hinter-core-data/

Prerequisites

This guide assumes you have completed the Quickstart guide.

While hinter-core runs as a headless background service, it is managed entirely through its file structure. Understanding its directories and configuration files is key to managing your network and troubleshooting issues. All of your data is stored in the hinter-core-data/ directory.

Directory Structure

The hinter-core-data/ directory is the heart of your Hinter Net presence. It is created when you run the initialization script, as described in the Quickstart guide.

hinter-core-data/
├── .env                        # Your private keypair
├── .storage/                   # Automatically generated cache storage directory
├── hinter.config.json          # Global configuration (optional)
└── peers/
    └── {PEER_ALIAS}/           # Directory for a specific peer
        ├── hinter.config.json  # Configuration for this peer
        ├── incoming/           # Reports received from this peer
        └── outgoing/           # Reports to be sent to this peer

• .env: This file contains your unique PUBLIC_KEY and SECRET_KEY. You should back this file up in a secure location.
  • Share the PUBLIC_KEY with others so they can add you as a peer.
  • Never share your SECRET_KEY. It is the private key that controls your identity.
• .storage/: This directory gets generated automatically by hinter-core and acts as a cache storage for network data. It needs to be deleted while moving hinter-core-data/.
• peers/: This directory contains a sub-directory for each peer you add.
• peers/{PEER_ALIAS}/incoming/: Contains reports received from this peer. This directory is managed by hinter-core and should be treated as read-only.
• peers/{PEER_ALIAS}/outgoing/: Place files in this directory to send them to this peer. hinter-core will automatically detect and synchronize them. This is intended to be done using the hinter-cline helper tool.

--data-dir Argument

The quickstart guide had you run hinter-core with no arguments, which requires hinter-core-data/ to be in your home directory.

To customize the path of this directory, you can run hinter-core with the --data-dir argument. For example, if hinter-core-data/ is in your current working directory, you can use the following command.

hinter-core --data-dir "$(pwd)/hinter-core-data"

Similarly, you can use the --data-dir argument while running hinter-core with pm2. Note that the -- indicates where pm2 arguments end and where hinter-core arguments begin.

pm2 start hinter-core --name my-hinter-core -- --data-dir "$(pwd)/hinter-core-data"

The --data-dir value must be an absolute path. hinter-core will reject relative paths such as ./hinter-core-data. This is because hinter-core is expected to be run by pm2 at startup, where the relative path would not resolve correctly.