## Overview
This rather extensive PR achieves two primary goals:
1. Uses the finalized/justified checkpoints of fork choice (FC), rather than that of the head state.
2. Refactors fork choice, block production and block processing to `async` functions.
Additionally, it achieves:
- Concurrent forkchoice updates to the EL and cache pruning after a new head is selected.
- Concurrent "block packing" (attestations, etc) and execution payload retrieval during block production.
- Concurrent per-block-processing and execution payload verification during block processing.
- The `Arc`-ification of `SignedBeaconBlock` during block processing (it's never mutated, so why not?):
- I had to do this to deal with sending blocks into spawned tasks.
- Previously we were cloning the beacon block at least 2 times during each block processing, these clones are either removed or turned into cheaper `Arc` clones.
- We were also `Box`-ing and un-`Box`-ing beacon blocks as they moved throughout the networking crate. This is not a big deal, but it's nice to avoid shifting things between the stack and heap.
- Avoids cloning *all the blocks* in *every chain segment* during sync.
- It also has the potential to clean up our code where we need to pass an *owned* block around so we can send it back in the case of an error (I didn't do much of this, my PR is already big enough 😅)
- The `BeaconChain::HeadSafetyStatus` struct was removed. It was an old relic from prior merge specs.
For motivation for this change, see https://github.com/sigp/lighthouse/pull/3244#issuecomment-1160963273
## Changes to `canonical_head` and `fork_choice`
Previously, the `BeaconChain` had two separate fields:
```
canonical_head: RwLock<Snapshot>,
fork_choice: RwLock<BeaconForkChoice>
```
Now, we have grouped these values under a single struct:
```
canonical_head: CanonicalHead {
cached_head: RwLock<Arc<Snapshot>>,
fork_choice: RwLock<BeaconForkChoice>
}
```
Apart from ergonomics, the only *actual* change here is wrapping the canonical head snapshot in an `Arc`. This means that we no longer need to hold the `cached_head` (`canonical_head`, in old terms) lock when we want to pull some values from it. This was done to avoid deadlock risks by preventing functions from acquiring (and holding) the `cached_head` and `fork_choice` locks simultaneously.
## Breaking Changes
### The `state` (root) field in the `finalized_checkpoint` SSE event
Consider the scenario where epoch `n` is just finalized, but `start_slot(n)` is skipped. There are two state roots we might in the `finalized_checkpoint` SSE event:
1. The state root of the finalized block, which is `get_block(finalized_checkpoint.root).state_root`.
4. The state root at slot of `start_slot(n)`, which would be the state from (1), but "skipped forward" through any skip slots.
Previously, Lighthouse would choose (2). However, we can see that when [Teku generates that event](de2b2801c8/data/beaconrestapi/src/main/java/tech/pegasys/teku/beaconrestapi/handlers/v1/events/EventSubscriptionManager.java (L171-L182)) it uses [`getStateRootFromBlockRoot`](de2b2801c8/data/provider/src/main/java/tech/pegasys/teku/api/ChainDataProvider.java (L336-L341)) which uses (1).
I have switched Lighthouse from (2) to (1). I think it's a somewhat arbitrary choice between the two, where (1) is easier to compute and is consistent with Teku.
## Notes for Reviewers
I've renamed `BeaconChain::fork_choice` to `BeaconChain::recompute_head`. Doing this helped ensure I broke all previous uses of fork choice and I also find it more descriptive. It describes an action and can't be confused with trying to get a reference to the `ForkChoice` struct.
I've changed the ordering of SSE events when a block is received. It used to be `[block, finalized, head]` and now it's `[block, head, finalized]`. It was easier this way and I don't think we were making any promises about SSE event ordering so it's not "breaking".
I've made it so fork choice will run when it's first constructed. I did this because I wanted to have a cached version of the last call to `get_head`. Ensuring `get_head` has been run *at least once* means that the cached values doesn't need to wrapped in an `Option`. This was fairly simple, it just involved passing a `slot` to the constructor so it knows *when* it's being run. When loading a fork choice from the store and a slot clock isn't handy I've just used the `slot` that was saved in the `fork_choice_store`. That seems like it would be a faithful representation of the slot when we saved it.
I added the `genesis_time: u64` to the `BeaconChain`. It's small, constant and nice to have around.
Since we're using FC for the fin/just checkpoints, we no longer get the `0x00..00` roots at genesis. You can see I had to remove a work-around in `ef-tests` here: b56be3bc2. I can't find any reason why this would be an issue, if anything I think it'll be better since the genesis-alias has caught us out a few times (0x00..00 isn't actually a real root). Edit: I did find a case where the `network` expected the 0x00..00 alias and patched it here: 3f26ac3e2.
You'll notice a lot of changes in tests. Generally, tests should be functionally equivalent. Here are the things creating the most diff-noise in tests:
- Changing tests to be `tokio::async` tests.
- Adding `.await` to fork choice, block processing and block production functions.
- Refactor of the `canonical_head` "API" provided by the `BeaconChain`. E.g., `chain.canonical_head.cached_head()` instead of `chain.canonical_head.read()`.
- Wrapping `SignedBeaconBlock` in an `Arc`.
- In the `beacon_chain/tests/block_verification`, we can't use the `lazy_static` `CHAIN_SEGMENT` variable anymore since it's generated with an async function. We just generate it in each test, not so efficient but hopefully insignificant.
I had to disable `rayon` concurrent tests in the `fork_choice` tests. This is because the use of `rayon` and `block_on` was causing a panic.
Co-authored-by: Mac L <mjladson@pm.me>
## Proposed Changes
Lots of lint updates related to `flat_map`, `unwrap_or_else` and string patterns. I did a little more creative refactoring in the op pool, but otherwise followed Clippy's suggestions.
## Additional Info
We need this PR to unblock CI.
## Issue Addressed
NA
## Proposed Changes
Implements the "union" type from the SSZ spec for `ssz`, `ssz_derive`, `tree_hash` and `tree_hash_derive` so it may be derived for `enums`:
https://github.com/ethereum/consensus-specs/blob/v1.1.0-beta.3/ssz/simple-serialize.md#union
The union type is required for the merge, since the `Transaction` type is defined as a single-variant union `Union[OpaqueTransaction]`.
### Crate Updates
This PR will (hopefully) cause CI to publish new versions for the following crates:
- `eth2_ssz_derive`: `0.2.1` -> `0.3.0`
- `eth2_ssz`: `0.3.0` -> `0.4.0`
- `eth2_ssz_types`: `0.2.0` -> `0.2.1`
- `tree_hash`: `0.3.0` -> `0.4.0`
- `tree_hash_derive`: `0.3.0` -> `0.4.0`
These these crates depend on each other, I've had to add a workspace-level `[patch]` for these crates. A follow-up PR will need to remove this patch, ones the new versions are published.
### Union Behaviors
We already had SSZ `Encode` and `TreeHash` derive for enums, however it just did a "transparent" pass-through of the inner value. Since the "union" decoding from the spec is in conflict with the transparent method, I've required that all `enum` have exactly one of the following enum-level attributes:
#### SSZ
- `#[ssz(enum_behaviour = "union")]`
- matches the spec used for the merge
- `#[ssz(enum_behaviour = "transparent")]`
- maintains existing functionality
- not supported for `Decode` (never was)
#### TreeHash
- `#[tree_hash(enum_behaviour = "union")]`
- matches the spec used for the merge
- `#[tree_hash(enum_behaviour = "transparent")]`
- maintains existing functionality
This means that we can maintain the existing transparent behaviour, but all existing users will get a compile-time error until they explicitly opt-in to being transparent.
### Legacy Option Encoding
Before this PR, we already had a union-esque encoding for `Option<T>`. However, this was with the *old* SSZ spec where the union selector was 4 bytes. During merge specification, the spec was changed to use 1 byte for the selector.
Whilst the 4-byte `Option` encoding was never used in the spec, we used it in our database. Writing a migrate script for all occurrences of `Option` in the database would be painful, especially since it's used in the `CommitteeCache`. To avoid the migrate script, I added a serde-esque `#[ssz(with = "module")]` field-level attribute to `ssz_derive` so that we can opt into the 4-byte encoding on a field-by-field basis.
The `ssz::legacy::four_byte_impl!` macro allows a one-liner to define the module required for the `#[ssz(with = "module")]` for some `Option<T> where T: Encode + Decode`.
Notably, **I have removed `Encode` and `Decode` impls for `Option`**. I've done this to force a break on downstream users. Like I mentioned, `Option` isn't used in the spec so I don't think it'll be *that* annoying. I think it's nicer than quietly having two different union implementations or quietly breaking the existing `Option` impl.
### Crate Publish Ordering
I've modified the order in which CI publishes crates to ensure that we don't publish a crate without ensuring we already published a crate that it depends upon.
## TODO
- [ ] Queue a follow-up `[patch]`-removing PR.
## Issue Addressed
Related to: #2259
Made an attempt at all the necessary updates here to publish the crates to crates.io. I incremented the minor versions on all the crates that have been previously published. We still might run into some issues as we try to publish because I'm not able to test this out but I think it's a good starting point.
## Proposed Changes
- Add description and license to `ssz_types` and `serde_util`
- rename `serde_util` to `eth2_serde_util`
- increment minor versions
- remove path dependencies
- remove patch dependencies
## Additional Info
Crates published:
- [x] `tree_hash` -- need to publish `tree_hash_derive` and `eth2_hashing` first
- [x] `eth2_ssz_types` -- need to publish `eth2_serde_util` first
- [x] `tree_hash_derive`
- [x] `eth2_ssz`
- [x] `eth2_ssz_derive`
- [x] `eth2_serde_util`
- [x] `eth2_hashing`
Co-authored-by: realbigsean <seananderson33@gmail.com>
## Proposed Changes
Implement the consensus changes necessary for the upcoming Altair hard fork.
## Additional Info
This is quite a heavy refactor, with pivotal types like the `BeaconState` and `BeaconBlock` changing from structs to enums. This ripples through the whole codebase with field accesses changing to methods, e.g. `state.slot` => `state.slot()`.
Co-authored-by: realbigsean <seananderson33@gmail.com>
