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nimbus-eth2/CHANGELOG.md

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2021-07-10 v1.4.2

Nimbus v1.4.2 - "Upgrade procedure: Hotfix release"

This release is marked as low-urgency for all Nimbus users other than those who have recently updated to v1.4.1 from a version earlier than v1.1.0 - for these users this is a high-urgency release.

Notable changes

This release fixes an issue in the upgrade procedure when upgrading from a version earlier than 1.1.0 to 1.4.x.

How can I tell if I've been affected?

If you've already upgraded to 1.4.1, you can tell that you've been affected if you're seeing the following WRN log:

 Received invalid sequence of blocks

To re-iterate, this issue only affects users who are upgrading from 1.0.12 or earlier (released on 2021-03-10), and have not run any release in between. Everyone else can ignore this release.

2021-07-10 v1.4.1

Nimbus v1.4.1 - "Every attestation counts"

This release is marked as low-urgency

Notable changes

Nimbus v1.4.0 users might have noticed that they are missing a small number of (seemingly random) attestations since the update. Our investigation into the matter has showed that, due to v1.4.0's significant performance improvements, Nimbus validators occasionally send their first attestation for a new epoch before some peers are ready. These "slow" peers end up dropping early attestations because they're busy with the epoch transition.

It's a rare occurrence, since it requires a validator to be scheduled to attest in the first slot of an epoch and for the beacon node to only be connected to "slow" peers for the respective libp2p topic. If both these conditions are true, a premature attestation may be lost in time, like tears in the rain.

As a fix, we are using a larger send delay: #2705.

Fo those Nimbus v1.4.0 users who are concerned about reaching optimal attestation effectiveness, we encourage you to upgrade as soon as possible.

Other changes include log flushing and metrics fixes.

Full list:

  • increase attestation wait time (#2705)
  • ensure logs are printed without delays (#2669)
  • fix metrics on Windows (#2707)

2021-06-21 v1.4.0

This release is marked as low-urgency - please update at your convenience.

It contains improvements to attestation effectiveness and CPU usage.

It also contains improvements to the RPC APIs, as suggested by DappNode and RocketPool, and in preparation for our refactored validator client.

Outdated Nimbus instances

A reminder that if you're running Nimbus with a version prior to 1.0.10 (March 2021) you are exposed to a vulnerability in our core cryptography library (this library is used by all eth2 clients). See this blst security advisory for more information. If this concerns you, please update as soon as you can.

Notable changes

We've added:

We've fixed:

We've improved

2021-05-17 v1.3.0

This release offers safer and easier options to migrate to Nimbus from other clients. It also brings further performance optimizations.

We've added:

  • A new slashingdb sub-command with import and export options. This allows for safely migrating to Nimbus from another client (as per the EIP-3076 slashing protection interchange format). Please see the the newly prepared migration guides for the details.

  • A new ncli_db validatorPerf command. This can be used to perform a textual report for the attestation performance of a particular validator (please note that ncli_db is available only when compiling from source).

  • Official binaries for macOS (AMD64 and ARM64).

  • Pruning of the slashing protection database and a transition to more optimal queries. This results in a significant reduction in both disk and CPU usage on nodes running a large number of validators.

  • More consistent level of validation for the attestations received from third-party sources and the JSON-RPC and REST APIs. This prevents invalid attestations from being broadcasted to the network.

  • Performance tuning of attestation subnet transition timings and state snapshotting intervals. This results in improved CPU and bandwidth usage.

We've fixed:

  • Problems in the GossipSub subnet walking logic leading to unnecessary bandwidth and CPU costs.

2021-05-03 v1.2.2

This is a bugfix release improving the stability of the REST API and addressing issues discovered during the mainnet deposit processing accident of 24-25 April.

New features:

  • More efficient attestation processing pipeline using less queuing.

We've fixed:

  • Insufficient validation of third-party Eth1Data votes.

  • Sporadic REST API connection interruptions resulting from large request or result payloads.

  • Incorrectly sent empty GossipSub IWANT messages.

2021-04-20 v1.2.1

This is a hotfix release that solves the database migration issue highlighted in the previous release -- this problem affected new Nimbus users who used v1.1.0 to sync with the network from genesis, essentially resetting their state database and causing them to start re-syncing from genesis.

If you have used an older version of Nimbus prior to upgrading to v1.1.0, you should not be affected.

If you were affected, you have a couple of options available to you:

  1. If you have backed-up your database prior to upgrading to v1.2.0, you can restore the database from backup and execute the migration successfully after upgrading to this release.

  2. If you haven't backed up your database, you can upgrade to this release at your convenience; rest assured it won't delete your sync history.

Please accept our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience we may have caused. We are reviewing our release testing policies to ensure that we cover a greater number of possible upgrade paths going forward.

2021-04-19 v1.2.0

If v1.1.0 was the big I/O update, v1.2.0 is all about the CPU - together, these updates help secure Nimbus against future network growth, and provide us with a higher security margin and substantial [profitability improvements] (https://twitter.com/ethnimbus/status/1384071918723092486).

To highlight just one data point, CPU usage has been cut by up to 50% over v1.1.0 ( 🙏 batched attestation processing). This makes it the first release we can officially recommend for validating on a Raspberry Pi 4.

N.B. this release contains a critical stability fix so please make sure you upgrade!

New features:

  • Beta support for the official Beacon Node REST API: https://ethereum.github.io/eth2.0-APIs/. Enable it by launching the client with the --rest:on command-line flag

  • Batched attestation verification and other reforms -> massive reduction in overall CPU usage.

  • Improved attestation aggregation logic -> denser aggregations which in turn improve the overall health of the network and improve block production.

  • More efficient LibP2P connection handling code -> reduction in overall memory usage.

We've fixed:

  • A critical stability issue in attestation processing.

  • scripts/run-*-node.sh no longer prompts for a web3 provider URL when the --web3-url command-line option has already been specified.

2021-04-05 v1.1.0

This release brings planned reforms to our database schema that provide substantial performance improvements and pave the way for an an improved doppelganger detection ready immediately to propose and attest to blocks (in a future release).

Please be aware that we will remain committed to maintaining backwards compatibility between releases, but this release does not support downgrading back to any previous 1.0.x release.

As a safety precaution, we advise you to please backup your Nimbus database before upgrading if possible.

New features:

  • More efficient state storage format ==> reduced I/O load and lower storage requirements.

  • More efficient in-memory cache for non-finalized states ==> significant reduction in memory usage.

  • More efficient slashing database schema ==> scales better to a larger number of validators.

  • The metrics support is now compiled by default thanks to a new and more secure HTTP back-end.

  • Command-line tools for generating testnet keystores and JSON deposit files suitable for use with the official network launchpads.

  • setGraffiti JSON-RPC call for modifying the graffiti bytes of the client at run-time.

  • next_action_wait metric indicating the time until the next scheduled attestation or block proposal.

  • More convenient command-line help messages providing information regarding the default values of all parameters.

  • --direct-peer gives you the ability to specify gossip nodes to automatically connect to.

  • Official docker images for ARM and ARM64.

  • Support for fallback --web3-url providers.

We've fixed:

  • Long processing delays induced by database pruning.

  • File descriptor leaks (which manifested after failures of the selected web3 provider).

  • The validator APIs now return precise actual balances instead of rounded effective balances.

  • A connection tracking problem which produced failed outgoing connection attempts.

Breaking changes:

  • Nimbus-specific JSON-RPCs intended for debug purposes now have the debug_ prefix:

    • getGossipSubPeers is now debug_getGossipSubPeers
    • getChronosFutures is now debug_getChronosFutures

2021-03-10 v1.0.12

This is bugfix release correcting an error in the Prater testnet config leading to incorrect Eth1 voting.

2021-03-10 v1.0.11

This is a minor release adding support for connecting to the Prater testnet.

2021-03-10 v1.0.10

This release contains important security and performance improvements.

Upgraded:

  • We're now running version 0.3.3 of the BLST library: https://github.com/supranational/blst/releases/tag/v0.3.3

  • We've switched to a more recent version of BearSSL (this version features a more up-to-date list of trusted root certificates)

  • We're now consistent with the v1.0.1 Eth2 spec

We've fixed:

  • A frequent crash occurring on certain hardware configurations after building Nimbus from source.

  • Long processing delays triggered by the reception of attestations that reference already pruned states.

  • LibP2P peer management issue which led to an accumulation of inactive connections.

  • A false-positive in doppelganger detection triggered by rebroadcasted older attestations arriving with a significant delay.

New features:

  • A new improved format of the slashing protection database:

    • Significantly reduces the disk load with a large number of validators (1000+).

    • Makes it possible to enhance our doppelganger detection in the future such that waiting for 2 epochs before attesting is not necessary.

    To ensure smooth upgrade and emergency rollback between older and future Nimbus versions, v1.0.10 will keep track of your attestation in both the old and the new format. The extra load should be negligible for home stakers.

2021-03-09 v1.0.9

This version was an internal release candidate build for the 1.0.10 release.

2021-02-22 v1.0.8

This release includes important JSON-RPC stability improvements and compatibility fixes, which make it possible to use Nimbus as a RocketPool operator.

New features:

  • RocketPool integration: see https://github.com/rocket-pool/smartnode/pull/89 and da720acc8f

  • Next attestation time displayed on every "Slot end" log message (helps you select the best time for restarting the node)

  • libp2p scoring: disconnect from badly performing peers and prioritise peers with better latency and throughput.

We've fixed:

  • A rare crash triggered when connecting to a web3 provider using a secure web socket.

  • JSON-RPC spec violations and potential DoS attack vectors.

  • Two stale bootstrap node addresses.

2021-02-04 v1.0.7

A release which provides additional protection against accidental slashings and further performance improvements across the board.

New features:

  • New slashing protection mechanism (doppelganger detection) prevents your validator from contradicting itself if you have accidentally left it running on another machine (see the --doppelganger-detection option).

  • Optimized batching of BLS signature verification leading to faster sync speeds and reduced CPU load.

  • Further improvements to attestation subnet walking resulting in a reduction in both bandwidth and CPU usage.

  • A new --subscribe-all-subnets option allowing the node to maintain peers from all attestation subnets (most suitable for bootstrap nodes).

  • Official docker images published at https://hub.docker.com/r/statusim/nimbus-eth2

  • Official Windows binaries created from a reproducible build recipe.

  • An option to enable the automatic updating of IP:Port in the ENR (off by default, specify --enr-auto-update:true to turn it on)

We've fixed:

  • A bug that had the potential to completely halt all syncing activity.

  • Inefficient processing of blocks with Eth1 deposits which occassionally led to increased latencies when delivering attestations.

  • Outdated records in our bootstrap nodes list.

  • An Eth1 syncing issue which manifested itself as a "Corrupted deposits history detected" error.

  • Non-standard encoding of certain data types such as signatures and bit sequences within the results of JSON-RPC requests.

We've deprecated:

  • make beacon_node will no longer compile the beacon node. You'll need to run make nimbus_beacon_node from now on

  • On monday we'll phase out the old master branch. If you're still building Nimbus from master, please switch to stable.

2021-01-10 v1.0.6

A release that brings reproducible precompiled binaries for ARM devices and significant performance improvements.

New features:

  • Reproducible build recipe for creating Nimbus Linux binaries intended for ARM devices.

  • Improved attestation subnet walking logic: this brings significant reductions in bandwidth usage and CPU load.

  • Better usage of the Sqlite3 checkpointing API (minor performance improvement).

  • Larger window for the candidate attestations included in blocks: this can lead to higher block rewards.

We've fixed:

  • Incorrect attnets value announced in ENR records.

2021-01-09 v1.0.5

The 1.0.5 release was retracted because it included a potential optimization to the reproducible build scripts that turned out to create a buggy binary for AMD64 systems. Manually built binaries through the Makefiles were not affected. After fixing the problem, the release was re-published as 1.0.6 with the same release notes.

2020-12-16 v1.0.4

A release bringing further stability improvements and minor performance optimisations.

New features:

  • Nimbus can now be safely shut down with the SIGTERM signal on POSIX systems.

  • New discovery IP limits making theoretic eclipse attack much more costly.

  • A new make benchmarks target for obtaining a performance score for your system.

  • Upgrade of the BLST library bringing minor performance improvement.

We've fixed:

  • Gossipsub resource leaks that may reduce the quality of the gossipsub mesh and reduce the attestation effectiveness of the client.

  • Incomplete validation of the forwarded attestations that may affect negatively the peer score of Nimbus.

  • An issue halting the activity of the Eth1 monitor.

  • The incorrect zero validator balance displayed while the node is syncing.

  • A regression preventing Nimbus to be used with custom testnet metadata files.

2020-12-09 v1.0.3

A release fixing issues that have contributed to Nimbus's lower peer scores on the network.

New features:

  • New metrics tracking the syncing progress of the Eth1 deposit contract monitor.

  • A new web3 test command for testing the compatibility of a web3 provider before using it.

We've fixed:

  • Incorrect timing when sending aggregated attestations.

  • Stale ENR records not taking into account the dynamic attestation subnet hopping.

  • An invalid error message produced by the deposits exit command (validator state unknown).

2020-12-03 v1.0.2

A release that fixes an issue regarding the occasional missed block proposal.

Proposing a block is arguably the most important duty you have as a validator. So it's important you update at your earliest convenience.

New features:

  • 8 new JSON-RPC calls that bring us to feature parity with the official beacon node API.

We've fixed:

  • A deposit merkle proofs generation issue occasionally resulting in missed block proposals shortly after a new Eth1 head was selected.

  • Slow status bar updates in the absense of logging messages.

2020-12-02 v1.0.1

A release with a number of important fixes and optimisations.

Please update at your earliest convenience.

In order to minimise downtime, we recommend updating and rebuilding the beacon node before restarting.

New features:

  • More conservative Eth1 syncing requests to reduce the likelihood of going over the maximum allowed burst rates under the Infura free plan (predominantly aimed at those running Nimbus on resource-restricted device like Raspberry Pi's) + more resiliency in case of errors.

We've fixed:

  • A "Only one concurrent read allowed" crash reported by multiple users.

  • An error in the default configuration preventing the node from discovering peers on mainnet unless the --network=mainnet flag was passed. Please note that this not affect users starting their node with the ./run-mainnet-beacon-node command.

  • The fractional part of the ETH balance in the Nimbus status bar (the value displayed should now be correct).

  • An issue that occasionally caused the Eth1 syncing process to get stuck before reaching the head of the chain.

  • Unnecessary network traffic related to GossipSub IHAVE.

  • Incorrect gossipsub pruning which occasionally resulted in messages getting lost.

  • An issue where an excessively long graffiti string could cause a crash on startup.

  • A Linux-only issue that resulted in the deposits import command ignoring its supplied arguments.

2020-11-29 v1.0.0-stateofus

As promised, a slightly more polished release before Mainnet launch ✨

Please make sure you update to this release before Eth2 genesis this Tuesday (December 1 12:00:23 UTC), as it contains some important improvements.

New features:

  • Updated list of bootstrap nodes for Mainnet.

  • Prometheus metrics for validator balances. The beacon node will also display the total balance of all attached validators in the status footer by default.

  • deposits import now automagically finds the validator_keys directory produced by the eth2.0-deposit-cli if it is located in the same working directory.

  • A deposits exit command for submitting a voluntary validator exit.

  • A record CLI command for inspecting and creating ENR records.

  • An --agent-string option for specifying how Nimbus will present itself in LibP2P messages. The default value is now nimbus.

  • New RPC calls to track node and config status. Specifically, a JSON-RCP call for inspecting the active config preset (get_v1_config_spec).

We've fixed:

  • Inaccurate peer counts (an occasional mismatch between the number of syncing peers and GossipSub peers) -- the default peer limit has been increased to maintain a healthy gossip mesh.

  • High bandwidth usage of GossipSub (due to sub-optimal caching and lack of limits in the IWANT/IHAVE exchange messages) -- we're now using the latest spec GossipSub parameters.

  • High sync memory footprint -- we've reduced the number of sync workers from 20 to 10 (note, this should not affect sync speed).

2020-11-25 v1.0.0-rc1

We're happy to join the other client teams in announcing our v1.0.0 release candidate with support for Mainnet ✨

You can use this release/binary to set up your rig and monitoring for Eth2 genesis next Tuesday (December 1 12:00:23 UTC).

N.B. There will be at least one more release, before December 1st. In particular, we are planning a more polished release for Sunday which will act as a drop-in replacement for this release candidate.

Don't worry if your peer count appears low at first -- It should increase as more validators connect to Mainnet.

Highlights include:

  • The addition of a deposit contract "state snapshot" to network metadata. This allows the client to skip syncing deposits made prior to the snapshot.

  • A much faster startup time. We've removed the deposits table from the database, which means the client no longer needs to process all deposits on start-up.

  • The Eth1 monitor no longer starts if the beacon node has zero validators attached to it.

  • The genesis detection code is now optional and disabled by default.

  • An RPC call to get Chronos futures at runtime.

  • Eth2 spec gossip parameters.

We've fixed:

  • A database corruption issue affecting Pyrmont nodes.

  • Unnecessary copy/memory alloc when loading DbSeq entries.

  • A block production issue affecting clients that hadn't finished downloading the latest deposits.

2020-11-20 v0.6.6

New features:

  • New RPC APIs for inspecting the internal state of the Eth1 monitor.

We've fixed:

  • A fork-choice issue causing Nimbus to get stuck on a particular slot.

  • A logic error causing Nimbus to vote for an incorrect Eth1 block.

  • A crash during initialization when the web3 provider is refusing to serve data (e.g. due to exceeded request quota).

2020-11-17 v0.6.4

New features:

  • Support for the Pyrmont testnet.

  • The PCRE library is no longer necessary for building Nimbus.

  • Sensitive files such as keystores are now accessible only to the user of the beacon node on POSIX systems (the group rights have been dropped).

We've fixed:

  • An issue preventing blocks to be downloaded when the client goes out of sync.

  • Resource leaks that may lead to reduction of network activity due to a build-up of malfunctioning peer connections.

2020-11-12 v0.6.2

A bugfix release addressing issues discovered in the Toledo network.

New features:

  • GossipSub 1.1

  • The beacon node status bar (footer) now contains a time-left-until-synced estimate.

  • A JSON-RPC method setLogLevel for dynamically changing the log level of selected components at run-time.

  • The ability to launch Nimbus with a partially-synced Geth node.

We've fixed:

  • A bug preventing the node from proposing blocks when connected to a web3 provider

  • An invalid "corrupted database" error message appearing on start-up

  • Incorrectly set message-ids in gossip message causing other clients to penalise and potentially disconnect our nodes from the network.

  • An issue occuring when Nimbus is paired with a Geth node that is not fully synced.

2020-11-09 Hope (v0.6.0)

Nimbus eth2 0.6.0 was the first externally audited and stable release of our beacon node software. When compared to the 0.5x series, it features significant reductions in storage and memory requirements, a faster sync speed, and a plethora of usability and security enhancements across the board. Under normal network conditions, the delivery rate of attestations and block proposals is expected to be above 99%. Going forward, our release schedule will start to accelerate, with multiple new releases expected before the Eth2 mainnet launch.

Changelog highlights include:

  • Full support for the 1.0 Eth2 phase0 spec and the monitoring of the mainnet validator deposit contract.

  • LibP2P and GossipSub fixes which drastically improve the delivery of attestations and blocks (nearly 100% expected rate of delivery).

  • Fixes for all major resource leaks: you no longer need to restart your node to improve its performance.

  • Efficient caching and storage mechanisms: ensures our memory consumption remains comparatively low both during smooth and turbulent network conditions.

  • Several storage and networking optimisations leading to an order of magnitude improvement in beacon chain sync speed.

  • Audits to our codebase by ConsenSys Diligence, NCC Group and Trail of Bits. More than 60 of the security findings have already been addressed. The remaining items will be resolved before mainnet launch.

  • Support for pairing with a locally running Geth instance to allow for decentralised monitoring of the validator deposit contract.

  • An extensive user guide for managing the beacon node.

  • Slashing protection mechanisms + database.

  • Support for storing the validator signing keys in a separate process, isolated from the network, with a minimal attack surface.