Get Started with XRP Ledger APIs

The XRP Ledger's core server software is rippled. You can jump straight into developing on the XRP Ledger by accessing the API of a rippled server.

The quickest way to dive into the API is with the WebSocket API Tool, or use the XRP Ledger Explorer to watch the progress of the ledger live.

You can also run your own instance of rippled or use a public server.

Public Servers

Ripple provides several public servers for the benefit of the XRP Ledger community:

Operator Network JSON-RPC URL WebSocket URL Notes
XRP Ledger Foundation Mainnet https://xrpl.ws/ wss://xrpl.ws/ Full history server cluster.
Ripple¹ Mainnet https://s1.ripple.com:51234/ wss://s1.ripple.com/ General purpose server cluster
Ripple¹ Mainnet https://s2.ripple.com:51234/ wss://s2.ripple.com/ Full-history server cluster
Ripple¹ Testnet https://s.altnet.rippletest.net:51234/ wss://s.altnet.rippletest.net/ Testnet public server
Ripple¹ Devnet https://s.devnet.rippletest.net:51234/ wss://s.devnet.rippletest.net/ Devnet public server

¹Ripple's public servers are not for sustained or business use, and they may become unavailable at any time. For regular use, you should run your own rippled server or contract someone you trust to do so. Ripple includes Reporting Mode servers in its public clusters.

Admin Access

rippled API methods are divided into Public Methods and Admin Methods so that organizations can offer public servers for the benefit of the community. To access admin methods, or admin functionality of public methods, you must connect to the API on a port and IP address marked as admin in the server's config file.

The example config file listens for connections on the local loopback network (127.0.0.1), with JSON-RPC (HTTP) on port 5005 and WebSocket (WS) on port 6006, and treats all connected clients as admin.

WebSocket API

If you are looking to try out some methods on the XRP Ledger, you can skip writing your own WebSocket code and go straight to using the API at the Ripple WebSocket API Tool. Later on, when you want to connect to your own rippled server, you can build your own client in the browser or in Node.js .

Example WebSocket API request:

{
  "id": "my_first_request",
  "command": "server_info",
  "api_version": 1
}

The response to this command shows you the current status of the server. Or, read more about Request Formatting and Response Formatting.

JSON-RPC

You can use any HTTP client (like RESTED for Firefox , Postman for Chrome or Online HTTP client ExtendsClass ) to make JSON-RPC calls a rippled server. Most programming languages have a library for making HTTP requests built in.

Example JSON-RPC request:

POST http://s1.ripple.com:51234/
Content-Type: application/json

{
    "method": "server_info",
    "params": [
        {
            "api_version": 1
        }
    ]
}

The response to this command shows you the current status of the server. For more information, see the server_info method.

Commandline

The commandline interface connects to the same service as the JSON-RPC one, so the public servers and server configuration are the same. By default, the commandline connects to a rippled server running on the same machine.

Example commandline request:

rippled --conf=/etc/opt/ripple/rippled.cfg server_info

For more information on rippled's commandline usage, see Commandline Usage Reference .

Caution: The commandline interface is intended for administrative purposes only and is not a supported API. New versions of rippled may introduce breaking changes to the commandline API without warning!

Available Methods

For a full list of API methods, see:

See Also