For the complete documentation index, see llms.txt

Midnight Live View

Midnight Live View is a terminal-based monitoring dashboard for Midnight validator nodes. It displays node health, block production, peer connections, and system resources in real time, refreshing every second.

The project consists of two shell scripts:

• LiveView.sh: a real-time dashboard inspired by CNTool's gLiveView that shows node version, uptime, block data, peer count, and system metrics.
• simple_block_monitor.sh: a background process that tracks blocks persistently by tailing container logs and writing to a local JSON file. Block data survives Docker restarts.

Community-maintained, no license

Midnight-Scripts maintains this project, not the Midnight Foundation. The repository does not currently specify a license. The tool has not been audited. Evaluate independently before relying on it in any environment.

Prerequisites

Before using the tool, ensure that you have:

• A running Midnight validator node (Docker container named midnight by default).
• jq and curl installed (sudo apt install jq curl on Ubuntu/Debian, brew install jq curl on macOS).
• Docker installed and running.
• The partner-chains-public-keys.json file in the same directory as LiveView.sh.

Compatibility

Component	Version	Notes
Tool version	0.2.1	No formal releases; code accessed from main branch.
Tested node version	0.12.0	Tested against builds cab67f3b and 29935d2f.
Network	Testnet	No Mainnet support documented.
Platforms	Linux, macOS	Install commands reference Ubuntu/Debian and macOS (Homebrew).

Node configuration

The dashboard reads data from your node's RPC endpoint. You need to modify the APPEND_ARGS variable in your .envrc file to expose the RPC interface.

Security: unsafe RPC methods

The configuration below enables --unsafe-rpc-external and --rpc-methods=Unsafe, which expose RPC methods that are not safe for public access. On a single-server setup, this is acceptable for local monitoring. On a multi-server setup, restrict RPC access to trusted IPs only.

For a single-server setup, add the following to your APPEND_ARGS:

--unsafe-rpc-external --rpc-methods=Unsafe --rpc-cors all

For two-server setups, see the project README for the full configuration.

Installation

Download both scripts and make them executable:

wget -O ./LiveView.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Midnight-Scripts/Midnight-Live-View/refs/heads/main/LiveView.sh
wget -O ./simple_block_monitor.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Midnight-Scripts/Midnight-Live-View/refs/heads/main/simple_block_monitor.sh
chmod +x LiveView.sh simple_block_monitor.sh

Run the dashboard

For basic dashboard-only monitoring:

./LiveView.sh

For persistent block tracking (recommended), start the block monitor first:

./simple_block_monitor.sh start
./LiveView.sh

The block monitor runs in the background and writes to all_blocks.json. Manage it with start, stop, status, or run (interactive mode).

Dashboard features

The dashboard displays the following information, refreshed every second:

• Node info: version, uptime, and container start time.
• Security: node key (masked), port, and key status.
• Registration: current registration status.
• Block data: historic blocks (total since monitoring began), blocks produced (since Docker restart), latest and finalized block numbers, and sync status.
• Network: peer count with interactive peer details (press p).
• System: CPU, memory, and disk usage.

Press q to quit, p to toggle peer details.

Configuration

You can override defaults with environment variables:

Variable	Default	Purpose
CONTAINER_NAME	midnight	Docker container name for the validator node.
PORT	9944	RPC port the dashboard connects to.
USE_DOCKER	true	Set to false for non-Docker node setups.

Files created at runtime

The block monitor creates three files in its working directory:

File	Purpose
all_blocks.json	Persistent block database with duplicate prevention.
block_monitor.log	Monitor activity log.
.block_monitor.pid	Process tracking file.

Additional resources

• Project repository: source, README, and configuration guide.
• CNTool gLiveView: the Cardano monitoring tool that inspired this dashboard.

Report issues

For issues with the tool, file on Midnight-Scripts' tracker.

For issues with this documentation page, file on the Midnight docs repository.