Community Update 191

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Last updated: Sept 29, 2021

General

  • Status of the networks and Releases
    • Gurinder and Nutzipper are working on releasing RNode version 0.12.2 and updating all main net nodes to this version. This version includes the block merge code that does not require a hard fork, but block merge is currently disabled until we have the block merge version coming up in hard fork 2, aka block merge hard fork. RNode version 0.12.2 includes Will's bug fix for transaction API
    • Current test net info is at RChain public testnet information
    • There two planned hard forks are: one for block merge (release versioning will be 0.13.x) and one for PoS changes (release versioning will be either 0.14.x or 1.x.x) to eventually enable a fully decentralized node with external validators.
    • A block merge test net (currently running the 0.12.2-rc1 version) is available for the community now at node{0-4}.bm.testnet.rchain.coop, observer.bm.testnet.rchain.coop, faucet is available at https://status.bm.testnet.rchain.coop/testnet/faucet/ and Tomislav's (TypeScript) test page with block merge network support is available at https://tgrospic.github.io/rnode-client-js-dev-test/
    • Gurinder is working on setting up a Leaderless blockmerge testnet *.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop to enable community testing of the latest leaderless block merge code. Nutzipper has tested this for up to 2000 blocks, we want to give it a much longer run and a variety of use cases tested against it, like Dappy, RChain Publishing etc.
    • Both *.bm.testnet.rchain.coop and *.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop are targeted to hard fork 2. the llbm version has the latest code. We wanted to leave both in place rather than directly update the bm version in case applications like Dappy are running long running tests and/or need a stable testnet (the bm testnet). Having the two testnets will also allow the community testers to trace any unexpected behaviour in their tests to the latest code changes vs. the code that has been running on bm.testnet for a while. Once we determine llbm.testnet to be stable, it will become the sole testnet for hard fork 2.

Sprint 97 in progress

Main Focus is to prepare the block merge Hard fork (hf2), specifically (a) merging REV balances directly - in process (b) leaderless block merge - work ongoing (c) a lot of testing + bug fixing and (d) performance improvements. Other work items include resolving any identified bugs,  hardening the network.  Current PR list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls .  

Block merge Hard Fork (hf2)

  1. Two demos today - Raphael will demo 'wrapped BTC'
  2. Will has been submitted a PR to alleviate the Tuple space mismatch error https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3516. This PR retries the replay 3 times, to eliminate the tuple space error. If this still does not eliminate the tuple space error, the node proceeds to slash. This PR will be reviewed and tested for a while to see if the node recovers from the error and proceeds, and to make sure that this fix does not cause any other problems.
  3. Leaderless block merge code is ready to be moved to a testnet. It needs to be run for a while.  Additional optimization work needs to be done, including rewriting existing tests or writing new tests, including Casper tests. The team is proceeding with this. We will review the optimizations and other changes to see which ones need to be done right away because they have a hard fork impact vs. those that can be done as regular updates to the 0.13.x release.
  4. Tomislav is taking a health break. When he returns, he will be working on completing direct merging of REV balances (specifically,  the rejection of deploys in case of double spend) https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3513 and the leaderless block merge tests. 
  5. Gurinder has been helping the RChain Publishing team set up and run their own shard for NFTs.
  6. Denis is continuing to work on radix tree implementation of History. He's currently working on ensuring stack safety of his code.
  7. While the Leaderless Blockmerge code will be on the test net in September, getting it on the main net will take a few more weeks. As of now, we expect to complete this in October.
  8. Status of various Block merge tasks is at
    1. https://github.com/rchain/rchain/projects/4

Release Plan for the rest of the year and beyond - for reference

Currently planned near term releases are

  1. Block merge release hard fork 2 plus any configuration changes that do not need extensive work - Leaderful and Leaderless block merge
  2. Configuration changes release,
  3. Performance improvements releases (one or more),
  4. Hard Fork 3 with PoS changes and other items,
  5. External validators process validation with trusted community validators (aka Friends & Family) on the test net
  6. Friends & Family validation on the main net
  7. External validators among extended ecosystem (e.g. exchanges, if they're willing)
  8. External validators in the wild.


Explanation of the different Hard Forks (for reference)

Proceeding further with block merge requires changes to the per validator vault to make it a per deploy vault/purse etc. We are currently finalizing the design for this. Actual code and test will take some time. We are potentially looking at this scenario:
1. First hard fork for balances and removing the slashed validator
2. Second hard fork for block merge - This is the fastest way to get block merge on the main net without holding it until the third hard fork. This includes REV balance merging (aka per deploy vault), attestation messages and the Tree depth being increased to 4.
3. Third hard fork with all other changes.  Third hard fork includes implementation of a lot of changes including the PoS contract changes, Soft fork process etc.  Design for soft fork process is complete and is being reviewed by the team.

(Hard Fork) TEST NET 2 ADVISORY: (for reference)

To test the version of block merge with data changes that need a hard fork, we are creating a separate feature branch and a TEST NET 2 as the testbed for this feature branch. This content will be left here until we are close to Hard Fork 2 implementation on the main net. TestNet 2 is now available for the community to test their contracts on.

  1. There will be no guarantees of data storage format compatibility on Test Net 2, as the data storage format changes are incrementally implemented. The anticipated changes are mostly storage level format changes visible only to node operators. We encourage the community to start using Test Net 2 in addition to the current test net, so that we can quickly identify and resolve any issues with the upcoming hard forks. All new development should be targeted to TEST NET 2 and all current code MUST BE tested against TEST NET 2 to ensure future compatibility. 

On all the hard forks on the main net, we will be starting from an empty state, with REV balances only. On Test Net 2, this 'loosing the state' will be repeated multiple times.

Tech-Governance meetings on Fridays 9:30 AM Eastern, 6:30 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. 

Developer website

https://developer.rchain.coop 

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