Community Update 192

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Last updated: Oct 06, 2021

General

  • Status of the networks and Releases
    • Main net is running RNode version 0.12.2. 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.
    • IBM rolled out a docker upgrade which caused the main net nodes to restart.
    • Current test net info is at RChain public testnet information
    • There two planned hard forks: 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 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/
    • Nutzipper is trying to resolve a bug in *.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop (Leaderless blockmerge testnet) that prevents network moving forward.  Once the bug is resolved, this will be available for community testing. Nutzipper had previously tested this for 2000+ blocks.
    • Both *.bm.testnet.rchain.coop and *.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop are part of hard fork 2. the llbm version has the latest code. For now we will leave both block merge testnets in place since the llbm version is expected to be unstable initially. Having the two testnets will also allow the community testers to trace any unexpected behavior 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 98 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. Nutzipper is continuing with fixing any bugs in the llbm code and also completing additional llbm work.
  2. Will has submitted a PR for a new script to run transaction balances  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3517. This script is more flexible and can be run on other networks besides the main net.
  3. The leaderless block merge testnet is up and running. Gurinder is experimenting with a couple of configurations because the llbm version uses the cpu much more fully.
  4. Denis has corrected his code (radixTree implementation of History) to ensure stack safety. He is running performance tests in memory vs. LMDB and fine-tuning the LMDB parameters to improve performance. He will be running this in the full node, to measure performance there.
  5. When the full team is available next week or so, the team will be reviewing the remaining Hard fork 2 tasks to determine the priority and work distribution of the remaining tasks.
  6. 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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