Community Update 103

• Release

  • Node version 0.9.18 is the current release - public beta - that includes per validator vaults to improve mergeability RNode-0.9.18 release plan

  • Testnet is running rnode version 0.9.18

  • Rnode 0.9.18 includes per validator vaults. This is the public beta release.

• Sprint 43 in progress

  • Main focus is (a) further improvements to mergeability (b) feature cleanup, testing, hardening, security, bug fixing (c) Network safety and reliability (d) getting ready for exchanges and dApp developers

  • Mergeability

    • Additional mergeability designs being considered, based on potential improvements to Tuple space merging in Rspace RNode feature gaps.

    • Refactor (modularize, decouple) PoS.rho proof of stake contract to minimize mergeability conflicts.

    • Completed design discussion on addressing mergeability. A hierarchical wallet solution is being considered because that is needed for other market requirements also.  We will evaluate implementation difficulty and decide soon.

  • Hardening

    • In Progress - PR to secure access to protocol-private PoS methods  https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3888  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2781

    • Continuing to debug the 'insufficient phlo' bringing down the node. Manual debugging is taking a long time due to the many interactions with the state and where the problem occurs vs. where it bubbles up. We will create a tool and better instrumentation to help debug such issues faster. This is necessary to reduce the effort involved in resolving bugs and also to enable us to respond quickly when in production/main net.

    • Currently being analyzed - One bug since Cost accounting release is being addressed. Some times, if there are problems with a particular contract (e.g. insufficient funds, the node is unable to move forward with other deploys). We're investigating the issue and enhancing exception handling to catch and isolate such situations to not impact node https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3923  https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3912  and https://rchain.atlassian.net/browse/RCHAIN-3937 .  PR for some of this is getting ready to be issued.

  • Casper and block storage

    • In review, expect to be merged in next release - Persist Deploys in LMDB -  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2820

    • In review - Limit maximum parent depth https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2816 . 

  • dApp developer tools and documentation. 

    • In review, planning to include in the next release - Addressing dApp developer needs for HTTP interface  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2811 

    • In review - expect to include in the next release - Add support for ethereum personal signature format https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2789

    • Identified initial documentation needs for exchanges + developers, will be working on these.

  • Performance improvements

    • In review - Remove adhoc parallelism bounds on Pars https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2814

    • Ongoing - Using flamegraphs to identify bottlnecks and adding improvements as possible. An example is improvement of ReplayRspace matching https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2812 Currently seems to provide variable performance improvement. 

    • Investigating performance degradation noticed since the https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2637 PR

  • Refactoring, Optimizations and bug fixes, hardening - ongoing 

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. 

• Testnet status

  • Please see RChain public testnet information to learn more about public testnet as well as a FAQ.

• Community testing

  • Sept 19 at 14:00 UTC. Please see RChain community RNode testing for more information.

• TBD

• Evaluating backlog vs current velocity 

• https://developer.rchain.coop