nimbus-eth2/beacon_chain/gossip_processing
Etan Kissling eec6c04d32
do not descore peer when EL connection fails (#4020)
When the EL fails to respond to `newPayload`, e.g., because connection
to the EL got interrupted, or due to misconfiguration, optimistic blocks
cannot be imported according to spec. This condition is treated the same
as if the peer returned a block with missing parent which gets the block
out of our processing queue, but can have nasty side effects.

For example, if sync manager asks for validation of a block known to be
in the finalized range, if it receives a `MissingParent` verdict, the
peer is immediately removed from the peer pool.

```
DBG 2022-08-24 11:45:26.874+02:00 newPayload: inserting block into execution engine parentHash=e4ca7424 blockHash=36cdc198 stateRoot=cf3902c1 receiptsRoot=56e81f17 prevRandao=0b49a172 blockNumber=1518089 gasLimit=30000000 gasUsed=0 timestamp=1657980396 extraDataLen=0 baseFeePerGas=7 numTransactions=0
ERR 2022-08-24 11:45:26.875+02:00 newPayload failed                          msg="Transport is not initialised (missing a call to connect?)"
DBG 2022-08-24 11:45:26.875+02:00 Block pool rejected peer's response        topics="syncman" request=187232:32@1475 peer=16U*MsCJdx direction=forward blocks_map=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx blocks_count=31 ok=false unviable=false missing_parent=true sync_ident=main
ERR 2022-08-24 11:45:26.875+02:00 Unexpected missing parent at finalized epoch slot topics="syncman" request=187232:32@1475 peer=16U*MsCJdx direction=forward rewind_to_slot=187232 blocks_count=31 blocks_map=xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx sync_ident=main
DBG 2022-08-24 11:45:26.875+02:00 Peer was removed from PeerPool due to low score topics="beacnde" peer=16U*MsCJdx peer_score=-1000 score_low_limit=0 score_high_limit=1000
DBG 2022-08-24 11:45:26.875+02:00 Lost connection to peer                    topics="networking" peer=16U*MsCJdx connections=0
```

By delaying issuing a verdict until the EL connection is restored and
`newPayload` successfully ran, the problem should be fixed. This also
induces back pressure to the sync manager by stopping download of new
blocks (or re-downloading the same block over and over again).
2022-08-24 16:55:41 +00:00
..
README.md update spec ref URLs (#3979) 2022-08-17 11:33:19 +00:00
batch_validation.nim cache shuffling separately from other EpochRef data (fixes #2677) (#3990) 2022-08-18 21:07:01 +03:00
block_processor.nim do not descore peer when EL connection fails (#4020) 2022-08-24 16:55:41 +00:00
eth2_processor.nim update spec ref URLs (#4005) 2022-08-20 16:03:32 +00:00
gossip_validation.nim update spec ref URLs (#4005) 2022-08-20 16:03:32 +00:00
light_client_processor.nim update spec ref URLs (#4005) 2022-08-20 16:03:32 +00:00

README.md

Gossip Processing

This folder holds a collection of modules to:

  • validate raw gossip data before
    • rebroadcasting it (potentially aggregated)
    • sending it to one of the consensus object pools

Validation

Gossip validation is different from consensus verification in particular for blocks.

There are multiple consumers of validated consensus objects:

  • a ValidationResult.Accept output triggers rebroadcasting in libp2p
    • We jump into method validate(PubSub, Message) in libp2p/protocols/pubsub/pubsub.nim
    • which was called by rpcHandler(GossipSub, PubSubPeer, RPCMsg)
  • a blockValidator message enqueues the validated object to the processing queue in block_processor
    • blockQueue: AsyncQueue[BlockEntry] (shared with request_manager and sync_manager)
    • This queue is then regularly processed to be made available to the consensus object pools.
  • a xyzValidator message adds the validated object to a pool in eth2_processor
    • Attestations (unaggregated and aggregated) get collected into batches.
    • Once a threshold is exceeded or after a timeout, they get validated together using BatchCrypto.

Security concerns

As the first line of defense in Nimbus, modules must be able to handle bursts of data that may come:

  • from malicious nodes trying to DOS us
  • from long periods of non-finality, creating lots of forks, attestations