Community Update 197

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Nov 10, 2021

General

  • Status of the networks and Releases
    • All Main net nodes are running RNode version 0.12.3 (with fix to alleviate the tuple space mismatch error and the  transaction API fix). 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.
    • Current test net info is at RChain public testnet information
    • There are 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. The *.llbm.testnet.rchain stability is much improved, but the team will be making further changes to it. It is available for community testing, to get early feedback. Community members interested in testing can request testrev for llbm in the #testnet channel. Once we determine llbm.testnet to be fully stable, it will become the sole testnet for hard fork 2.*.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop (Leaderless blockmerge testnet)

Sprint 102 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 been aggressively debugging the llbm testnet and implementing the necessary fixes/changes on both the llbm testnet branch and the HF2 branch. Will and Gurinder have been testing the llbm testnet to identify any bugs that nutzipper can fix, for e.g. https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3525.
  2. Will has merged the dev branch to HF2 branch and resolved conflicts. He is also looking into some of the tests that are failing on the HF2 branch and correcting the tests where needed.There's more work to be done on the tests after the code changes and bug fixes are completed.
  3. Tomislav is implementing the DagManager https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3528.  This allows modular integration of code changes and parallel development of different parts. This will also allow Stanislav to work on API improvements when he joins full time.
  4. Denis is continuing storage optimizations in his algorithm for radixTree based History https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3515 in collaboration with Tomislav.  He and/or Tomislav will present his work next week. We expect that Denis will have made some progress in integrating his work into the full code base by then.
  5. Stanislav is implementing the edge cases like https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3529  ( Fix method to find BlockHash by truncated string of odd length) for his original PR https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3495 . Once all these changes are tested and merged, this code can go on the current testnet and main net as an incremental release, along with Will's new transaction balance script.
  6. Many thanks to the community for testing the llbm testnet. Please continue to test - we need more testing.
  7. Nutzipper and the team are working on simplifying Casper to be included in the HF2 branch https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3520 in addition to making llbm testnet stable.
  8. A fix for the 'cost mismatch' error is implemented by nutzipper and is being tested to see if it is completely eliminated.
  9. We haven't held a Tech Governance meeting in a while due to the pre-occupation of the dev team with the llbm work. We will soon have a TechGov meeting to consider community RCHIP proposals and review plans for the upcoming improvements in developer experience.
  10. Status of various Block merge tasks is at
    1. https://github.com/rchain/rchain/projects/4
    2. Current status of updated HF2 task list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3315

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 

Date