sendTransaction returns Invalid JSON RPC response

Question

I am trying to send a transaction to a Besu node that I have running locally. However, from the following code, when I run npx ts-node myFile.ts, I get Error: Invalid JSON RPC response:

const Web3 = require('web3');
let web3 = new Web3(new Web3.providers.HttpProvider('https://localhost:88888'));

const e2f = require("./build/contracts/ERC20Fixed.json");
const e2fBytecode = e2f.bytecode;
const e2fAbi = e2f.abi

const myAcct = web3.eth.accounts.create(web3.utils.randomHex(32));
const myAddr = myAcct.address;
const besuMinerCoinbase = <besuMinerCoinbaseAddress>;

web3.eth.sendTransaction({
    from: besuMinerCoinbase,
    to: myAddr,
    data: e2fBytecode,
}).then('transactionHash', function(transactionHash){
    console.log('Hash: ', transactionHash);
}).then('error', function(e){
    console.log(e);
});

Here is the full error message:

Hash:  Error: Invalid JSON RPC response: ""
    at Object.InvalidResponse (/Users/asdf/node_modules/web3-core-helpers/src/errors.js:45:16)
    at XMLHttpRequest.request.onreadystatechange (/Users/ahan/node_modules/web3-providers-http/src/index.js:107:32)
    at XMLHttpRequestEventTarget.dispatchEvent (/Users/ahan/node_modules/xhr2-cookies/xml-http-request-event-target.ts:44:13)
    at XMLHttpRequest._setReadyState (/Users/ahan/node_modules/xhr2-cookies/xml-http-request.ts:219:8)
    at XMLHttpRequest._onHttpRequestError (/Users/ahan/node_modules/xhr2-cookies/xml-http-request.ts:379:8)
    at ClientRequest.<anonymous> (/Users/ahan/node_modules/xhr2-cookies/xml-http-request.ts:266:37)
    at ClientRequest.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at ClientRequest.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:482:12)
    at TLSSocket.socketErrorListener (_http_client.js:426:9)
    at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:315:20)
    at TLSSocket.EventEmitter.emit (domain.js:482:12)
    at emitErrorNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:92:8)
    at emitErrorAndCloseNT (internal/streams/destroy.js:60:3)
    at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:84:21)

I know that I am pinging is correct b/c when I CURL other endpoints, I get correct responses. Looking at the web3.js docs, I'm not sure what I am missing. How do I successfully send a transaction?

Answer 1

On issue #1158 on their github they say that:

Besu deliberately doesn't support key management inside the client.

In particular they also say that the methods

• web3.eth.personal.newAccount('Password')
• web3.eth.personal.unlockAccount(address, password, duration)
• web3.eth.sendTransaction(from, to, value, gas)

won't be implemented because they require key management.

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As alternative for javascript you can use hdwallet-provider.