Community Update 104

General

• 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 This is the public beta release.

  • Getting ready to release 0.9.19 with the following improvements: resolve known block mergeability conflicts in PoS.rho, web api, bug fixes including fixes for 'insufficient phlo' crashing the node.  

• Sprint 44 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
    • Refactor (modularize, decouple) PoS.rho proof of stake contract to minimize mergeability conflicts. There are three specific issues identified. The fixes are published in https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2837  It's currently under review and will be merged after approvals.  We need to complete the logic to handle slashing correctly - this is being worked on in parallel to the reviews.
    • TreeHashMap being used to improve performance in Registry.rho as well as in the above mergeability solution.  The PR is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2840  The registry was storing all its data in a single rholang map. This meant that every time anything got added to the registry, the whole thing would get read and then written back again. It also caused conflicts between any two blocks in which something was added to the registry. This PR modifies the registry to use TreeHashMap, which mitigates these problems.  In addition, the pending rewards are now stored in this TreeHashMap. Because this part of the state must be modified in each block by every validator, having a tree helps a lot in reducing the conflicts.  
    • Improvements to Tuple space merging in Rspace RNode feature gaps. Likely to be released in 0.9.19 - PR getting ready to be published - 
    • Working on an error handling framework to correctly handle replay errors / mismatches.
  • Hardening
    • In Review - PR to secure access to protocol-private PoS methods   RCHAIN-3888 - Getting issue details... STATUS   https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2781
    • 'insufficient phlo' bringing down the node - PR is getting ready - Likely to be in 0.9.19 . 
  • Casper and block storage
    • In review, expect to be merged in next release - Persist Deploys in LMDB -  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2820 
    • Merged - Limit maximum parent depth https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2816 . 
  • dApp developer tools and documentation. 
    • Merged, planning to include in the next release - Addressing dApp developer needs for HTTP interface  https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2811 
    • Ready to be merged - expect to include in the next release - Add support for ethereum personal signature format https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2789
  • Performance improvements
    • Merged - Remove adhoc parallelism bounds on Pars https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/2814
  • Refactoring, Optimizations and bug fixes, hardening - ongoing 

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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.

Blockers to testnet-3

• TBD

Risks to code completion for Mercury

• Evaluating backlog vs current velocity 

Developer website

• https://developer.rchain.coop