Quorum node address

Question

In the Node class of the Quorum Web3j. The String address what is?

package org.web3j.quorum;

import java.util.List;

/**
 * Quorum node configuration class.
 */
public class Node {

private final String address;
private final List<String> publicKeys;
private final String url;

A particular node has an address? And how can I get that address?

Answer 1

I'm not well-acquainted with web3j.quorum, so possibly a kind spirit will chime in if this is off. If I'm not mistaken, those would be the enode addresses for the nodes.

In Ethereum and Quorom, nodes have an "enode address" which is a unique identifier. Have a look at this:

[
  "enode://ac6b1096ca56b9f6d004b779ae3728bf83f8e22453404cc3cef16a3d9b96608bc67c4b30db88e0a5a6c6390213f7acbe1153ff6d23ce57380104288ae19373ef@127.0.0.1:21000?discport=0&raftport=50401",
  "enode://0ba6b9f606a43a95edc6247cdb1c1e105145817be7bcafd6b2c0ba15d58145f0dc1a194f70ba73cd6f4cdd6864edc7687f311254c7555cc32e4d45aeb1b80416@127.0.0.1:21001?discport=0&raftport=50402",
  "enode://579f786d4e2830bbcc02815a27e8a9bacccc9605df4dc6f20bcc1a6eb391e7225fff7cb83e5b4ecd1f3a94d8b733803f2f66b7e871961e7b029e22c155c3a778@127.0.0.1:21002?discport=0&raftport=50403",
  "enode://3d9ca5956b38557aba991e31cf510d4df641dce9cc26bfeb7de082f0c07abb6ede3a58410c8f249dabeecee4ad3979929ac4c7c496ad20b8cfdd061b7401b4f5@127.0.0.1:21003?discport=0&raftport=50404",
  "enode://3701f007bfa4cb26512d7df18e6bbd202e8484a6e11d387af6e482b525fa25542d46ff9c99db87bd419b980c24a086117a397f6d8f88e74351b41693880ea0cb@127.0.0.1:21004?discport=0&raftport=50405",
  "enode://eacaa74c4b0e7a9e12d2fe5fee6595eda841d6d992c35dbbcc50fcee4aa86dfbbdeff7dc7e72c2305d5a62257f82737a8cffc80474c15c611c037f52db1a3a7b@127.0.0.1:21005?discport=0&raftport=50406",
  "enode://239c1f044a2b03b6c4713109af036b775c5418fe4ca63b04b1ce00124af00ddab7cc088fc46020cdc783b6207efe624551be4c06a994993d8d70f684688fb7cf@127.0.0.1:21006?discport=0&raftport=50407"
]

From the 7 nodes example: https://github.com/jpmorganchase/quorum-examples/blob/master/examples/7nodes/permissioned-nodes.json

You can see that's describing a network topology where the nodes are known by these identifiers. As a side note, the same concept exists in Ethereum. You can see it in network discovery, the bootstrap nodes, admin.addPeer(), and similar topics.

Hope it helps.