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Use Chainlens Blockchain Explorer

Chainlens Blockchain Explorer supports public and private EVM networks. This page describes how to use the free version of Chainlens with its built-in support for privacy-enabled Besu networks created using the Developer Quickstart.

Chainlens provides an overview of the entire network, including block information, contract metadata, transaction searches, and more.

note

You must connect to one of the privacy nodes (for example, member1besu), not the dedicated RPC, to allow access for Besu privacy API methods. In production networks, you must secure access to RPC nodes.

Prerequisites​

Docker and Docker Compose installed.

Start Chainlens​

Clone the Chainlens GitHub repository:

git clone https://github.com/web3labs/chainlens-free

The repository contains a docker-compose directory to allow Chainlens to start with a Developer Quickstart test network. From the docker-compose directory, run the following command:

NODE_ENDPOINT=http://rpcnode:8545 docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f chainlens-extensions/docker-compose-quorum-dev-quickstart.yml up

This command does two things:

  • Sets up the node endpoint
  • Tells Docker to run by using the two Docker Compose files provided

The first docker-compose.yml file in the command contains all the services required for Chainlens.

The second file named docker-compose-quorum-dev-quickstart contains the network settings required to start Chainlens on the same network as the Besu development node.

Next, open http://localhost/ on your browser. You’ll see the new initialization page while it boots up. This may take 5–10 minutes for the all services to start and the ingestion sync to complete.

Chainlens_loading

View on Chainlens​

After starting Chainlens, you can view information about your network.

note

Screenshots in this section are taken from the Chainlens Holesky network.

The Dashboard page provides an aggregated view of network activities.

Chainlens_dashboard

The Network page provides an overview of the network status and connected peers. This page is disabled by default, and is only visible if you set DISPLAY_NETWOR_TAB=enabled using the following command:

NODE_ENDPOINT=http://member1besu:8545 DISPLAY_NETWORK_TAB=enabled docker-compose -f docker-compose.yml -f chainlens-extensions/docker-compose-quorum-dev-quickstart.yml up

The Blocks page shows a real-time view of the finalized blocks.

Chainlens blocks

You can view a given block details by selecting a block hash or number.

Chainlens block details

The Transactions page shows a paginated view of new and historical transactions.

Chainlens transactions

If you select any transaction hash, you can get the transaction details.

Chainlens transaction_details

The Contracts page shows all the smart contracts deployed on the network.

Chainlens contracts

You can view a smart contract details by selecting the contract address.

Chainlens contract details

The Events page shows all the events generated on the network.

Chainlens events

Stop Chainlens​

To stop all the services from running, run the following command:

docker-compose down