Community Update 183

Owned by Rao Bhamidipati
Last updated: Aug 04, 2021
5 min read

General

  • Status of the networks and Releases
    • All Main net nodes are running Hard fork 1 version of RNode version 0.12.1 https://github.com/rchain/rchain/releases/tag/v0.12.1 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.
    • Test net is also running the same version as above. Current test net info is at RChain public testnet information
    • Today is the last day to add REV to staking pool. Please email staking@rchain.coop If you want to stake additional REV or withdraw your current stake (ONLY the portion that is not subject to long term staking in your purchase contract). The default is to roll over your stake to the next period if you take no action.
    • There will be two more hard forks after this, 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.
    • A preliminary block merge test net is available for the community now. As we complete the remaining block merge work outlined below, we will continue to update this test net.  We expect the performance of this network to improve as we complete these tasks.

Sprint 92 in progress

Main Focus is to prepare the block merge Hard fork (hf2), specifically (a) per deploy vault (b) Attestation messages (c) a lot of testing + bug fixing and (d) performance improvements. Other work items include resolving any identified bugs, improving  performance, hardening the network. Hard fork 3 changes - PoS contract and other.  Current PR list is at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pulls .  

Block merge Hard Fork (hf2)

  1. Nutzipper is making significant progress on the testing of block merge. He's created a DAG simulator to quickly identify bugs in the block merge code. You specify the number of nodes and it simulates network traffic to create the dag as well as run through the whole block merge process. This should allow more complete test coverage and faster discovery of bugs. In the medium term, we can expand this for other purposes such as a full network simulation, debugging, identification of security holes etc.  
  2. Work on Per deploy vaults is proceeding and work on Attestation messages (https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3452) is starting this week. Attestation messages allow finalization whether or not there are follow-on real (paid) deploys. One way to think about network throughput is time to finalization. The attestation messages allow finalization without overbuilding the network with beefy nodes as we work to generate more paid transaction volume.
  3. Denis is making progress on performance improvements in the Merkle tree.
  4. We will be generating some preliminary tps numbers over the next week or two to inform the power consumption characterization of the network that Steve Ross-Talbot is working on. There was a request that it be updated to reflect the true transaction throughput of RChain rather than report a lower number just for the sake of comparison with Tezos.
  5. Status of various Block merge tasks is at
    1. https://github.com/rchain/rchain/projects/4
  6. Other changes:
    1. Will completed https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3497 as a fix for the bug reported in https://github.com/rchain/rchain/issues/3491 The full data set is now used for hashing. He's fixing the failed tests on the PR and will get it ready for review.
    2. We had a disk failure on one of the test nodes. In general this should not cause too much of a problem whether it happens on the test net or main net, especially after we have the leaderless block DAG.  Currently any failed node stops the whole network. We will investigate a method to have a node switch to read only in case of disk failures and get back to validating when ready with the new disk.
    3. Community contribution Shout-Out: Tobi created a very nice Rholang SDK https://rchain-community.github.io/dapps/setup-sdk/ with an example nft-template application, to ease learning and development for newcomers to the platform.  Looks like we now have at least three paths to deploying NFTs on the platform. Dappy, Tobi's method and the RPublishing method.

Hard Fork 3 - PoS changes

  1. Quantifier continues to work on the system contracts update aka the Soft fork process at https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3485. 
  2. PR for Rev Vault logging is being reviewed https://github.com/rchain/rchain/pull/3418. Quantifier corrected the failing tests.

Release Plan

Currently planned near term releases are

  1. Block merge release hard fork 2 plus any configuration changes that do not need extensive work,
  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
  6. External validators among extended ecosystem
  7. 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 the per deploy vault 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. 

  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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