* Provide API
details:
API is bundled via clique.nim.
* Set extraValidation as default for PoA chains
why:
This triggers consensus verification and an update of the list
of authorised signers. These signers are integral part of the
PoA block chain.
todo:
Option argument to control validation for the nimbus binary.
* Fix snapshot state block number
why:
Using sub-sequence here, so the len() function was wrong.
* Optional start where block verification begins
why:
Can speed up time building loading initial parts of block chain. For
PoA, this allows to prove & test that authorised signers can be
(correctly) calculated starting at any point on the block chain.
todo:
On Goerli around blocks #193537..#197568, processing time increases
disproportionally -- needs to be understand
* For Clique test, get old grouping back (7 transactions per log entry)
why:
Forgot to change back after troubleshooting
* Fix field/function/module-name misunderstanding
why:
Make compilation work
* Use eth_types.blockHash() rather than utils.hash() in Clique modules
why:
Prefer lib module
* Dissolve snapshot_misc.nim
details:
.. into clique_verify.nim (the other source file clique_unused.nim
is inactive)
* Hide unused AsyncLock in Clique descriptor
details:
Unused here but was part of the Go reference implementation
* Remove fakeDiff flag from Clique descriptor
details:
This flag was a kludge in the Go reference implementation used for the
canonical tests. The tests have been adapted so there is no need for
the fakeDiff flag and its implementation.
* Not observing minimum distance from epoch sync point
why:
For compiling PoA state, the go implementation will walk back to the
epoch header with at least 90000 blocks apart from the current header
in the absence of other synchronisation points.
Here just the nearest epoch header is used. The assumption is that all
the checkpoints before have been vetted already regardless of the
current branch.
details:
The behaviour of using the nearest vs the minimum distance epoch is
controlled by a flag and can be changed at run time.
* Analysing processing time (patch adds some debugging/visualisation support)
why:
At the first half million blocks of the Goerli replay, blocks on the
interval #194854..#196224 take exceptionally long to process, but not
due to PoA processing.
details:
It turns out that much time is spent in p2p/excecutor.processBlock()
where the elapsed transaction execution time is significantly greater
for many of these blocks.
Between the 1371 blocks #194854..#196224 there are 223 blocks with more
than 1/2 seconds execution time whereas there are only 4 such blocks
before and 13 such after this range up to #504192.
* fix debugging symbol in clique_desc (causes CI failing)
* Fixing canonical reference tests
why:
Two errors were introduced earlier but ovelooked:
1. "Remove fakeDiff flag .." patch was incomplete
2. "Not observing minimum distance .." introduced problem w/tests 23/24
details:
Fixing 2. needed to revert the behaviour by setting the
applySnapsMinBacklog flag for the Clique descriptor. Also a new
test was added to lock the new behaviour.
* Remove cruft
why:
Clique/PoA processing was intended to take place somewhere in
executor/process_block.processBlock() but was decided later to run
from chain/persist_block.persistBlock() instead.
* Update API comment
* ditto
Move `blockchain_sync.nim` from `nim-eth` to `nimbus-eth1`.
This lets `blockchain_sync` use the `eth/65` protocol to synchronise with more
modern peers than before.
Practically, the effect is the sync process runs more quickly and reliably than
before. It finds usable peers, and they are up to date.
Note, this is mostly old code, and it mostly performs "classic sync", the
original Ethereum method. Here's a summary of this code:
- It decides on a blockchain canonical head by sampling a few peers.
- Starting from block 0 (genesis), it downloads each block header and
block, mostly in order.
- After it downloads each block, it executes the EVM transactions in that block
and updates state trie from that, before going to the next block.
- This way the database state is updated by EVM executions in block order,
and new state is persisted to the trie database after each block.
Even though it mentions Geth "fast sync" (comments near end of file), and has
some elements, it isn't really. The most obvious missing part is this code
_doesn't download a state trie_, it calculates all state from block 0.
Geth "fast sync" has several parts:
1. Find an agreed common chain among several peers to treat as probably secure,
and a sufficiently long suffix to provide "statistical economic consensus"
when it is validated.
2. Perform a subset of PoW calculations, skipping forward over a segment to
verify some of the PoWs according to a pattern in the relevant paper.
3. Download the state trie from the block at the start of that last segment.
4. Execute only the blocks/transactions in that last segment, using the
downloaded state trie, to fill out the later states and properly validate the
blocks in the last segment.
Some other issues with `blockchain_sync` code:
- If it ever reaches the head of the chain, it doesn't follow new blocks with
increasing block numbers, at least not rapidly.
- If the chain undergoes a reorg, this code won't fetch a block number it has
already fetched, so it can't accept the reorg. It will end up conflicted
with peers. This hasn't mattered because the development focus has been on
the bulk of the catching up process, not the real-time head and reorgs.
- So it probably doesn't work correctly when it gets close to the head due to
many small reorgs, though it might for subtle reasons.
- Some of the network message handling isn't sufficiently robust, and it
discards some replies that have valid data according to specification.
- On rare occasions the initial query mapping block hash to number can
fail (because the peer's state changes).
- It makes some assumptions about the state of peers based on their responses
which may not be valid (I'm not convinced they are). The method for working
out "trusted" peers that agree a common chain prefix is clever. It compares
peers by asking each peer if it has the header matching another peer's
canonical head block by hash. But it's not clear that merely knowing about a
block constitutes agreement about the canonical chain. (If it did, query by
block number would give the same answer more authoritatively.)
Nonetheless, being able to run this sync process on `eth/65` is useful.
<# interactive rebase in progress; onto 66532e8a
Signed-off-by: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>
This is the main patch which removes Whisper code from `nimbus-eth1` code.
It removes all configuration, help, startup, JSON-RPC calls and most types.
Note, there is still Whisper functionality in `nim-eth`. Also, the "wrapper"
under `wrappers/` isn't dealt with by this change, but it's not built by
default (and might not currently work).
Signed-off-by: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>
This is the patch which removes Whisper functionality from `nimbus-eth1`,
even though the code has yet to be removed after.
After this change, enabling Whisper has no effect. Its configuration is
ignored and it won't be started.
Signed-off-by: Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>
* switch to chronos metrics, remove insecure
See https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/pull/2468
also fixes pcre linking for real, and adds some random build flags that
help nimbus-eth2 stay afloat
* fix help
* don't omit frame pointers on windows
addSignal() doesn't seem to work, which is probably why it was commented
out. I'm using setControlCHook() instead, moved at an earlier point in the
start-up process, but its handler can only change global variables, so I
had to make "nimbus" global.
jangko
bmoo
Jordan Hrycaj
Jamie Lokier
Jacek Sieka
kdeme
Ștefan Talpalaru
Zahary Karadjov
acolytec3