Community Update 200

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Dec 01, 2021

General

  • Status of the networks and Releases
    • All Main net nodes are running RNode version 0.12.4 (primarily containing the PRs to update the Open API JSON and the 'find by blockhash' function). 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.
    • 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 0.12.4 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 test nets 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 test net for hard fork 2.*.llbm.testnet.rchain.coop (Leaderless block merge test net)

Sprint 103 in progress

Main Focus is to prepare the leaderless 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. LLBM branch of the code is coming along nicely in the HF2 branch. LLBM test net is much more stable now and the community has been testing it. Kudos and a shout-out to mrjunfei, Linda2878, klniu for testing this. Nutzipper has fixed a few bugs identified by the community. He is extracting relevant parts of the code to create a PR to merge into the HF2 branch. Block merge behavior at the time of epoch change needs to be discussed and implemented (seems relatively straight forward at the moment). Please do continue to test more. Tomislav has been leading the design changes and mentoring the new devs for their tasks and detailed plans for the team tasks overall.
  2. Denis is making great progress implementing the import/export using his improved (better performance reduced storage) algorithm for History data. He will be integrating it into the HF2 branch.
  3. Stas changed the History reset method to return value in F type https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3533 and PR https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3535
  4. Improving developer experience: 
    1. Will has added getContinuationAtPars and geDataAtPar to the Runtime API
        https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3544  and also resolved a bug in a failing test upon code merging with Rholang 1.1 . He is making the necessary Rholang changes.
    2. Stas has updated the Rholang v1.1 branch with latest code from the dev branch. https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3546 There was a request from the community to accelerate releasing this so that new developers can learn Rholang 1.1 and start with that as the base. Currently we hope to release this along with HF2.
    3. Stas completed changes to status method (WebAPI, gRPC)  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3532 to add network id and shard name to the API response https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3543.
    4. Stas and Tomislav have been helping to onboard Martin, who is trying to complete the RChat work .  Tomislav is simplifying the packaging to start RChat (Zulip + RNode etc.)
  5. After LLBM tasks are complete, the team will be focusing on activities to make debugging and identification of performance bottlenecks easier for the core team, as well as for other developers.  Preparing to make sure we can make external deployments of RNode successful and that we can quickly respond to any discovered issues is key.
  6. 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 

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