When applying a block, we'll currently compute a state root for the
state after slot processing but before block processing - this is
unnecessary when a block is being applied because the intermediate state
root is never observed.
This is a revamp of the attestation pool that cleans up several aspects
of attestation processing as the network grows larger and block space
becomes more precious.
The aim is to better exploit the divide between attestation subnets and
aggregations by keeping the two kinds separate until it's time to either
produce a block or aggregate. This means we're no longer eagerly
combining single-vote attestations, but rather wait until the last
moment, and then try to add singles to all aggregates, including those
coming from the network.
Importantly, the branch improves on poor aggregate quality and poor
attestation packing in cases where block space is running out.
A basic greed scoring mechanism is used to select attestations for
blocks - attestations are added based on how much many new votes they
bring to the table.
* Collect single-vote attestations separately and store these until it's
time to make aggregates
* Create aggregates based on single-vote attestations
* Select _best_ aggregate rather than _first_ aggregate when on
aggregation duty
* Top up all aggregates with singles when it's time make the attestation
cut, thus improving the chances of grabbing the best aggregates out
there
* Improve aggregation test coverage
* Improve bitseq operations
* Simplify aggregate signature creation
* Make attestation cache temporary instead of storing it in attestation
pool - most of the time, blocks are not being produced, no need to keep
the data around
* Remove redundant aggregate storage that was used only for RPC
* Use tables to avoid some linear seeks when looking up attestation data
* Fix long cleanup on large slot jumps
* Avoid some pointers
* Speed up iterating all attestations for a slot (fixes#2490)
* set upper bound on EpochRef cache
* max 32 EpochRef instances
* less memory waste in BlockRef by removing EpochRef seq that is mostly
unused (~20mb)
* less memory waste in dag block lookup by not keeping an extra copy of
digest (~70mb)
* fix `==` and `$` for Eth2Digest
* remove `ChainDAG.tmpState` (~50mb?)
all in all, this branch cuts mainnet memory usage by ~160-180mb and puts
limits on EpochRef cache usage - where normally it hovered around 950mb
before, it's now sitting at 600-700mb on my machine.
* docs
Jacek Sieka
tersec
Mamy Ratsimbazafy