lighthouse

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Author	SHA1	Message	Date
Michael Sproul	acd49d988d	Implement database temp states to reduce memory usage (#1798 ) ## Issue Addressed Closes #800 Closes #1713 ## Proposed Changes Implement the temporary state storage algorithm described in #800. Specifically: * Add `DBColumn::BeaconStateTemporary`, for storing 0-length temporary marker values. * Store intermediate states immediately as they are created, marked temporary. Delete the temporary flag if the block is processed successfully. * Add a garbage collection process to delete leftover temporary states on start-up. * Bump the database schema version to 2 so that a DB with temporary states can't accidentally be used with older versions of the software. The auto-migration is a no-op, but puts in place some infra that we can use for future migrations (e.g. #1784) ## Additional Info There are two known race conditions, one potentially causing permanent faults (hopefully rare), and the other insignificant. ### Race 1: Permanent state marked temporary EDIT: this has been fixed by the addition of a lock around the relevant critical section There are 2 threads that are trying to store 2 different blocks that share some intermediate states (e.g. they both skip some slots from the current head). Consider this sequence of events: 1. Thread 1 checks if state `s` already exists, and seeing that it doesn't, prepares an atomic commit of `(s, s_temporary_flag)`. 2. Thread 2 does the same, but also gets as far as committing the state txn, finishing the processing of its block, and _deleting_ the temporary flag. 3. Thread 1 is (finally) scheduled again, and marks `s` as temporary with its transaction. 4. a) The process is killed, or thread 1's block fails verification and the temp flag is not deleted. This is a permanent failure! Any attempt to load state `s` will fail... hope it isn't on the main chain! Alternatively (4b) happens... b) Thread 1 finishes, and re-deletes the temporary flag. In this case the failure is transient, state `s` will disappear temporarily, but will come back once thread 1 finishes running. I _hope_ that steps 1-3 only happen very rarely, and 4a even more rarely. It's hard to know This once again begs the question of why we're using LevelDB (#483), when it clearly doesn't care about atomicity! A ham-fisted fix would be to wrap the hot and cold DBs in locks, which would bring us closer to how other DBs handle read-write transactions. E.g. [LMDB only allows one R/W transaction at a time](https://docs.rs/lmdb/0.8.0/lmdb/struct.Environment.html#method.begin_rw_txn). ### Race 2: Temporary state returned from `get_state` I don't think this race really matters, but in `load_hot_state`, if another thread stores a state between when we call `load_state_temporary_flag` and when we call `load_hot_state_summary`, then we could end up returning that state even though it's only a temporary state. I can't think of any case where this would be relevant, and I suspect if it did come up, it would be safe/recoverable (having data is safer than _not_ having data). This could be fixed by using a LevelDB read snapshot, but that would require substantial changes to how we read all our values, so I don't think it's worth it right now.	2020-10-23 01:27:51 +00:00

Author

SHA1

Message

Date

Michael Sproul

acd49d988d

Implement database temp states to reduce memory usage (#1798 )

## Issue Addressed

Closes #800
Closes #1713

## Proposed Changes

Implement the temporary state storage algorithm described in #800. Specifically:

* Add `DBColumn::BeaconStateTemporary`, for storing 0-length temporary marker values.
* Store intermediate states immediately as they are created, marked temporary. Delete the temporary flag if the block is processed successfully.
* Add a garbage collection process to delete leftover temporary states on start-up.
* Bump the database schema version to 2 so that a DB with temporary states can't accidentally be used with older versions of the software. The auto-migration is a no-op, but puts in place some infra that we can use for future migrations (e.g. #1784)

## Additional Info

There are two known race conditions, one potentially causing permanent faults (hopefully rare), and the other insignificant.

### Race 1: Permanent state marked temporary

EDIT: this has been fixed by the addition of a lock around the relevant critical section

There are 2 threads that are trying to store 2 different blocks that share some intermediate states (e.g. they both skip some slots from the current head). Consider this sequence of events:

1. Thread 1 checks if state `s` already exists, and seeing that it doesn't, prepares an atomic commit of `(s, s_temporary_flag)`.
2. Thread 2 does the same, but also gets as far as committing the state txn, finishing the processing of its block, and _deleting_ the temporary flag.
3. Thread 1 is (finally) scheduled again, and marks `s` as temporary with its transaction.
4.
    a) The process is killed, or thread 1's block fails verification and the temp flag is not deleted. This is a permanent failure! Any attempt to load state `s` will fail... hope it isn't on the main chain! Alternatively (4b) happens...
    b) Thread 1 finishes, and re-deletes the temporary flag. In this case the failure is transient, state `s` will disappear temporarily, but will come back once thread 1 finishes running.

I _hope_ that steps 1-3 only happen very rarely, and 4a even more rarely. It's hard to know

This once again begs the question of why we're using LevelDB (#483), when it clearly doesn't care about atomicity! A ham-fisted fix would be to wrap the hot and cold DBs in locks, which would bring us closer to how other DBs handle read-write transactions. E.g. [LMDB only allows one R/W transaction at a time](https://docs.rs/lmdb/0.8.0/lmdb/struct.Environment.html#method.begin_rw_txn).

### Race 2: Temporary state returned from `get_state`

I don't think this race really matters, but in `load_hot_state`, if another thread stores a state between when we call `load_state_temporary_flag` and when we call `load_hot_state_summary`, then we could end up returning that state even though it's only a temporary state. I can't think of any case where this would be relevant, and I suspect if it did come up, it would be safe/recoverable (having data is safer than _not_ having data).

This could be fixed by using a LevelDB read snapshot, but that would require substantial changes to how we read all our values, so I don't think it's worth it right now.

2020-10-23 01:27:51 +00:00

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