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Bitcoin node block explorer

Simple and pure block explorer you can run on top of a full node.

This block explorer patches into your Bitcoin Core node's JSON-RPC interface to retrieve transaction and block information.

It runs as a simple web application you can run on any J2EE Web Container (Jetty, Tomcat, etc.), point it toward your node and you're good to go. (Note: it also supports running on top of Blockr's API and maybe some others later on)

This block explorer remains pure to the blockchain, this means it is not dependent on any source of data other than the blockchain. Bitcoin amount values will not be displayed in fiat, transaction or block receive times do not exist.

Features

Block viewer

Displays all available block information. Includes an interactive hex viewer which displays the meaning of every last byte in the headers, aswell as the coinbase transaction.

Transaction viewer

Displays all available transaction information. Like in the block viewer, displays the meaning of every single byte in a raw transaction through an interactive hex viewer.

Universal search

Input anything, transaction ID, block height, block hash, raw blocks, raw transactions, and this explorer will figure out what you mean and display what's appropriate.

Mining simulator

Constructs a raw block which, if valid, would be accepted by the whole of the network. Visualizes what happens when you're mining, increases the nonce/extranonce, updates the timestamp and computes the block hash. Allows you to control the whole thing.

A sneak-preview client-only version of this is available at http://jornc.github.io/bitcoin-transaction-explorer/

This preview also includes the block and transaction hex viewers with contextual information for each field.

Script viewer

Visualizes bitcoin script interpretation in a step-by-step basis.

Raw transaction interpreter

Insert any raw transaction and this explorer will display em like it would any other transaction.

Raw block interpreter

Insert any raw block and --- see above.

Raw script interpreter

See above.

Direct JSON-RPC interface (Optional, and under construction)

If this explorer is run on top of a node (rather than an external API), then a direct JSON-RPC interface to the node may be spoken to. Just insert any command you're used to (getblock, getrawtransaction, getbestblockhash, etc.), and the explorer will display the response, and show some extra information of the stuff it understands (transaction/block ids or their serialized form, script, and many other bitcoin-specific and unspecific fields).

Address balances

If this explorer is run on top of a node that has an address index such as this one: https://github.com/btcdrak/bitcoin/tree/addrindex-0.11 then this explorer will be able to look up the balance of an address and show every output associated with it.

How to run it

This project is currently hosted on top of the following 2 nodes:

http://srv1.yogh.io

http://srv2.yogh.io

The former will closely follow the master branch, and will likely not always be as stable / contain bugs, but contain the latest changes.

The latter remains conservative and lags at stable releases.

You can run it yourself (encouraged! let me know!) if you have a fully built .war file of this project (see below), simply deploying it into any J2EE web container will suffice.

If you don't have a full node you can connect to Blockr (which is default if unconfigured), if you do the node needs to be fully indexed (txindex=1) and act as a JSON-RPC server (server=1).

How to build it

Configuration

Implementation

The web application is a GWT (Google Web Toolkit) project that's patched into, essentially, a JSON-RPC proxy for a Bitcoin Core node. The proxy can be configured to reach out to Blockr's API (and others) if you aren't running a node, although it's always nice to use your own node instead.

The proxy will only request the node's getblock, getblockhash, getbestblockhash and getrawtransaction methods. It constructs (if needed) and forwards raw transaction and block data which will be interpreted locally on the client (in the browser).

It'll run in any J2EE web container when built as a .war file.