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
* in exit pool, filter out already-packaged messages; bundle remaining messages into beaconblocks
* filter messages at block construction time
* allow adding up to intended capacity of buffers, beyond per-block limits
* document rationale/design for filtering mechanism
* Bump BLST
* Test for https://github.com/supranational/blst/issues/22 regression
* Use SHA256 from BLST + bump nim-blscurve to reenable fno-tree-vectorize
* SHA256 on non-blst platforms import fixes
* import fixes again
* can't prefix with nimcrypto
* address review comment [skip ci]
* {.noInit.} on the digests
about 40% better slot processing times (with LTO enabled) - these don't
do BLS but are used
heavily during replay (state transition = slot + block transition)
tests using a recent medalla state and advancing it 1000 slots:
```
./ncli slots --preState2:state-302271-3c1dbf19-c1f944bf.ssz --slot:1000
--postState2:xx.ssz
```
pre:
```
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
39.236, 0.000, 39.236, 39.236, 1,
Load state from file
0.049, 0.002, 0.046, 0.063, 968,
Apply slot
256.504, 81.008, 213.471, 591.902, 32,
Apply epoch slot
28.597, 0.000, 28.597, 28.597, 1,
Save state to file
```
cast:
```
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
37.079, 0.000, 37.079, 37.079, 1,
Load state from file
0.042, 0.002, 0.040, 0.090, 968,
Apply slot
215.552, 68.763, 180.155, 500.103, 32,
Apply epoch slot
25.106, 0.000, 25.106, 25.106, 1,
Save state to file
```
cast+rewards:
```
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
40.049, 0.000, 40.049, 40.049, 1,
Load state from file
0.048, 0.001, 0.045, 0.060, 968,
Apply slot
164.981, 76.273, 142.099, 477.868, 32,
Apply epoch slot
28.498, 0.000, 28.498, 28.498, 1,
Save state to file
```
cast+rewards+shr
```
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
12.898, 0.000, 12.898, 12.898, 1,
Load state from file
0.039, 0.002, 0.038, 0.054, 968,
Apply slot
139.971, 68.797, 120.088, 428.844, 32,
Apply epoch slot
24.761, 0.000, 24.761, 24.761, 1,
Save state to file
```
* remove some superfluous gcsafes
* remove getTailState (unused)
* don't store old epochrefs in blocks
* document attestation pool a bit
* remove `pcs =` cruft from log
* skeleton of attester slashing pool & validators
* add skeleton for proposer slashings and voluntary exits; rename pool to more inclusive exit pool to stay consistent with all three; ensure is initialized by beacon_node so is safe to merge, even if it doesn't do much yet
* 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()
This implements disparity, resolving a part of
https://github.com/status-im/nim-beacon-chain/issues/1367
* make BeaconTime a duration for fractional seconds
* factor out attestation/aggregate validation
* simplify recording of queued attestations
* simplify attestation signature check
* fix blocks_received metric
* add some trivial validation tests
* remove unresolved attestation table - attestations for unknown blocks
are dropped instead (cannot verify their signature)
* harden beacon_pending_deposits metrics calculation
* ...
* move beacon_pending_deposits and beacon_processed_deposits_total out of specs and into chain DAG
Replace shuffling function with zrnt version - `get_shuffled_seq` in
particular puts more strain on the GC by allocating superfluous seq's
which turns out to have a significant impact on block processing (when
replaying blocks for example) - 4x improvement on non-epoch, 1.5x on
epoch blocks (replay is done without signature checking)
Medalla, first 10k slots - pre:
```
Loaded 68973 blocks, head slot 117077
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
76855.848, 0.000, 76855.848, 76855.848, 1,
Initialize DB
1.073, 0.914, 0.071, 12.454, 7831,
Load block from database
31.382, 0.000, 31.382, 31.382, 1,
Load state from database
85.644, 30.350, 3.056, 466.136, 7519,
Apply block
506.569, 91.129, 130.654, 874.786, 312,
Apply epoch block
```
post:
```
Loaded 68973 blocks, head slot 117077
All time are ms
Average, StdDev, Min, Max, Samples,
Test
Validation is turned off meaning that no BLS operations are performed
72457.303, 0.000, 72457.303, 72457.303, 1,
Initialize DB
1.015, 0.858, 0.070, 11.231, 7831,
Load block from database
28.983, 0.000, 28.983, 28.983, 1,
Load state from database
21.725, 17.461, 2.659, 393.217, 7519,
Apply block
324.012, 33.954, 45.452, 440.532, 312,
Apply epoch block
```
When blocks and attestations arrive, they are SSZ-decoded twice: once
for validation and once for processing. This branch enqueues the decoded
block directly for processing, avoiding the second, slow
deserialization.
* move processing of blocks and attestations to queue
* ...and out from beacon_node
* split attestation processing into attestations and aggregates
* also updates metrics
* clean up logging to better follow the lifetime of gossip: arrival,
validation and processing
* drop attestations and aggregates if there are too many
* try to prioritise blocks and aggregates before single-validator
attestations
* evaluate block attestations under the epochref of the block - this is
what the state transition function does
* avoid copying attestation seq unnecessarily
* avoid unnecessary hashset for unslashed indices
* 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
Jacek Sieka
Viktor Kirilov
tersec
Zahary Karadjov
Mamy Ratsimbazafy
cheatfate
Giovanni Petrantoni