HFCP Linux Foundation Hyperledger Fabric Certified Practitioner (HFCP) Exam Free Practice Exam Questions (2025 Updated)

In the context of Hyperledger Fabric's chaincode, the endorsement policy plays a crucial role in defining the organizations that must sign a transaction proposal before it can be considered valid. This policy specifies which members of the network must agree (endorse) a transaction for it to be executed. The policy can require signatures from one or more specific organizations,depending on the chaincode's business logic and the network's governance requirements. This ensures that transactions are agreed upon by the relevant stakeholders, maintaining the integrity and trust within the network​​.

In Hyperledger Fabric, the enterprise blockchain is a permissioned network where nodes are distributed among the member organizations that participate in the blockchain network. This is in contrast to a public blockchain where anyone can participate anonymously. In a permissioned blockchain like Hyperledger Fabric, the participants are known entities within a business network, such as enterprises or organizations, that have specific permissions and roles within the network. This setup enhances security and trust as each participant is vetted and authorized to take part in the network operations. The architecture of Hyperledger Fabric is designed to support such a governance model, where multiple organizations can interact in a secure and regulated environment, maintaining their own ledgers but sharing data that require consensus across known entities​​.

The primary role of orderer nodes in Hyperledger Fabric is to order and package endorsed transactions into blocks. Orderers receive transactions from various peers, ensure that these transactions are in a consistent order, and then package them into blocks that are subsequently appended to the blockchain. This function is crucial for maintaining the consistency and integrity of the ledger across all participating nodes. Orderer nodes do not issue tokens, enforce peer endorsements, or reorder stored blocks for data compression. Instead, their main function is integral to the consensus and ledger maintenance processes within a Hyperledger Fabric network​

For an endorsed transaction, the gateway service forwards the transaction to the ordering service. The ordering service then packages this transaction with other endorsed transactions into a block. This block is subsequently distributed across the network to all peers for validation and commitment to the ledger. The ordering process ensures the maintenance of transaction order across the network, crucial for the consistency and integrity of the blockchain .

The gRPC status code "UNAVAILABLE" is commonly expected in scenarios involving transient failures in network communication, such as a disconnection between the client application and the Gateway peer. This status code indicates that the service is currently unavailable, often due to network issues or service downtime, making it suitable for situations where the failure is temporary and the request can be retried. This differs from other codes like "ABORTED" or "DEADLINE EXCEEDED," which represent different types of errors related to the transaction logic or timing issues, respectively. "FAILED PRECONDITION" would be inappropriate for network disconnections as it suggests issues with the request's preconditions, not the network status​​.

When using LevelDB as the state database in Hyperledger Fabric, there is no specific schema that the data stored in the ledger needs to adhere to. LevelDB is a key-value store, which does not enforce any schema on the data it holds. This flexibility allows applications to define their own formats and structures for the data they store, which can vary from simple strings and numbers to more complex serialized data structures. This schema-less nature of LevelDB enables developers to implement the data handling that best suits their application's needs without the constraints of a predefined database schema​​.

The Operations Service API hosted on the HTTP server by the peer and the orderer in Hyperledger Fabric does not provide the functionality to set the log level. This API is primarily designed to offer operational insights and controls like retrieving log data, fetching metrics, and performing health checks. The ability to dynamically adjust the log level via this API is not supported, as logging levels are typically configured statically through configuration files or environment variables at the time of node startup. This design helps maintain the integrity and stability of the operational log data​​.

In Hyperledger Fabric, client applications can subscribe to receive both chaincode events and block events using the peer's event service. Chaincode events are generated by the chaincode itself, typically based on specific conditions coded within the chaincode operations, and are used to notify applications of specific state changes or significant occurrences. Block events inform about the addition of new blocks to the ledger, which may contain multiple transactions. This dual capability allows client applications to effectively monitor transaction confirmations and specific chaincode outputs in real time, which is critical for applications that rely on up-to-date blockchain data for processing decisions​​.

In Hyperledger Fabric, private data collections are configured using a separate JSON file that describes the details of the collection, such as the name, policy, and member organizations that have access to it. This configuration file is included during the chaincode deployment process. The collections configuration file defines how private data is managed, including its lifecycle,storage, and dissemination between authorized peers. By configuring private data collections in this manner, organizations ensure that sensitive information is only accessible to specific participants in the network, thus maintaining confidentiality and compliance with data governance standards​​.

When deploying an Orderer environment in Hyperledger Fabric, the primary configuration file that must be customized or overridden isorderer.yaml. This file contains the configuration settings specifically for the orderer node, including general ledger type, consensus type, and various operational settings like batching, timeouts, and MSP configurations. Other files likecrypto-config.yaml,docker-compose.yaml, andconfigtx.yamlserve different roles.crypto-config.yamlis used for generating cryptographic material,docker-compose.yamlfor defining services, networks, and volumes for containers, andconfigtx.yamlfor channel configuration and consortium definitions. Therefore,orderer.yamlis critical for setting up the orderer's behavior and parameters in the network environment​​.

In the context of the Fabric Gateway client API, the call that a client application would use to update the ledger state is Submit1. The Submit function combines the actions of endorsing a transaction proposal, submitting the transaction to the ordering service, and waiting for the transaction to be committed to the ledger into a single blocking call. This simplifies the process for the client application, allowing it to update the ledger state with a single line of code. The Evaluate call, on the other hand, is used to query the current state of the ledger without making any updates2. There are no Invoke or Update calls in the Fabric Gateway client API as per the official documentation

In the RAFT ordering service within Hyperledger Fabric, the concept of the "Leader" is crucial for the ingestion of new log entries, their replication to other ordering nodes, and managing when an entry is considered committed. In a RAFT-based ordering service, the leader node is responsible for managing the log entries; it receives all client requests, appends them to its log, and replicates these logs to the follower nodes. The leader also plays a crucial role in ensuring that there is a consensus on the order of transactions before they are committed to the ledger. The leader is dynamically elected by the cluster nodes and can change due to network conditions or node failures. This role is pivotal in the RAFT consensus mechanism for maintaining a consistent and reliable ordering service​​.

In Hyperledger Fabric, each peer in the network hosts a copy of the ledger, which is associated with a member channel. The ledger itself is comprised of a blockchain to store the immutable, sequenced record in blocks, and a state database to maintain the current state of the ledger. There is one ledger per channel, and each peer maintains a copy of the ledger for each channel of which they are a member .

State-based endorsement policies in Hyperledger Fabric offer a significant advantage by allowing endorsement policies to be specified at the level of individual state keys within the ledger. This granularity means that the endorsement policy for specific assets or data points can be tailored independently of others and can be updated without the need to redeploy or update the chaincode itself. This flexibility supports dynamic business needs and complex governance structures where different assets may require different endorsement levels based on their sensitivity or value .

In Hyperledger Fabric, the peer CLI (Command Line Interface) tool is used to update channels or invoke new smart contracts. This utility allows users to perform various administrative tasks on the network, such as updating the ledger, changing endorsement policies, and managing chaincode installations and instantiations .

In Hyperledger Fabric, the ordering nodes that are actively participating in the consensus mechanism for a given channel are referred to as the "Consenter set." These nodes are part of the ordering service and are responsible for creating blocks by ordering transactions and ensuring consistency across the network. The Consenter set receives the transaction logs that need to be replicated across other orderers and peers in the network. This is distinct from the "Committer set," which comprises nodes that commit blocks to their ledger, and "Endorsers," which are responsible for endorsing transactions by checking them against the chaincode execution policies​​.

In Hyperledger Fabric, if end users of the application want to keep their private key secret and secure, they would use offline signing. Offline signing involves signing transactions on a device or in an environment that is not connected to the network or the internet. This method ensures that the private key used for signing does not get exposed to the network and reduces the risk of compromise. Offline signing is especially important in scenarios where security and privacy are paramount, as it allows users to maintain control over their private keys at all times​​.