Community Update 144

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Nov 04, 2020
6 min read

General

  • Release
    • All the main net observer nodes are running release 0.9.25.6, which is a bug fix release https://github.com/rchain/rchain/releases/tag/v0.9.25.6 Main net validators are currently running 0.9.25.5.
    • Tomislav is still preparing the final Rnode 0.9.26 release for the main net, (he has taken a few days off last week) which includes the Last Finalized State (LFS) work, which is a major milestone.  Additionally, he has been working on updating scalapb, grpc and netty. This was a bit involved because of the custom work done around the past deficiencies of scalapb. Tomislav has been simplifying how scalapb is used. We expect to be able to release all of this some time next week.  He will demonstrate the improvements next week, along with the conclusion of the Last Finalized state work on the main net.
    • Test net is running release 0.9.25.6 on all the nodes (validator as well as observers).  
    • With 0.9.26-lfs-Pre-release, node catch up is now much improved. This release also includes many bug fixes including for the slashing /tuple space mismatch bug reported earlier.  gRPC behaviour is improved with per validator grpc channel.   
    • Main net has 20 nodes running plus observer nodes and exchange nodes.
    • Main difference between testing on Observer nodes vs. Validator nodes: When we test on the observer node, a large part of the code base is executed. The Block creation code runs only on the validator nodes. As a part of that, the portion of the Runtime Manager that plays the deploy is run on the validator node but not on the observer node.
  • Sprint 69 in progress
    • Main Focus is work on releasing and enabling 0.9.26 on the main net, continue Block merge work in a couple of streams explained below, resolve recently identified bugs in hashing and concurrency (we suspect one of these is responsible for slashing errors), continue to update project dependencies to the latest feasible library versions, hardening the main net, improve performance.  Current PR list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls
    • Current Work In Progress
      • Good progress - Will and nutzipper anticipate merging their respective streams of work early next week. Significant work completed in Block Merge and conflict resolution for block merge. latest changes are being merged on to the Block merge branch.  Will is working on tests, runtime manager refactoring and combining his code for conflict resolution with nutzipper's block merge code changes.  nutzipper is working on additional refactoring needed for block merge.  These PRs involve substantial work, so it appears slow going, but we are indeed making good progress relative to the resources we have.
      • Will continues to work the logic to identify and resolve conflicts.  We will demo once the block merge branch is ready.
      • Dependencies - to be released next week: Significant updates to the dependencies are completed, more underway.  Scalapb, protobufs and netty changes are one of the significant dependency updates. These involve some code refactoring and writing new tests.  All these changes will be released along with the LFS version 0.9.26.
        • Update to Scala 2.13 may be the last dependency update, which may also take quite a bit of work.
      • Ongoing - Fix additional identified bugs
      • API and usability improvements - in conjunction with the community
        • In Process - Will has mostly completed the OpenAPI/Swagger documentation of the RNode API  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3128  He's will try to resolve the reviewer comments after he's done with blockmerge work or as time permits. Familiarity with Swagger and the available swagger tools should make it easy for developers to use our API.
        • Future - Also in the thinking stage is an improvement to revdefine.io or elsewhere, a graph representation of payments / transfers on the network, with perhaps date+time and amount on the arcs.
      • Release 0.9.27 and beyond
        • Near term road map is last finalized state (next week), block merge, updating PoS contract, sharding, name spaces
        • Creating a design spec and the code for how to update contracts on the main net.  This will enable addressing some of the pressing issues such as faster epoch times, and other issues listed below
        • In process: Finish dependency updates and plugin updates
        • In process: Improve error logging, debugging and monitoring infrastructure. This will help improve developer productivity, both on the core team as well as dApp developers
        • Ongoing - Refactor Run Time Manager. This includes many changes including https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2946.  We will be testing this with non-conflicting deploys. We're getting nice clean DAG after the refactoring the runtime to remove most of the locks and allow multiple runtimes to run in parallel. We may need more refactoring in future, but we want to do this incrementally, as needed. 
        • Protection from 'too much free work' attack, policy to reject deploys when user doesn't provide sufficient phlo or does not have sufficient REV in the wallet to cover the phlo etc - https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/2997  and https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/2976 
        • Implement On-chain configuration and Shard configuration  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2986
      • Release 0.9.28 - Block merge
      • Explanation for last finalized state (released in 0.9.26): 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.
      • Hackathon planning and execution is in full swing. Jim and Theo have been working intensely with the current cohort to get their environment set up, walk through the full lifecycle of development, point out resources etc. Need more registrations. Ian and team are actively reaching out to as many universities as possible. Please promote the much improved hackathon page at https://rchain.coop/hackathon.html to all the groups you are part of. Hackathon dates are Nov 7-8, with a second qualifying test scheduled for Friday Nov 6,  to accommodate student exam schedules and the less than anticipated response. 
        • In process - We need to further increase and properly size the Problem Statements, brief sessions on tips and tricks during the hackathon, and office hours during the hackathon.
        • Ongoing - Learning examples,  links  to and improvement of documentation.  Dan (dckc) has substantially improved the Rholang learning resources. Current plan is to make https://rholang.github.io/ the hub of all learning materials. dckc has been making substantial improvements to the learning materials as well as the API tools.  The community is requested to contribute to any or all of these.
      • CI/CD:
        • Ongoing - 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. Meets alternate weeks.  Last meeting focused on how to implement and manage shard configuration. Meeting notes are at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fvxMC6Bt5XwbVaLzYPy6ZPB8KzJvASO2sKRC6ZCPwpI  Discussions and work on a model of economics to ensure network security is proceeding. Most recent discussion was about ensuring some amount of stake beyond a 4 month window, spreading out stake over a longer time and how to incentivize that, while ensuring that everyone pays for network security.
        • ToDo - 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. 
      • In progress - Excel Model for 'economics of sustainable network security and decentralization' to enable community understanding of the inter-relationships and community conversation around these issues.  Will be releasing the initial version soon. May have multiple releases.
      • dApp Development:
        • Substantial progress on RVote including user testing of UI and improvements resulting from that.
        • Looking for developers to help make progress on the RChat effort using zulip.  SRT and possibly Will to add 'Rchain to zulip' functionality. Invite any community members with the expertise to help in this.
      • Current Backlog (partial)
        • Improve merging in system deploys
        • Improve Casper by enabling more tests and resolving identified code issues
        • Improve BlockMerge 
        • Improve multi-parent Casper enablement
        • Resolve slashing bugs, including additional refactoring of RunTimeManager
        • 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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