It turns out that we often save lots of states in the database that are
the result of empty slot processing only - here, we make sure to only
save a state if a block follows - this fixes several issues:
* empty slot states are not always pruned leading to state database size
explosion
* storing states is (very) slow which slows down processing in general,
so we should only do it when it's likely to be useful
* attestation processing doesn't get stuck on saving random states that
won't appear in the chain history
* remove some superfluous gcsafes
* remove getTailState (unused)
* don't store old epochrefs in blocks
* document attestation pool a bit
* remove `pcs =` cruft from log
* Quick fix to prune some states, pending smarter state storage
Adverse effects might include slow rewinds - typically the protocol
doesn't ask for pre-finalized states but RPC might
* document issue, add test
* fix cache miss log
* stop discarding non-existent future epochs during epoch state transitions; remove a pointless StateCache() construction in advance_slots()
* update nbench to pass StateCache to process_slots()
* harden beacon_pending_deposits metrics calculation
* ...
* move beacon_pending_deposits and beacon_processed_deposits_total out of specs and into chain DAG
* initial - cheaper pruning - addresses #1534
* Pass tests: update offset when pruning, proper handling of pruned parents
* Use options instead of nil for nilable newHead (finalization passing but rootcause not solved)
* First line of defense against stackoverflow in tests
* Fix compute_delta offset after pruning
* Rebase fix - medalla ready
* Remove Option[BlockRef]
* don't sort shuffled_validator_indices, just get them directly with
iteration
* grab full epoch of proposer indices while we have the data available -
they'll get cached and reused
* avoid computing active validator set when not used for logging
* collect all epochrefs in specific blocks to make them easier to find
and to avoid lots of small seqs
* reuse validator key databases more aggressively by comparing keys
* make state cache available from within `withState`
* make epochRef available from within onBlockAdded callback
* integrate getEpochInfo into block resolution and epoch ref logic such
that epochrefs are created when blocks are added to pool or lazily when
needed by a getEpochRef
* fill state cache better from EpochRef, speeding up replay and
validation
* store epochRef in specific blocks to make them easier to find and
reuse
* fix database corruption when state is saved while replaying quarantine
* replay slots fully from block pool before processing state
* compare bls values more smartly
* store epoch state without block applied in database - it's recommended
to resync the node!
this branch will drastically speed up processing in times of long
non-finality, as well as cut memory usage by 10x during the recent
medalla madness.
* fix invalid state root being written to database
When rewinding state data, the wrong block reference would be used when
saving the state root - this would cause state loading to fail by
loading a different state than expected, preventing blocks to be
applied.
* refactor state loading and saving to consistently use and set
StateData block
* avoid rollback when state is missing from database (as opposed to
being partially overwritten and therefore in need of rollback)
* don't store state roots for empty slots - previously, these were used
as a cache to avoid recalculating them in state transition, but this has
been superceded by hash tree root caching
* don't attempt loading states / state roots for non-epoch slots, these
are not saved to the database
* simplify rewinder and clean up funcitions after caches have been
reworked
* fix chaindag logscope
* add database reload metric
* re-enable clearance epoch tests
* names
* Eliminate possibilities for range errors and overflows
* Handle more properly invalid requests for furute slots
* Eliminate the confusing surrounding the MAX_REQUEST_BLOCKS constant
Addresses https://github.com/status-im/nim-beacon-chain/issues/1366
* remove one cache, add another
This cache removes the need for rewinding in most attestation validation
flow since the attestations come from one of two epochs and must be
targetting a viable block.
Additionally, it also removes all state caches which are less likely to
be used over-all - more metrics are needed to track the rewinding.
On risk is that when chains don't finalize, we'll have lots of epochrefs
in memory meaning lots of validator key databases, most being exactly
the same. This can be addressed in any number of ways. Some of the
memory usage is mitigated by the fact that we previously had lots of big
state caches and now we're keeping only keys instead.
* cleanups
* doc
Zahary Karadjov
Jacek Sieka
Mamy Ratsimbazafy
tersec
Viktor Kirilov