Overhaul of era files, including documentation and reference
implementations
* store blocks, then state, then slot indices for easy lookup at low
cost
* document era file rationale
* altair+ support in era writer
* Fix REST some rest call signatures and implement a simple API benchmark tool
* Implement #3129 (Optimized history traversals in the REST API)
Other notable changes:
The `updateStateData` procedure in the `blockchain_dag.nim` module is
optimized to not rewind down to the last snapshot state saved in the
database if the supplied input state can be used as a starting point
instead.
* Disallow await in withStateForBlockSlot
Validator monitoring based on and mostly compatible with the
implementation in Lighthouse - tracks additional logs and metrics for
specified validators so as to stay on top on performance.
The implementation works more or less the following way:
* Validator pubkeys are singled out for monitoring - these can be
running on the node or not
* For every action that the validator takes, we record steps in the
process such as messages being seen on the network or published in the
API
* When the dust settles at the end of an epoch, we report the
information from one epoch before that, which coincides with the
balances being updated - this is a tradeoff between being correct
(waiting for finalization) and providing relevant information in a
timely manner)
In the ChainDAG, 3 block pointers are kept: genesis, tail and head. This
PR adds one more block pointer: the backfill block which represents the
block that has been backfilled so far.
When doing a checkpoint sync, a random block is given as starting point
- this is the tail block, and we require that the tail block has a
corresponding state.
When backfilling, we end up with blocks without corresponding states,
hence we cannot use `tail` as a backfill pointer - there is no state.
Nonetheless, we need to keep track of where we are in the backfill
process between restarts, such that we can answer GetBeaconBlocksByRange
requests.
This PR adds the basic support for backfill handling - it needs to be
integrated with backfill sync, and the REST API needs to be adjusted to
take advantage of the new backfilled blocks when responding to certain
requests.
Future work will also enable moving the tail in either direction:
* pruning means moving the tail forward in time and removing states
* backwards means recreating past states from genesis, such that
intermediate states are recreated step by step all the way to the tail -
at that point, tail, genesis and backfill will match up.
* backfilling is done when backfill != genesis - later, this will be the
WSS checkpoint instead
* move quarantine outside of chaindag
The quarantine has been part of the ChainDAG for the longest time, but
this design has a few issues:
* the function in which blocks are verified and added to the dag becomes
reentrant and therefore difficult to reason about - we're currently
using a stateful flag to work around it
* quarantined blocks bypass the processing queue leading to a processing
stampede
* the quarantine flow is unsuitable for orphaned attestations - these
should also should be quarantined eventually
Instead of processing the quarantine inside ChainDAG, this PR moves
re-queueing to `block_processor` which already is responsible for
dealing with follow-up work when a block is added to the dag
This sets the stage for keeping attestations in the quarantine as well.
Also:
* make `BlockError` `{.pure.}`
* avoid use of `ValidationResult` in block clearance (that's for gossip)
* Support starting from altair
* hide `finalized-checkpoint-` - they are incomplete and usage may cause
crashes
* remove genesis detection code (broken, obsolete)
* enable starting ChainDAG from altair checkpoints - this is a
prerequisite for checkpoint sync (TODO: backfill)
* tighten checkpoint state conditions
* show error when starting from checkpoint with existing database (not
supported)
* print rest-compatible JSON in ncli/state_sim
* altair/merge support in ncli
* more altair/merge support in ncli_db
* pre-load header to speed up loading
* fix forked block decoding
* Reduce the logging-related breaking changes
* Don't disable the stdout log when the `--log-file` option is used
* Rename `--log-stdout` to `--log-format` and hide it
* Deprecate the `--log-file` option
* Logging and startup improvements
Color support for released binaries!
* startup scripts no longer log to file by default - this only affects
source builds - released binaries don't support file logging
* add --log-stdout option to control logging to stdout (colors, json)
* detect tty:s vs redirected logs and log accordingly
* add option to disable log colors at runtime
* simplify several "common" logs, showing the most important information
earlier and more clearly
* remove line numbers / file information / tid - these take up space and
are of little use to end users
* still enabled in debug builds and tools
* remove `testnet_servers_image` compile-time option
* server images, released binaries and compile-from-source now offer
the same behaviour and features
* fixes https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/issues/2326
* fixes https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2/issues/1794
* remove instanteneous block speed from sync message, keeping only
average
before:
```
INF 2021-10-28 16:45:59.000+02:00 Slot start topics="beacnde" tid=386429 file=nimbus_beacon_node.nim:884 lastSlot=2384027 wallSlot=2384028 delay=461us84ns peers=0 head=75a10ee5:3348 headEpoch=104 finalized=cd6804ba:3264 finalizedEpoch=102 sync="wwwwwwwwww:0:0.0000:0.0000:00h00m (3348)"
INF 2021-10-28 16:45:59.046+02:00 Slot end topics="beacnde" tid=386429 file=nimbus_beacon_node.nim:821 slot=2384028 nextSlot=2384029 head=75a10ee5:3348 headEpoch=104 finalizedHead=cd6804ba:3264 finalizedEpoch=102 nextAttestationSlot=-1 nextProposalSlot=-1 nextActionWait=n/a
```
after:
```
INF 2021-10-28 22:43:23.033+02:00 Slot start topics="beacnde" slot=2385815 epoch=74556 sync="DDPDDPUDDD:10:5.2258:01h19m (2361088)" peers=37 head=eacd2dae:2361096 finalized=73782:a4751487 delay=33ms687us715ns
INF 2021-10-28 22:43:23.291+02:00 Slot end topics="beacnde" slot=2385815 nextActionWait=n/a nextAttestationSlot=-1 nextProposalSlot=-1 head=eacd2dae:2361096
```
* fix comment
* documentation updates
* mention `--log-file` may be deprecated in the future
* update various docs
The README file explaining gossip_processing, and the attestation_flow
docs were no longer accurate, as attestations and aggregates no longer
go through a queue (pending batching). This patch updates the docs
accordingly. It also improves some grammar and fixes some typos.
Jacek Sieka
zah
tersec
Eugene Kabanov
sacha
rasberrylasagna
Ștefan Talpalaru
Etan Kissling