IBC Relaying with Go Relayer

Learn how to run the Go relayer to create a transfer channel between any Cosmos chain and Secret Network.

Overview

The Go relayer is a relayer implementation written in Golang. It can create clients, connections, and channels, as well as relay packets and update and upgrade clients.

In order to use Secret Network's IBC Developer Toolkit, you need an IBC transfer channel established between Secret Network and your Cosmos chain.

In this section, you will learn:

• How to get started with the Go relayer.

• Basic Go relayer commands.

• How to create a transfer channel between Secret Network testnet and Neutron testnet.

Let's get started! 🚀

Installing Go Relayer

Clone the Go relayer repository:

git clone https://github.com/cosmos/relayer.git

Install Go:

brew install go

Set Go path:

export GOPATH=$HOME/go
export PATH=$PATH:$GOPATH/bin

Build the Go relayer:

cd relayer
make install

If you run into any errors during installation, you can install without make like so:

export GOBIN=$HOME/go/bin
mkdir -p $GOBIN

go clean -cache

go build -ldflags "-X github.com/cosmos/relayer/v2/cmd.Version=$(git describe --tags | sed 's/^v//') \
-X github.com/cosmos/relayer/v2/cmd.Commit=$(git log -1 --format='%H') \
-X github.com/cosmos/relayer/v2/cmd.Dirty=$(git status --porcelain | wc -l | xargs)" \
-o $GOBIN/rly main.go

To check that the installation was successful, run:

rly version

Which returns:

version: 2.6.0-rc.1
commit: 3b9ec008999973469aeab4bbdbcb44ff4886b8b8
cosmos-sdk: v0.50.5
go: go1.23.4 darwin/arm64

Configuring Go Relayer

The configuration data is added to the config file, stored at $HOME/.relayer/config/config.yaml by default.

If this is the first time you run the relayer, first initialize the config with the following command:

rly config init

And check the config with:

rly config show

Now you are all set to add the chains and paths you want to relay on, add your keys and start relaying. You will set up two testnet chains: Neutron's pion-1 and Secret Network's pulsar-3.

Add chain configs

The rly chains add command fetches chain metadata from the chain registry and adds it to your config file:

rly chains add testnets/secretnetworktestnet
rly chains add testnets/neutrontestnet

rly chains add will check the liveliness of the available RPC endpoints for that chain in the chain registry. The command may fail if none of these RPC endpoints are available. In this case, you will want to manually add the chain config.

Create wallet keys

Create new keys for the relayer to use when signing and relaying transactions:

rly keys add secretnetworktestnet secret-test #this is the name of your key
rly keys add neutrontestnet neutron-test #this is the name of your key

Query your key balances:

rly query balance secretnetworktestnet secret-test
rly query balance neutrontestnet neutron-test

You can fund your Secret Network testnet wallet here and your Neutron testnet wallet here 🎉

Then, edit the relayer's key values in the config file to match the key-names chosen above.

The configuration data is added to the config file, stored at $HOME/.relayer/config/config.yaml:

You can unveil hidden folders on mac (ie ./relayer) with keyboard shortcut : Command + Shift + .

chains:
    neutrontestnet:
        type: cosmos
        value:
            key-directory: /Users/yourname/.relayer/keys/pion-1
            key: neutron-test
            chain-id: pion-1
            rpc-addr: https://rpc-lb-pion.ntrn.tech:443
            
     secretnetworktestnet:
        type: cosmos
        value:
            key-directory: /Users/yourname/.relayer/keys/pulsar-3
            key: secret-test
            chain-id: pulsar-3
            rpc-addr: https://pulsar.rpc.secretnodes.com:443

Configure path metadata in the config file

You configured the chain metadata, now you need path metadata.

Update your config file like so to use a configuration path that has been tested in production:

global:
    debug-listen-addr: 127.0.0.1:5183
    metrics-listen-addr: 127.0.0.1:5184
    timeout: 10s
    memo: ""
    light-cache-size: 20
    log-level: info
    ics20-memo-limit: 0
    max-receiver-size: 150
chains:
    neutrontestnet:
        type: cosmos
        value:
            key-directory: /Users/<your-user-name>/.relayer/keys/pion-1
            key: neutron-test
            chain-id: pion-1
            rpc-addr: https://rpc-lb-pion.ntrn.tech:443
            backup-rpc-addrs: []
            account-prefix: neutron
            keyring-backend: test
            dynamic-gas-price: true
            gas-adjustment: 2
            gas-prices: 0.043untrn
            min-gas-amount: 400000
            max-gas-amount: 500000
            debug: false
            timeout: 20s
            block-timeout: ""
            output-format: json
            sign-mode: direct
            extra-codecs: []
            coin-type: 118
            signing-algorithm: ""
            broadcast-mode: batch
            min-loop-duration: 0s
            extension-options: []
            feegrants: null
    secretnetworktestnet:
        type: cosmos
        value:
            key-directory: /Users/<your-user-name>/.relayer/keys/pulsar-3
            key: secret-test
            chain-id: pulsar-3
            rpc-addr: https://pulsar.rpc.secretnodes.com:443
            backup-rpc-addrs:
                - https://pulsar.rpc.secretnodes.com:443
            account-prefix: secret
            keyring-backend: test
            dynamic-gas-price: false
            gas-adjustment: 1.2
            gas-prices: 0.1uscrt
            min-gas-amount: 400000
            max-gas-amount: 500000
            debug: false
            timeout: 20s
            block-timeout: ""
            output-format: json
            sign-mode: direct
            extra-codecs: []
            coin-type: 529
            signing-algorithm: ""
            broadcast-mode: batch
            min-loop-duration: 0s
            extension-options: []
            feegrants: null

Create a relayer path:

rly paths new pulsar-3 pion-1 my-path #this is the name of your path 

Check Configuration Status

Before starting to relay and after making some changes to the config, you can check the status of the chains in the config:

rly chains list

Which returns this output when healthy:

0: pulsar-3          -> type(cosmos) key(✔) bal(✔) path(✔)
1: pion-1            -> type(cosmos) key(✔) bal(✔) path(✔)

And you can check the status of the paths in the config:

rly paths list

0: secretnetworktestnet-nuetrontestnet -> chns(✔) clnts(✔) conn(✔) (pulsar-3<>pion-1)

In case one of the checks receives a ✘ instead of ✔, you will need to check if you completed all the previous steps correctly.

Starting the Relayer

Finally, start the relayer on the desired path. The relayer will periodically update the clients and listen for IBC messages to relay:

rly start my-path 

Congrats! You are now relaying between Secret Network testnet and Neutron testnet! 🎉

2024-12-13T17:40:56.021378Z     info    Chain is in sync        {"chain_name": "neutrontestnet", "chain_id": "pion-1"}
2024-12-13T17:41:01.999823Z     info    Client update threshold condition met   {"path_name": "my_demo_path", "chain_id": "pion-1", "client_id": "07-tendermint-543", "trusting_period": 72000000, "time_since_client_update": 85721551, "client_threshold_time": 0}

Further reading:

• IBC Go Relayer docs
• Cosmos Go Relayer docs
• Creating paths across chains