Community Update 195

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Oct 27, 2021
4 min read

General

  • Status of the networks and Releases
    • Main net observer nodes are running RNode version 0.12.3 (with alleviation fix for tuplespace mismatch error) and validator nodes are running version 0.12.2 (with a fix for transaction API). Both these 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.
    • 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 0.12.3 version) is available for the community 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/
    • Both *.bm.testnet.rchain.coop and *.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop are part of hard fork 2. the llbm version has the latest code. Having the two testnets will 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. Current state of the llbm testnet is that it requires network restart every couple of days or so. The team is resolving any bugs/ reliability issues on  *.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop (Leaderless blockmerge testnet) .  However, we are making it available for community testing, so we get early feedback. Community members interested in testing can request testrev for llbm in the #testnet channel. Once we determine llbm.testnet to be stable, it will become the sole testnet for hard fork 2.

Sprint 100 in progress

Main Focus is to prepare the block merge Hard fork (hf2), specifically (a) merging REV balances directly - currently on hold until other llbm issues are resolved (b) leaderless block merge - work ongoing (c) a lot of testing + bug fixing and (d) performance improvements. Other work includes resolving any identified bugs,  hardening the network.  Current PR list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls .  

Block merge Hard Fork (hf2)

  1. The team has concluded reviewing the recent designs for llbm. They have broken the scope into multiple steps, to separate the changes immediately needed for llbm from other code refactoring that can be refined and delivered in future releases.  This planning involves both articulating an eventual desired end state as well as detailed analysis of current code base and figuring out manageable pathways from current state to desired end state. The team will be working on the prioritization and distribution of these tasks among the team members the rest of the week. The main focus is to stabilize the code, rewrite tests, make sure everything works as expected.
  2. Denis is optimizing his algorithm for radixTree based History to minimize the amount of data that needs to be handled and stored.  We expect that this work will be integrated with the code base by the time we release HF2.
  3. At this time, the llbm testnet is still unstable, but the team is fixing the problems one by one. we expect more stability on llbm by end of next week.
  4. Stanislav is coming up to speed with the code base. He submitted his first PR https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3521 to resolve this issue https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3495 This PR implements getBlock via hash lookups from BlockDagRepresentation, thus improving performance. He will be adding performance measurements to this PR.
  5. 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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