Kiln & Tandoor
Serokell revamped the outdated Kiln software for baking blocks on the Tezos platform and introduced Tandoor, a more efficient and user-friendly virtual appliance for the same purpose.
Serokell has maintained Kiln, a tool with legacy code to facilitate block baking on the Tezos platform. Subsequently, we developed Tandoor, a brand-new solution designed from the ground up to make the baking process more transparent and accessible, especially for beginners.
Kiln and its heritage
Kiln has been used to support the main mechanism of new block creation, known as “baking”, since 2018. The program has a somewhat complicated and outdated UI and legacy code.
Initially, our task was to maintain the Kiln tool and improve its UI. We successfully simplified the interface and offered tool support and maintenance for over a year—including updates to protocols and resolution of reported bugs.
Our partners from Tezos suggested that we create a modern solution for baking from scratch.
Thus, Tandoor was born.
We began supporting Kiln in 2021 and continue to do so, ensuring that long-time users have a tool that aligns with their habits. However, since Kiln was created more than six years ago, numerous technical issues have made it difficult for newcomers to start baking.
As a result, plans have been made
to replace Kiln with Tandoor.
Tandoor
The main challenge for newcomers starting to bake blocks is the necessity to install numerous components before they can begin any actual baking (voting).
Tandoor eliminates the complexity of assembling and installing different software by creating a ready-to-use virtual appliance, where all the necessary tools are already installed.
Benefits of Tandoor compared to its alternatives,
Kiln and standalone use of tezos-packaging, include:
Compatibility with any platform/OS that supports virtualization
Easy installation
for local use
Elimination of the need for
additional tinkering for the most common use cases
Automatic updates
to new Tezos versions
Prospects
Supporting legacy code, which frequently encounters various issues, is costly and complicated. New changes often lead to conflicts with historical components, increasing the complexity and disappointing users. In the near future, Tandoor is set to become a powerful, flexible, and convenient replacement for the outdated Kiln software.