Daml Sandbox¶

The Daml Sandbox, or Sandbox for short, is a simple ledger implementation that enables rapid application prototyping by simulating a Daml Ledger.

You can start Sandbox together with Navigator using the daml start command in a Daml project. This command will compile the Daml file and its dependencies as specified in the daml.yaml. It will then launch Sandbox passing the just obtained DAR packages. The script specified in the init-script field in daml.yaml will be loaded into the ledger. Finally, it launches the navigator connecting it to the running Sandbox.

It is possible to execute the Sandbox launching step in isolation by typing daml sandbox.

Sandbox can also be run manually as in this example:

$ daml sandbox --dar Main.dar --static-time
Starting Canton sandbox.
Listening at port 6865
Uploading .daml/dist/foobar-0.0.1.dar to localhost:6865
DAR upload succeeded.
Canton sandbox is ready.

Behind the scenes, Sandbox spins up a Canton ledger with an in-memory participant sandbox and an in-memory domain local. You can pass additional Canton configuration files via -c. This option can be specified multiple times and the resulting configuration files will be merged.

$ daml sandbox -c path/to/canton/config

Running with authorization¶

By default, Sandbox accepts all valid ledger API requests without performing any request authorization.

To start Sandbox with authorization using JWT-based access tokens as described in the Authorization documentation, create a config file that specifies the type of authorization service and the path to the certificate.

auth.conf¶

canton.participants.sandbox.ledger-api.auth-services = [{
    // type can be
    //   jwt-rs-256-crt
    //   jwt-es-256-crt
    //   jwt-es-512-crt
    type = jwt-rs-256-crt
    certificate = my-certificate.cert
}]

jwt-rs-256-crt. The sandbox will expect all tokens to be signed with RS256 (RSA Signature with SHA-256) with the public key loaded from the given X.509 certificate file. Both PEM-encoded certificates (text files starting with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----) and DER-encoded certificates (binary files) are supported.
jwt-es-256-crt. The sandbox will expect all tokens to be signed with ES256 (ECDSA using P-256 and SHA-256) with the public key loaded from the given X.509 certificate file. Both PEM-encoded certificates (text files starting with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----) and DER-encoded certificates (binary files) are supported.
jwt-es-512-crt. The sandbox will expect all tokens to be signed with ES512 (ECDSA using P-521 and SHA-512) with the public key loaded from the given X.509 certificate file. Both PEM-encoded certificates (text files starting with -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----) and DER-encoded certificates (binary files) are supported.

Instead of specifying the path to a certificate, you can also a JWKS URL. In that case, the sandbox will expect all tokens to be signed with RS256 (RSA Signature with SHA-256) with the public key loaded from the given JWKS URL.

auth.conf¶

canton.participants.sandbox.ledger-api.auth-services = [{
    type = jwt-rs-256-jwks
    url = "https://path.to/jwks.key"
}]

Warning

For testing purposes only, you can also specify a shared secret. In that case, the sandbox will expect all tokens to be signed with HMAC256 with the given plaintext secret. This is not considered safe for production.

auth.conf¶

canton.participants.sandbox.ledger-api.auth-services = [{
    type = unsafe-jwt-hmac-256
    secret = "not-safe-for-production"
}]

Note

To prevent man-in-the-middle attacks, it is highly recommended to use TLS with server authentication as described in Running with TLS for any request sent to the Ledger API in production.

Generating JSON Web Tokens (JWT)¶

To generate access tokens for testing purposes, use the jwt.io web site.

Generating RSA keys¶

To generate RSA keys for testing purposes, use the following command

openssl req -nodes -new -x509 -keyout sandbox.key -out sandbox.crt

which generates the following files:

sandbox.key: the private key in PEM/DER/PKCS#1 format
sandbox.crt: a self-signed certificate containing the public key, in PEM/DER/X.509 Certificate format

Generating EC keys¶

To generate keys to be used with ES256 for testing purposes, use the following command

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey ec:<(openssl ecparam -name prime256v1) -keyout ecdsa256.key -out ecdsa256.crt

which generates the following files:

ecdsa256.key: the private key in PEM/DER/PKCS#1 format
ecdsa256.crt: a self-signed certificate containing the public key, in PEM/DER/X.509 Certificate format

Similarly, you can use the following command for ES512 keys:

openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 3650 -newkey ec:<(openssl ecparam -name secp521r1) -keyout ecdsa512.key -out ecdsa512.crt

Running with TLS¶

To enable TLS, you need to specify the private key for your server and the certificate chain. This enables TLS for both the Ledger API and the Canton Admin API. When enabling client authentication, you also need to specify client certificates which can be used by Canton’s internal processes. Note that the identity of the application will not be proven by using this method, i.e. the application_id field in the request is not necessarily correlated with the CN (Common Name) in the certificate. Below, you can see an example config. For more details on TLS, refer to Canton’s documentation on TLS.

tls.conf¶

canton.participants.sandbox.ledger-api {
  tls {
    // the certificate to be used by the server
    cert-chain-file = "./tls/participant.crt"
    // private key of the server
    private-key-file = "./tls/participant.pem"
    // trust collection, which means that all client certificates will be verified using the trusted
    // certificates in this store. if omitted, the JVM default trust store is used.
    trust-collection-file = "./tls/root-ca.crt"
    // define whether clients need to authenticate as well (default not)
    client-auth = {
      // none, optional and require are supported
      type = require
      // If clients are required to authenticate as well, we need to provide a client
      // certificate and the key, as Canton has internal processes that need to connect to these
      // APIs. If the server certificate is trusted by the trust-collection, then you can
      // just use the server certificates. Otherwise, you need to create separate ones.
      admin-client {
        cert-chain-file = "./tls/admin-client.crt"
        private-key-file = "./tls/admin-client.pem"
      }
    }
  }
}

Command-line reference¶

To start Sandbox, run: daml sandbox [options] [-c canton.config].

To see all the available options, run daml sandbox --help. Note that this will show you the options of the Sandbox wrapper around Canton. To see options of the underlying Canton runner, use daml sandbox --canton-help.

Metrics¶

Enable and configure reporting¶

You can enable metrics reporting via Prometheus using the following configuration file.

metrics.conf¶

canton.monitoring.metrics.reporters = [{
  type = prometheus
  address = "localhost" // default
  port = 9000 // default
}]

For other options and more details refer to the Canton documentation.

Types of metrics¶

This is a list of type of metrics with all data points recorded for each. Use this as a reference when reading the list of metrics.

Gauge¶

An individual instantaneous measurement.

Counter¶

Number of occurrences of some event.

Meter¶

A meter tracks the number of times a given event occurred. The following data points are kept and reported by any meter.

<metric.qualified.name>.count: number of registered data points overall
<metric.qualified.name>.m1_rate: number of registered data points per minute
<metric.qualified.name>.m5_rate: number of registered data points every 5 minutes
<metric.qualified.name>.m15_rate: number of registered data points every 15 minutes
<metric.qualified.name>.mean_rate: mean number of registered data points

Histogram¶

An histogram records aggregated statistics about collections of events. The exact meaning of the number depends on the metric (e.g. timers are histograms about the time necessary to complete an operation).

<metric.qualified.name>.mean: arithmetic mean
<metric.qualified.name>.stddev: standard deviation
<metric.qualified.name>.p50: median
<metric.qualified.name>.p75: 75th percentile
<metric.qualified.name>.p95: 95th percentile
<metric.qualified.name>.p98: 98th percentile
<metric.qualified.name>.p99: 99th percentile
<metric.qualified.name>.p999: 99.9th percentile
<metric.qualified.name>.min: lowest registered value overall
<metric.qualified.name>.max: highest registered value overall

Histograms only keep a small reservoir of statistically relevant data points to ensure that metrics collection can be reasonably accurate without being too taxing resource-wise.

Unless mentioned otherwise all histograms (including timers, mentioned below) use exponentially decaying reservoirs (i.e. the data is roughly relevant for the last five minutes of recording) to ensure that recent and possibly operationally relevant changes are visible through the metrics reporter.

Note that min and max values are not affected by the reservoir sampling policy.

You can read more about reservoir sampling and possible associated policies in the Dropwizard Metrics library documentation.

Timers¶

A timer records all metrics registered by a meter and by an histogram, where the histogram records the time necessary to execute a given operation (unless otherwise specified, the precision is nanoseconds and the unit of measurement is milliseconds).

Database Metrics¶

A “database metric” is a collection of simpler metrics that keep track of relevant numbers when interacting with a persistent relational store.

These metrics are:

<metric.qualified.name>.wait (timer): time to acquire a connection to the database
<metric.qualified.name>.exec (timer): time to run the query and read the result
<metric.qualified.name>.query (timer): time to run the query
<metric.qualified.name>.commit (timer): time to perform the commit
<metric.qualified.name>.translation (timer): if relevant, time necessary to turn serialized Daml-LF values into in-memory objects

List of metrics¶

The following is a non-exhaustive list of selected metrics that can be particularly important to track. Note that not all the following metrics are available unless you run the sandbox with a PostgreSQL backend.

`daml.commands.deduplicated_commands`¶

A meter. Number of deduplicated commands.

`daml.commands.delayed_submissions`¶

A meter. Number of delayed submissions (submission who have been evaluated to transaction with a ledger time farther in the future than the expected latency).

`daml.commands.failed_command_interpretation`¶

A meter. Number of commands that have been deemed unacceptable by the interpreter and thus rejected (e.g. double spends)

`daml.commands.submissions`¶

A timer. Time to fully process a submission (validation, deduplication and interpretation) before it’s handed over to the ledger to be finalized (either committed or rejected).

`daml.commands.valid_submissions`¶

A meter. Number of submission that pass validation and are further sent to deduplication and interpretation.

`daml.commands.validation`¶

A timer. Time to validate submitted commands before they are fed to the Daml interpreter.

`daml.commands.input_buffer_capacity`¶

A counter. The capacity of the queue accepting submissions on the CommandService.

`daml.commands.input_buffer_length`¶

A counter. The number of currently pending submissions on the CommandService.

`daml.commands.input_buffer_delay`¶

A timer. Measures the queuing delay for pending submissions on the CommandService.

`daml.commands.max_in_flight_capacity`¶

A counter. The capacity of the queue tracking completions on the CommandService.

`daml.commands.max_in_flight_length`¶

A counter. The number of currently pending completions on the CommandService.

`daml.execution.get_lf_package`¶

A timer. Time spent by the engine fetching the packages of compiled Daml code necessary for interpretation.

`daml.execution.lookup_active_contract_count_per_execution`¶

A histogram. Number of active contracts fetched for each processed transaction.

`daml.execution.lookup_active_contract_per_execution`¶

A timer. Time to fetch all active contracts necessary to process each transaction.

`daml.execution.lookup_active_contract`¶

A timer. Time to fetch each individual active contract during interpretation.

`daml.execution.lookup_contract_key_count_per_execution`¶

A histogram. Number of contract keys looked up for each processed transaction.

`daml.execution.lookup_contract_key_per_execution`¶

A timer. Time to lookup all contract keys necessary to process each transaction.

`daml.execution.lookup_contract_key`¶

A timer. Time to lookup each individual contract key during interpretation.

`daml.execution.retry`¶

A meter. Overall number of interpretation retries attempted due to mismatching ledger effective time.

`daml.execution.total`¶

A timer. Time spent interpreting a valid command into a transaction ready to be submitted to the ledger for finalization.

`daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool`¶

This namespace holds a number of interesting metrics about the connection pool used to communicate with the persistent store that underlies the index.

These metrics include:

daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool.Wait (timer): time spent waiting to acquire a connection
daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool.Usage (histogram): time spent using each acquired connection
daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool.TotalConnections (gauge): number or total connections
daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool.IdleConnections (gauge): number of idle connections
daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool.ActiveConnections (gauge): number of active connections
daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool.PendingConnections (gauge): number of threads waiting for a connection

`daml.index.db.deduplicate_command`¶

A timer. Time spent persisting deduplication information to ensure the continued working of the deduplication mechanism across restarts.

`daml.index.db.get_active_contracts`¶

A database metric. Time spent retrieving a page of active contracts to be served from the active contract service. The page size is configurable, please look at the CLI reference.

`daml.index.db.get_completions`¶

A database metric. Time spent retrieving a page of command completions to be served from the command completion service. The page size is configurable, please look at the CLI reference.

`daml.index.db.get_flat_transactions`¶

A database metric. Time spent retrieving a page of flat transactions to be streamed from the transaction service. The page size is configurable, please look at the CLI reference.

`daml.index.db.get_ledger_end`¶

A database metric. Time spent retrieving the current ledger end. The count for this metric is expected to be very high and always increasing as the indexed is queried for the latest updates.

`daml.index.db.get_ledger_id`¶

A database metric. Time spent retrieving the ledger identifier.

`daml.index.db.get_transaction_trees`¶

A database metric. Time spent retrieving a page of flat transactions to be streamed from the transaction service. The page size is configurable, please look at the CLI reference.

`daml.index.db.load_all_parties`¶

A database metric. Load the currently allocated parties so that they are served via the party management service.

`daml.index.db.load_archive`¶

A database metric. Time spent loading a package of compiled Daml code so that it’s given to the Daml interpreter when needed.

`daml.index.db.load_configuration_entries`¶

A database metric. Time to load the current entries in the log of configuration entries. Used to verify whether a configuration has been ultimately set.

`daml.index.db.load_package_entries`¶

A database metric. Time to load the current entries in the log of package uploads. Used to verify whether a package has been ultimately uploaded.

`daml.index.db.load_packages`¶

A database metric. Load the currently uploaded packages so that they are served via the package management service.

`daml.index.db.load_parties`¶

A database metric. Load the currently allocated parties so that they are served via the party service.

`daml.index.db.load_party_entries`¶

A database metric. Time to load the current entries in the log of party allocations. Used to verify whether a party has been ultimately allocated.

`daml.index.db.lookup_active_contract`¶

A database metric. Time to fetch one contract on the index to be used by the Daml interpreter to evaluate a command into a transaction.

`daml.index.db.lookup_configuration`¶

A database metric. Time to fetch the configuration so that it’s served via the configuration management service.

`daml.index.db.lookup_contract_by_key`¶

A database metric. Time to lookup one contract key on the index to be used by the Daml interpreter to evaluate a command into a transaction.

`daml.index.db.lookup_flat_transaction_by_id`¶

A database metric. Time to lookup a single flat transaction by identifier to be served by the transaction service.

`daml.index.db.lookup_maximum_ledger_time`¶

A database metric. Time spent looking up the ledger effective time of a transaction as the maximum ledger time of all active contracts involved to ensure causal monotonicity.

`daml.index.db.lookup_transaction_tree_by_id`¶

A database metric. Time to lookup a single transaction tree by identifier to be served by the transaction service.

`daml.index.db.remove_expired_deduplication_data`¶

A database metric. Time spent removing deduplication information after the expiration of the deduplication window. Deduplication information is persisted to ensure the continued working of the deduplication mechanism across restarts.

`daml.index.db.stop_deduplicating_command`¶

A database metric. Time spent removing deduplication information after the failure of a command. Deduplication information is persisted to ensure the continued working of the deduplication mechanism across restarts.

`daml.index.db.store_configuration_entry`¶

A database metric. Time spent persisting a change in the ledger configuration provided through the configuration management service.

`daml.index.db.store_ledger_entry`¶

A database metric. Time spent persisting a transaction that has been successfully interpreted and is final.

`daml.index.db.store_package_entry`¶

A database metric. Time spent storing a Daml package uploaded through the package management service.

`daml.index.db.store_party_entry`¶

A database metric. Time spent storing party information as part of the party allocation endpoint provided by the party management service.

`daml.index.db.store_rejection`¶

A database metric. Time spent persisting the information that a given command has been rejected.

`daml.lapi`¶

Every metrics under this namespace is a timer, one for each service exposed by the Ledger API, in the format:

daml.lapi.service_name.service_endpoint

As in the following example:

daml.lapi.command_service.submit_and_wait

Single call services return the time to serve the request, streaming services measure the time to return the first response.

`jvm`¶

Under the jvm namespace there is a collection of metrics that tracks important measurements about the JVM that the sandbox is running on, including CPU usage, memory consumption and the current state of threads.

Daml Sandbox¶

Running with authorization¶

Generating JSON Web Tokens (JWT)¶

Generating RSA keys¶

Generating EC keys¶

Running with TLS¶

Command-line reference¶

Metrics¶

Enable and configure reporting¶

Types of metrics¶

Gauge¶

Counter¶

Meter¶

Histogram¶

Timers¶

Database Metrics¶

List of metrics¶

daml.commands.deduplicated_commands¶

daml.commands.delayed_submissions¶

daml.commands.failed_command_interpretation¶

daml.commands.submissions¶

daml.commands.valid_submissions¶

daml.commands.validation¶

daml.commands.input_buffer_capacity¶

daml.commands.input_buffer_length¶

daml.commands.input_buffer_delay¶

daml.commands.max_in_flight_capacity¶

daml.commands.max_in_flight_length¶

daml.execution.get_lf_package¶

daml.execution.lookup_active_contract_count_per_execution¶

daml.execution.lookup_active_contract_per_execution¶

daml.execution.lookup_active_contract¶

daml.execution.lookup_contract_key_count_per_execution¶

daml.execution.lookup_contract_key_per_execution¶

daml.execution.lookup_contract_key¶

daml.execution.retry¶

daml.execution.total¶

daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool¶

daml.index.db.deduplicate_command¶

daml.index.db.get_active_contracts¶

daml.index.db.get_completions¶

daml.index.db.get_flat_transactions¶

daml.index.db.get_ledger_end¶

daml.index.db.get_ledger_id¶

daml.index.db.get_transaction_trees¶

daml.index.db.load_all_parties¶

daml.index.db.load_archive¶

daml.index.db.load_configuration_entries¶

daml.index.db.load_package_entries¶

daml.index.db.load_packages¶

daml.index.db.load_parties¶

daml.index.db.load_party_entries¶

daml.index.db.lookup_active_contract¶

daml.index.db.lookup_configuration¶

daml.index.db.lookup_contract_by_key¶

daml.index.db.lookup_flat_transaction_by_id¶

daml.index.db.lookup_maximum_ledger_time¶

daml.index.db.lookup_transaction_tree_by_id¶

daml.index.db.remove_expired_deduplication_data¶

daml.index.db.stop_deduplicating_command¶

daml.index.db.store_configuration_entry¶

daml.index.db.store_ledger_entry¶

daml.index.db.store_package_entry¶

daml.index.db.store_party_entry¶

daml.index.db.store_rejection¶

daml.lapi¶

jvm¶

`daml.commands.deduplicated_commands`¶

`daml.commands.delayed_submissions`¶

`daml.commands.failed_command_interpretation`¶

`daml.commands.submissions`¶

`daml.commands.valid_submissions`¶

`daml.commands.validation`¶

`daml.commands.input_buffer_capacity`¶

`daml.commands.input_buffer_length`¶

`daml.commands.input_buffer_delay`¶

`daml.commands.max_in_flight_capacity`¶

`daml.commands.max_in_flight_length`¶

`daml.execution.get_lf_package`¶

`daml.execution.lookup_active_contract_count_per_execution`¶

`daml.execution.lookup_active_contract_per_execution`¶

`daml.execution.lookup_active_contract`¶

`daml.execution.lookup_contract_key_count_per_execution`¶

`daml.execution.lookup_contract_key_per_execution`¶

`daml.execution.lookup_contract_key`¶

`daml.execution.retry`¶

`daml.execution.total`¶

`daml.index.db.connection.sandbox.pool`¶

`daml.index.db.deduplicate_command`¶

`daml.index.db.get_active_contracts`¶

`daml.index.db.get_completions`¶

`daml.index.db.get_flat_transactions`¶

`daml.index.db.get_ledger_end`¶

`daml.index.db.get_ledger_id`¶

`daml.index.db.get_transaction_trees`¶

`daml.index.db.load_all_parties`¶

`daml.index.db.load_archive`¶

`daml.index.db.load_configuration_entries`¶

`daml.index.db.load_package_entries`¶

`daml.index.db.load_packages`¶

`daml.index.db.load_parties`¶

`daml.index.db.load_party_entries`¶

`daml.index.db.lookup_active_contract`¶

`daml.index.db.lookup_configuration`¶

`daml.index.db.lookup_contract_by_key`¶

`daml.index.db.lookup_flat_transaction_by_id`¶

`daml.index.db.lookup_maximum_ledger_time`¶

`daml.index.db.lookup_transaction_tree_by_id`¶

`daml.index.db.remove_expired_deduplication_data`¶

`daml.index.db.stop_deduplicating_command`¶

`daml.index.db.store_configuration_entry`¶

`daml.index.db.store_ledger_entry`¶

`daml.index.db.store_package_entry`¶

`daml.index.db.store_party_entry`¶

`daml.index.db.store_rejection`¶

`daml.lapi`¶

`jvm`¶