Support Friendbot in Stellar RPC

[janewang]

What problem does your feature solve?

Reduce dependency on Horizon when developers only need to use the Friendbot faucet.

Currently, Friendbot is integrated into Horizon. By making it part of the RPC, developers could access Friendbot without needing to set up Horizon. This would allow contract developers to use Friendbot in local environments more easily. Additionally, it would enable us to ship Quickstart configurations with Horizon, RPC, or both, depending on the use case.

What would you like to see?

A Friendbot endpoint available via RPC.

[leighmcculloch]

I suggest we keep friendbot independent of RPC, and instead consider what friendbot should be dependent on if not Horizon. The two options I see are RPC, or directly on stellar-core.

Why not build friendbot into RPC? Once upon a time friendbot was in Horizon, and it got split out into its own service, so at the least past us had reasons. Friendbot owns a series of accounts, but today RPC does not. It would be a new responsibility for RPC to manage accounts and not a new feature within existing responsibilities.

[janewang]

I agree with the idea of separating Friendbot from Horizon and making it a standalone service. This way, those running RPC can choose to run the Friendbot faucet if needed. Not sure if it is a good idea to include it within stellar-core.

[leighmcculloch]

I'm suggesting it be built on stellar-core, have a dependence on stellar-core, not built within stellar-core. In the same way that RPC is built on stellar-core.

[janewang]

Got it, thanks for clarifying!