How to connect a website to the Ethereum blockchain

TECHNOLOGY
#1

hi guys,

I have been reading through lots of tutorials and watched a lot of videos and have figured out how to write and deploy my own simple smart contracts on the ethereum blockchain.

I have also managed to connect and interact with the smart contract on the blockchain using meta mask or a locally installed node.

However, websites like etherscan.io do not require a locally installed node or meta mask as you are only reading the state of some variables, which is free of gas.

What do I need to do to interact with the blockchain with my own website? Do I need to install a node on my server or is there any service which can be used for this?

Help would be great as I have been looking for an answer for a while now :wink:
Thank you very much in advance,
Tim

#2

To the best of my understanding etherscan.io runs a full eth node thus holds the whole state of the Ethereum blockchain on disk. Thus making their web site a “simple” server/client architecture.

#3

Thank you for the answer - I had hope for a lighter solution though :wink:

#4

Although a veteran coder I’m just getting started with blockchain/smart-contract app coding. I’ve been banging my head against the wall on the same issue (if I understand you), that of having a smart contract on the Etheruem platform that executes code that interacts with an external agent. I’m not sure yet since I have not had a chance to try any coding with their API yet, but after reading a lot of Ethereum form threads that said “sockets on the blockchain are hell”, and “external agents create non-determinism and that’s bad”, etc., it seems that the Oraclize service can help with this issue:

http://www.oraclize.it/

From the home page:

HOW IT WORKS

data carrier for decentralized apps
Smart contracts live like in a walled garden,
they cannot fetch external data on their own.
Oraclize is here to help. We act as a data carrier,
a reliable connection between Web APIs and your Dapp.
There is no need to open additional trustlines as
our good behaviour is enforced by cryptographic proofs.