dfx start
Use the dfx start command to start a local Internet Computer replica process and web server processes for the current project.
This command enables you to deploy canisters to the local Internet Computer network to test your programs during development.
Note that you can only run this command from within the project directory structure.
For example, if your project name is hello_world, your current working directory must be the hello_world top-level project directory or one of its subdirectories.
Flags
You can use the following optional flags with the dfx start command.
| Flag | Description |
|---|---|
|
Starts the Internet Computer replica and web server processes in the background and waits for a reply before returning to the shell. |
|
Starts the Internet Computer replica and web server processes in a clean state by removing checkpoints from your project cache. You can use this flag to set your project cache to a new state when troubleshooting or debugging. |
|
Displays usage information. |
|
Displays version information. |
Options
You can use the following option with the dfx start command.
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
|
Specifies the host interface IP address and port number to bind the frontend to. The default is |
Examples
You can start the Internet Computer replica and web server processes in the current shell by running the following command:
dfx startIf you start the Internet Computer in the current shell, you need to open a new terminal shell to run additional commands. Alternatively, you can start the Internet Computer in the background by running the following command:
dfx start --backgroundIf you run the Internet Computer in the background, however, be sure to stop the network before uninstalling or reinstalling the dfx execution environment by running the following command:
dfx stopYou can view the current process identifier (pid) for the Internet Computer process started by dfx by running the following command:
more .dfx/pid