nimbus-eth2/ncli
Jacek Sieka 05ffe7b2bf
Prune `BlockRef` on finalization (#3513)
Up til now, the block dag has been using `BlockRef`, a structure adapted
for a full DAG, to represent all of chain history. This is a correct and
simple design, but does not exploit the linearity of the chain once
parts of it finalize.

By pruning the in-memory `BlockRef` structure at finalization, we save,
at the time of writing, a cool ~250mb (or 25%:ish) chunk of memory
landing us at a steady state of ~750mb normal memory usage for a
validating node.

Above all though, we prevent memory usage from growing proportionally
with the length of the chain, something that would not be sustainable
over time -  instead, the steady state memory usage is roughly
determined by the validator set size which grows much more slowly. With
these changes, the core should remain sustainable memory-wise post-merge
all the way to withdrawals (when the validator set is expected to grow).

In-memory indices are still used for the "hot" unfinalized portion of
the chain - this ensure that consensus performance remains unchanged.

What changes is that for historical access, we use a db-based linear
slot index which is cache-and-disk-friendly, keeping the cost for
accessing historical data at a similar level as before, achieving the
savings at no percievable cost to functionality or performance.

A nice collateral benefit is the almost-instant startup since we no
longer load any large indicies at dag init.

The cost of this functionality instead can be found in the complexity of
having to deal with two ways of traversing the chain - by `BlockRef` and
by slot.

* use `BlockId` instead of `BlockRef` where finalized / historical data
may be required
* simplify clearance pre-advancement
* remove dag.finalizedBlocks (~50:ish mb)
* remove `getBlockAtSlot` - use `getBlockIdAtSlot` instead
* `parent` and `atSlot` for `BlockId` now require a `ChainDAGRef`
instance, unlike `BlockRef` traversal
* prune `BlockRef` parents on finality (~200:ish mb)
* speed up ChainDAG init by not loading finalized history index
* mess up light client server error handling - this need revisiting :)
2022-03-17 17:42:56 +00:00
..
.gitignore A simple script for fetching detailed deposit data 2021-05-28 19:34:20 +03:00
README.md update spec references from eth2.0-specs to consensus-specs and to v1.1.0-beta.2 (#2822) 2021-08-26 10:21:52 +02:00
deposit_downloader.nim A simple script for fetching detailed deposit data 2021-05-28 19:34:20 +03:00
download_mainnet_deposits.sh A simple script for fetching detailed deposit data 2021-05-28 19:34:20 +03:00
e2store.nim ncli_db: import states and blocks from era file (#3313) 2022-01-25 09:28:26 +01:00
e2store.py update era file documentation / impl (#3226) 2022-01-07 11:13:19 +01:00
logtrace.nim switch result = foo to expression return; unexport rest of logtrace symbols (#2788) 2021-08-17 09:51:39 +00:00
ncli.nim rename mergeData to bellatrixData and mergeFork to bellatrixFork (#3315) 2022-01-24 16:23:13 +00:00
ncli_common.nim Prune `BlockRef` on finalization (#3513) 2022-03-17 17:42:56 +00:00
ncli_db.nim Prune `BlockRef` on finalization (#3513) 2022-03-17 17:42:56 +00:00
ncli_query.nim 12x speedup on state sim with 100k validators sans BLS by caching get_beacon_proposer_index(...) 2020-06-04 17:07:51 +00:00
nim.cfg minimize imports, specially for spec - cuts 2/3 of ncli build time (#500) 2019-10-25 12:59:56 +02:00
nimquery.nim Move tools (#2370) 2021-03-02 15:02:10 +01:00
requirements.txt Bump pillow from 9.0.0 to 9.0.1 in /ncli (#3488) 2022-03-12 11:02:52 +01:00
resttest-rules.json rename MERGE_FORK_EPOCH to BELLATRIX_FORK_EPOCH (#3350) 2022-02-02 14:06:55 +01:00
resttest.nim REST cleanups (#3255) 2022-01-08 22:06:34 +02:00
validator_db_aggregator.nim Streamline the validator reward analysis 2022-02-01 11:30:14 +02:00
validator_db_reports.ipynb Streamline the validator reward analysis 2022-02-01 11:30:14 +02:00

README.md

Introduction

ncli is a set of low level / debugging tools to interact with the nimbus beacon chain specification implementation, simliar to zcli. With it, you explore SSZ, make state transitions and compute hash tree roots.

Tools

  • transition: Perform state transition given a pre-state and a block to apply (both in SSZ format)
  • hash_tree_root: Print tree root of an SSZ object
  • pretty: Pretty-print SSZ object as JSON

Building

Follow the instructions from nimbus-eth2

git clone https://github.com/status-im/nimbus-eth2.git
cd nimbus-eth2
make

Usage

# Build with minimal config
../env.sh nim c -d:const_preset=minimal ncli_transition
# Build with mainnet config
../env.sh nim c -d:const_preset=mainnet ncli_transition

# Run..
./ncli_transition --help