Updated 2019-11-13

Privacy

Privacy in Besu refers to the ability to keep transactions private between the involved participants. Other participants cannot access the transaction content or list of participants.

Important

For production systems requiring private transactions, we recommend using a network with a consensus mechanism supporting transaction finality. For example, IBFT 2.0.

Important

Using private transactions with pruning is not supported.

Private Transaction Manager

Besu uses a Private Transaction Manager to implement privacy. For example, Orion.
Each Besu node that sends or receives private transactions requires an associated Orion node.

Private transactions are passed from the Besu node to the associated Orion node. The Orion node encrypts and directly distributes (that is, point to point) the private transaction to Orion nodes participating in the transaction.

Tip

Private Transaction Managers are also known as Enclaves.

Availability

Privacy requires the enclave to be highly available.

All private transaction participants must be online for a private transaction to be successfully distributed. If any participants are offline when the private transaction is submitted, the transaction is not attempted and must be resubmitted.

Caution

If a receiving Orion is available when the private transaction is distributed but is unavailable when the privacy marker transaction is processed, the private transaction is not executed by the receiving Besu node. The private states in the Besu nodes are then inconsistent.