Start relaying

In the previous section, you created clients, established a connection between them, and opened a channel on top of it. Now you can start relaying on this path.

Relay path:

flowchart LR
    A((ibc-0))---B(transfer<br>channel-0)---C(transfer<br>channel-0)---D((ibc-1))

Query balances

Use the following commands to query balances on your local chains:

• Balances on ibc-0:

  gaiad --node tcp://localhost:27030 query bank balances $(gaiad --home ~/.gm/ibc-0 keys --keyring-backend="test" show wallet -a)
  

• Balances on ibc-1:

  gaiad --node tcp://localhost:27040 query bank balances $(gaiad --home ~/.gm/ibc-1 keys --keyring-backend="test" show wallet -a)
  

NOTE the RPC addresses used in the two commands above are configured in ~/.hermes/config.toml file. It can also be found with gm status

At this point in the tutorial, the two commands should output something similar to:

balances:
- amount: "100000000"
  denom: samoleans
- amount: "99994088"
  denom: stake
pagination:
  next_key: null
  total: "0"

NOTE: Some stake tokens were used during the connection and channel handshakes.

Exchange packets

Now, let's exchange samoleans between two chains.

• Open a new terminal and start Hermes using the start command :

  hermes start
  
  

  Hermes will first relay the pending packets that have not been relayed and then start passively relaying by listening for and acting on packet events.

• In a separate terminal, use the ft-transfer command to send 100000 samoleans from ibc-0 to ibc-1 over channel-0:

  hermes tx ft-transfer --timeout-seconds 1000 --dst-chain ibc-1 --src-chain ibc-0 --src-port transfer --src-channel channel-0 --amount 100000
  
  

• Wait a few seconds, then query balances on ibc-1 and ibc-0. You should observe something similar to:

  • Balances at ibc-0:

    balances:
    - amount: "99900000"
    denom: samoleans
    - amount: "99992054"
    denom: stake
    pagination:
    next_key: null
    total: "0"
    

  • Balances at ibc-1:

    balances:
    - amount: "100000"
    denom: ibc/C1840BD16FCFA8F421DAA0DAAB08B9C323FC7685D0D7951DC37B3F9ECB08A199
    - amount: "100000000"
    denom: samoleans
    - amount: "99989196"
    denom: stake
    pagination:
    next_key: null
    total: "0"
    

  The samoleans were transferred to ibc-1 and are visible under the denomination ibc/C1840.... The exact denomination you see might be different, make sure to use the denomination assigned in your case in the following.

• Transfer back these tokens to ibc-0:

  hermes tx ft-transfer --timeout-seconds 10000 --denom ibc/C1840BD16FCFA8F421DAA0DAAB08B9C323FC7685D0D7951DC37B3F9ECB08A199 --dst-chain ibc-0 --src-chain ibc-1 --src-port transfer --src-channel channel-0 --amount 100000
  
  

• Wait a few seconds then query balances on ibc-1 and ibc-0 again. You should observe something similar to:

  • Balances on ibc-0:

    balances:
    - amount: "100000000"
    denom: samoleans
    - amount: "99987927"
    denom: stake
    pagination:
    next_key: null
    total: "0"
    

  • Balances on ibc-1:

    balances:
    - amount: "100000000"
    denom: samoleans
    - amount: "99983879"
    denom: stake
    pagination:
    next_key: null
    total: "0"
    

• Open your browser and open http://localhost:3001/metrics. At this point, you should observe that the wallet_balance metric corresponds to what you observed in the previous step. All the metrics can be useful and are described in the Telemetry section. We will describe a way to use them in the tutorial Relaying in production.

Stop relaying and stop the chains

• Stop Hermes by pressing Ctrl+C on the terminal running hermes start .

• Stop the chains with gm stop.

Next steps

In this tutorial, you learned the basics of relaying by:

• Creating clients on two chains.
• Establishing a connection between them.
• Opening a channel.
• Visualizing your network.
• Exchanging packets.

In the next tutorial, you will learn how to relay between multiple chains with multiple instances.