Community Update 127

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Last updated: Jul 08, 2020

General

  • Release
    • Currently testing RNode-0.9.25.1 release on the sandbox. It is still in development. We will be adding 2 to 3 more PRs to this release (for a total of 15 PRs or so) and test on testnet when ready (expect to start this over the weekend or early next week). The main content is DAG Store, BlockStore and LMDB improvements, using the Key Value Store implemented in 0.9.25.  Included PRs are listed at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls?q=is%3Apr+milestone%3Av0.9.25.1  This is the second  and substantial part of the Last Finalized State milestone. Release 0.9.26 will complete Last Finalized State.  Open PRs list at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls
    • Tomislav to demo today the initial working version of Last Finalized State. This still needs a lot of tests and other work. That's the content of release 0.9.26 
    • All nodes on the mainnet are currently running release 0.9.25.  We will start moving some of the main net validator nodes to the IBM cloud.
    • Release Notes:  RNode-0.9.25 release plan  and https://github.com/rchain/rchain/releases/tag/v0.9.25
    • Full PR list for Rnode-0.9.25 is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls?q=is%3Apr+milestone%3Av0.9.25+is%3Aclosed
    • 0.9.25 is a bug fix release, with significant configuration changes, preparatory constructs for last finalized state and many other enhancements (total of 25 PRs): Improvements to RNode Storage (Keyvaluestore in LMDB to be used in future releases by DAG Store and Block Store, as well as to cache transactions and state changes), HTTP Admin API endpoint and by bytesToHex method by Arthur Greef, Ability to visualize DAG from any point, Improved logging and handling of errors in the Web API, Configuration for API server, isFinalized call in the http API etc.
    • Sequence of updates is testnet to mainnet observers and then main net validators if applicable. Current philosophy is to minimize updates/disruptions to validator nodes while enabling improved observer node functionality.
  • Sprint 57 in progress
    • Main Focus: Work towards completing Last Finalized State, identify and address as many slashing issues/bugs as possible, hardening the main net, improve performance.  Current PR list at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls
    • Current Work In Progress 
      • Performance: Nutzipper has started capturing some performance data using a highly recursive contract. We are analyzing the results obtained to see what they can tell us about areas for improvement. We are still at preliminary stages of this analysis. We will report as we make progress on the insights and implement the improvements.
      • Ongoing - Investigate and Fix Slashing errors: One validator node was slashed due to tuple space mismatch. First part of debugging revealed that the problem is manifesting when Trie is recalculated because of insert/delete of nodes when they share common prefix. RCHAIN-4102 - Getting issue details... STATUS We are fixing this issue. While it would certainly help reduce errors, it's not clear that this is the ONLY source of the problem. At this time this is a non-deterministic and rare error. It took 3 months to manifest and only in one of the ten main net nodes. We will continue to watch and analyze/debug it. We have to put in place a strategy to handle such errors. This is a future ToDo.
      • Fix rewards / cost accounting bug: In developing a dashboard to display validator rewards and costs. This seems to occur after slashing.  Tomislav noticed that the sequence/timing of application of the various charges and rewards may be incorrect. PR to fix this is currently in. Developing unit tests and testing on the sandbox. 
      • 0.9.26 is targeted to be the release for completion of Last Finalized State. 0.9.25.1 is expected be released in the next week or two if no substantial issues are discovered during testing.
      • Addressing discovered bugs: Investigating the 'tuple space error' that we occasionally see on the main net.
      • Ongoing - Improvements to last finalized state issued but quite a bit of work involved still. Significant progress, some of which have been released in 0.9.25 and more scheduled to be released in 0.9.25.1 after testing is complete. The PR and the branch are structured so that multiple people can collaborate/ work on different parts of the feature at the same time. The scope of this work enables (a) faster catchup by new nodes - you can start from the last finalized state - this is a differentiator for RChain (b) offloading older data, differentiated storage and retrieval strategies for the same (c) allows for a leaner / less bloated node. This change touches most parts of the code base. Having to pick between refactoring and work-arounds in various parts. Tomislav implemented a mostly modular and future-beneficial approach.
      • SRE - Most mainnet observer nodes are now on the IBM cloud. Moving the exchange servers and some of the mainnet validator nodes to IBM. The goal is to achieve substantial cost reduction but also diversity of cloud infrastructure such that the Rchain network can continue to operate even if one cloud provider has problems (eventual target of only 25% to 33% validator nodes on any given cloud).
      • CI/CD:
        • We are slowly moving from Jira to Github for the development team, started publishing release notes in Github with release 0.9.25.  New issues are entered only in github. For a while, we will maintain in both Jira and Github. 
      • TechGovernance:
        • Thursday 10 AM Eastern. In the last session Greg addressed questions related to  (a) sharding and interaction among shards - specifically, tree vs. mesh behavior and what token support across shards is needed to enable inter-operation (b) multi-sig wallets - mostly the various use cases were discussed (c) cross-chain interoperability - relates to sharding. We can potentially run one other chain (Ethereum or Hyperledger) as a shard and demonstrate inter-operation so that others can use that as a template to create inter-operation with other chains and (d) the role of consensus equational reasoning and theorem provers in governance.  Meeting notes are at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fvxMC6Bt5XwbVaLzYPy6ZPB8KzJvASO2sKRC6ZCPwpI
        • There were questions from the community regarding enabling privacy and zero knowledge proofs on the chain - this is in active discussion. Greg will create a position statement on this and likely discuss the current state of the art, use cases and potential approaches in an RCast session.  Same with sharding and cross-chain operation. 
      • dApp Development:
        • Dan Connolly continues to make progress on the RChat effort using zulip.
        • Theo gave an early demo of his functional cryptography based 'completely anonymous' voting 
      • Current Backlog (partial)
        • Improve merging in system deploys
        • Improve Casper by enabling more tests and resolving identified code issues
        • Improve BlockMerge including refactoring RunTimeManager
        • Improve multi-parent Casper enablement
        • Implement sharding capabilities
        • Improve logging to be able to learn what API calls are being used, so they can be related to resource use and performance etc
        • Rholang 1.1 to improve syntax and user experience / learning curve
      • Tuesday TeachOuts by Tomislav (Tuesday 10 AM Eastern, 7 Am pacific) in Jimscarver's zoom room https://zoom.us/j/6853551826 

Tech-Governance meetings on Thursdays 10 AM Eastern, 7 Am Pacific 

Mercury requirements and acceptance criteria

Details on the acceptance criteria: Mercury acceptance criteria

Please see the documentation at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/blob/dev/docs/features.md. 

Testnet status

Please see RChain public testnet information to learn more about public testnet as well as a FAQ.

Tech Governance + Community testing

Thursdays at 14:00 UTC. Please see RChain community RNode testing for more information.

Blockers to Mainnet

NA

Risks to code completion for Mercury


Developer website

https://developer.rchain.coop 

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