dc4eu/vc_up_and_running.git

This will create a local copy of the repository on your machine.

2. Navigate to the Base Directory

Once the repository is cloned, navigate to the base directory where all the service configurations are located.

cd vc_up_and_running

Ensure that all subsequent commands are run from this directory.

3. Expose Services to the Host

To interact with the API from your host machine, you need to expose the relevant service ports. We'll create a Docker Compose override file that maps the necessary ports.

Steps to expose the API:

1. Create a docker-compose.override.yaml file in the base directory.

2. Add the following configuration to expose the apigw and Jaeger ports:

version: "3"

services:
  apigw:
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"

  jaeger:
    ports:
      - "16686:16686"

This will expose:

• The apigw service on port 8080.
• The Jaeger tracing UI on port 16686.

4. Start the Docker Containers

With the ports configured, start the Docker containers using the following command:

docker compose up

Docker Compose will start the services, combining both docker-compose.yaml and docker-compose.override.yaml configurations, and apply the port mappings for apigw and Jaeger.

5. Access the Swagger UI for API Exploration

Once the containers are running, you can explore the API using Swagger, which provides an interactive interface for testing the API.

Open your web browser and navigate to:

http://127.0.0.1:8080/swagger/index.html

Here, you can view the available API endpoints, test them, and explore the documentation.

Jaeger Tracing

Jaeger is used to trace the flow of requests across the VC services, enabling you to monitor distributed transactions.

To access the Jaeger tracing UI, open:

http://127.0.0.1:16686

This will allow you to monitor the internal communications between the services in real-time.

Next Steps

• After exploring the Swagger UI, you can interact with the API directly using API clients such as curl or Postman.
• Modify the service configurations as needed for your environment or development purposes.

By following these steps, you'll have the VC up and running services fully set up, with the Datastore API exposed to your host, accessible via Swagger, and Jaeger tracing enabled for real-time monitoring.