Connect to a Local Network

Use a Sui local network to test your dApps against the latest changes to Sui, and to prepare for the next Sui release to the Devnet or Testnet network. To set up a local network, Sui provides the sui-test-validator binary. The sui-test-validator starts a local network that includes a Sui Full node, a Sui validator, and a Sui faucet. You can use the included faucet to get test SUI to use on the local network.

If you haven't already, you need to install Sui on your system.

Start the local network

To start the local network, run the following command from your sui root folder.

RUST_LOG="consensus=off" cargo run --bin sui-test-validator

The command starts the sui-test-validator. The RUST_LOG=consensus=off turns off consensus for the local network.

Important: Each time you start the sui-test-validator, the network starts as a new network with no previous data. The local network is not persistent.

To customize your local Sui network, such as changing the port used, include additional parameters in the command to start sui-test-validator:

OPTIONS:
        --epoch-duration-ms <EPOCH_DURATION_MS>
            The duration for epochs (defaults to one minute) [default: 60000]

        --faucet-port <FAUCET_PORT>
            Port to start the Sui faucet on [default: 9123]

        --fullnode-rpc-port <FULLNODE_RPC_PORT>
            Port to start the Fullnode RPC server on [default: 9000]

Use sui-validator-test --help to see these options in your console.

Access your local Full node

Use the following command to retrieve the total transaction count from your local network:

curl --location --request POST 'http://127.0.0.1:9000' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
  "id": 1,
  "method": "sui_getTotalTransactionBlocks",
  "params": []
}'

If successful, the response resembles the following:

{
    "jsonrpc": "2.0",
    "result": 168,
    "id": 1
}

Connect the Sui Client CLI to your local network

You can use the Sui Client CLI with any Sui network. By default it connects to Sui Devnet. To connect to your local network, create a new environment alias named local that sets the RPC URL the client uses to your local network.

sui client new-env --alias local --rpc http://127.0.0.1:9000

Next, use the following command to set the active environment to the new local environment you created.

sui client switch --env local

The command returns:

Active environment switched to [local]

You can check the current active environment with the following command:

sui client active-env

The command returns:

local

Show the current active address

The Sui Client CLI uses the active address for command if you don't specify one. Use the following command to show the active address on your local network.

sui client active-address

The command returns an address:

0xbc33e6e4818f9f2ef77d020b35c24be738213e64d9e58839ee7b4222029610de

Use the active address to get test SUI to use on your local network. Use the sui client addresses command to see all of the addresses on your local network.

Note: The address returned when you run the command is unique and does not match the one used in this example.

Use the local faucet

Transactions on your local network require SUI coins to pay for gas fees just like other networks. To send coins to a Sui Wallet connected to your local network, see Set up a local Sui Wallet. You can use the address for the local Sui Wallet with the faucet.

Use the following cURL command to get test coins from the local faucet.

curl --location --request POST 'http://127.0.0.1:9123/gas' \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{
    "FixedAmountRequest": {
        "recipient": "0xbc33e6e4818f9f2ef77d020b35c24be738213e64d9e58839ee7b4222029610de"
    }
}'

If successful, the response resembles the following:

{
    "transferredGasObjects": [
        {
            "amount": 200000000,
            "id": "0x192ce62506ed8705b76e8423be1f6e011064a3f887ba924605f27a8c83c8c970",
            "transferTxDigest": "7sp4fFPH2WaUgvN43kjDzCpEhKfifqjx5RTki74y8T3E"
        },
        {
            "amount": 200000000,
            "id": "0x31d003ade00675d1ab82b225bfcceaa60bb993f5d90e9d0aa88f81dc24ec14d6",
            "transferTxDigest": "7sp4fFPH2WaUgvN43kjDzCpEhKfifqjx5RTki74y8T3E"
        },
        {
            "amount": 200000000,
            "id": "0x98cbdc93ae672110f91bc0c39c0c87bc66f36984c79218bb2c0bac967260970c",
            "transferTxDigest": "7sp4fFPH2WaUgvN43kjDzCpEhKfifqjx5RTki74y8T3E"
        },
        {
            "amount": 200000000,
            "id": "0xba66aee6289cc6d0203c451bea442ad30d4cfe699e50b36fed0ff3e99ba51529",
            "transferTxDigest": "7sp4fFPH2WaUgvN43kjDzCpEhKfifqjx5RTki74y8T3E"
        },
        {
            "amount": 200000000,
            "id": "0xd9f0b521443d66227eddc2aac2e16f667ca9caeef9f1b7afb4a6c2fc7dcb58d8",
            "transferTxDigest": "7sp4fFPH2WaUgvN43kjDzCpEhKfifqjx5RTki74y8T3E"
        }
    ],
    "error": null
}

Check the gas coin objects for the active address

After you get coins from the faucet, use the following command to view the coin objects for the address:

sui client gas

The response resembles the following, but with different IDs:

                             Object ID                              |  Gas Value
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 0x1d790713c1c3441a307782597c088f11230c47e609af2cec97f393123ea4de45 |  200000000
 0x20c1d5ad2e8693953fca09fd2fec0fbc52a787e0a0f77725220d36a09a5b312d |  200000000
 0x236714566110f5624516faa0da215ad29f8daa611e8b651d1e972168207567b2 |  200000000
 0xc81f30256bb04ad84bc4a92017cffd7c1f98286e028fa504d8515ad72ddd1088 |  200000000
 0xf61c8b21b305cc8e062b3a37de8c3a37583e17f437a449a2ab42321d019aeeb4 |  200000000

Install Sui Wallet and Sui Explorer locally

To install and use the apps locally, you must first install pnpm. Use the instructions appropriate for your operating system.

After you install pnpm, use the following command to install the required dependencies in your workspace:

pnpm install

After the installation completes, run the following command to install Sui Wallet and Sui Explorer:

pnpm turbo build

If you encounter an error from turbo build, confirm that there is no package-lock.json. If the file exists, remove it and then run the command again.

Set up Sui Explorer on your local network

To connect the live Sui Explorer to your local network, open the URL:https://suiexplorer.com/?network=local. The live version of Sui Explorer may not include recent updates added to the main branch of the Sui repo. To use Sui Explorer that includes the most recent updates, install and run Sui Explorer from your local clone of the Sui repo.

Run the following command from the sui root folder:

Note: To run the command you have pnpm installed. See Install Sui Wallet and Sui Explorer locally for details.

pnpm explorer dev

After the command completes, open your local Sui Explorer at the following URL: http://localhost:3000/.

For more details about Sui Explorer, see the Explorer README.

Set up a local Sui Wallet

You can also use a local Sui Wallet to test with your local network. You can then see transactions executed from your local Sui Wallet on your local Sui Explorer.

Note: To run the command you must have pnpm installed. See Install Sui Wallet and Sui Explorer locally for details.

Before you start the Sui Wallet app, update its default environment to point to your local network. To do so, first make a copy of sui/apps/wallet/configs/environment/.env.defaults and rename it to .env in the same directory. In your .env file, edit the first line to read API_ENV=local and then save the file.

Run the following command from the sui root folder to start Sui Wallet on your local network:

pnpm wallet start

Add local Sui Wallet to Chrome

After you build your local version of Sui Wallet, you can add the extension to Chrome:

Open a Chrome browser to chrome://extensions.
Click the Developer mode toggle to enable, if it's not already on.
Click the Load unpacked button and select your sui/apps/wallet/dist directory.

Consult the Sui Wallet Readme for more information on working with a locally built wallet on Chrome.

Generate example data

Use the TypeScript SDK to add example data to your network.

Note: To run the command you must complete the Pre-requisites for Building Apps locally section first.

Run the following command from the sui root folder:

pnpm sdk test:e2e

For additional information about example data for testing, see https://github.com/MystenLabs/sui/tree/main/sdk/typescript#testing.

Troubleshooting

If you do not use Node.js 18, you might see the following message:

Retrying requesting from faucet: Retry failed: fetch is not defined

To resolve this, switch or update to Node.js 18 and then try again.

Test with the Sui TypeScript SDK

The published version of the Sui TypeScript SDK might be an earlier version than the version of Sui you installed for your local network. To make sure you're using the latest version of the SDK, use the experimental-tagged version (for example, 0.0.0-experimental-20230317184920) in the Current Tags section of the Sui NPM registry.

Start the local network​

Access your local Full node​

Connect the Sui Client CLI to your local network​

Show the current active address​

Use the local faucet​

Check the gas coin objects for the active address​

Install Sui Wallet and Sui Explorer locally​

Set up Sui Explorer on your local network​

Set up a local Sui Wallet​

Add local Sui Wallet to Chrome​

Generate example data​

Troubleshooting​

Test with the Sui TypeScript SDK​