Edit this page

Getting started as a Consumer

Updated on 30-06-2018

Who is SONM Consumer

Consumer is a SONM's user, which buys and uses the computing resources of other users (Suppliers) through the system. The purpose of the Consumer is to perform a specific task in an optimal way (most quickly, most cheaply, by the price / speed criterion, most reliably, or others). Every Consumer has his own Ethereum account, that is his unique identifier for:

  • deals in SONM blockchain;
  • profile certificates, deal statistics, contact information, etc;
  • personal blacklist of SONM users (common for all supplier's workers) to not have deals with specified addresses.

Consumer should have SNM tokens in SONM blockchain to rent computational resources.

Please NOTICE

We use special Gate smart contracts and Gatekeeper masternodes to validate transactions for deposit SNM tokens to SONM blockchain and withdraw them to main Ethereum network. Transactions are not rapid, there are delays for:

  • validate transaction (include transaction to the block) - this depends on current workload of the main Ethereum network and transaction settings you set ("gas limit" and "gas price");
  • quarantine period for the gate - 15 minutes.

Taking this into account, the normal time to deposit funds in the opposite blockchain is: <the time of mining your transaction + 15 minutes>

Main steps for Consumer

Important! If you have participated in SONM Testnet, you should uninstall previous version of SONM software. If you already running SONM in Livenet and just willing to update your software, pleade DO NOT run uninstall script. You will loose your keystore vault if run this script.

Please UNINSTALL SONM with script:

  • curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sonm-io/autodeploy/master/sonm-uninstall.sh | sudo bash

Install SONM Componnets. We recommend to use auto-installation script.

  • sudo bash -c "$(curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/sonm-io/autodeploy/master/sonm-auto-deploy-consumer.sh)"
  • Open SONM GUI
    • Create new wallet (choose Livenet).
    • Import UTC/JSON keystore with your 'Master address' (see keystore path and passphrase with cat ~/.sonm/cli.yaml).
    • You need to have some amount of Ether on your address to perform transactions in main Ethereum network (to deposit SNM tokens to SONM blockchain).
    • You need to have some amount of SNM tokens in SONM blockchain to rent hardware.

To rent hardware in SONM, you should:

Order and deal prices on SONM marketplace are in USD. Payments are executed in SNM tokens by actual exchange SNM/USD exchange price. When you open a deal, SNM tokens from your address are transfered to the marketplace smart contract.

You may see your deals on Market/Deals page. You may see deal details by click on the deal.

To run the task, you should use SONM CLI.

  • Create task specification (task.yaml)
  • Check your deal ID with sonmcli deal list.
  • Run the task with sonmcli task start <deal_ID> <task.yaml>

You may see task specification examples on our GitHub.

You may run your custom task only if you:

  • renting your own hardware (Buyer ethereum address equals to Supplier ethereum address within a deal).
  • OR whitelist check is disabled in Supplier's worker configuration.
  • OR you have passed KYC certification and have 'Identified' identity level in your profile.

See SONM CLI Guide for additional information about task management.

You may close the deal at any time with sonmcli deal close <deal_ID>, or using the SONM GUI.

Supplier will receive payment for certain deal duration. The rest of SNM tokens freezed on the deal will return to your address.

You may see deal details with sonmcli deal status <deal_ID>.