Ethereum consensus client in Rust
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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
.github Remove macos tests (#1687) 2020-09-30 01:27:36 +00:00
account_manager Remove eth1 deposit functionality (#1780) 2020-10-22 07:19:30 +00:00
beacon_node Implement database temp states to reduce memory usage (#1798) 2020-10-23 01:27:51 +00:00
book Ssz state (#1749) 2020-10-22 06:05:49 +00:00
boot_node Bump version to v0.3.0 (#1743) 2020-10-09 02:05:30 +00:00
common Improve peer handling (#1796) 2020-10-23 01:27:48 +00:00
consensus Optimize attester slashing (#1745) 2020-10-22 01:43:54 +00:00
crypto Implement key cache to reduce keystore loading times for validator_client (#1695) 2020-10-05 10:50:43 +00:00
hooks Add a flag to make lighthouse portable across machines (#1423) 2020-07-31 05:00:39 +00:00
lcli Bump version to v0.3.0 (#1743) 2020-10-09 02:05:30 +00:00
lighthouse Doc fixes (#1762) 2020-10-15 00:37:00 +00:00
scripts Update testnet scripts (#1807) 2020-10-23 00:18:05 +00:00
testing Implement matches! macro (#1777) 2020-10-15 21:42:43 +00:00
validator_client Support pre-flight CORS check (#1772) 2020-10-22 04:47:27 +00:00
.dockerignore Ensure .git is copied into docker (#1462) 2020-08-05 03:05:36 +00:00
.editorconfig Add editorconfig template 2019-03-11 15:09:57 +11:00
.gitignore Implement slashing protection interchange format (#1544) 2020-10-02 01:42:27 +00:00
.gitmodules Replace EF tests submodule with a makefile 2019-09-08 04:19:54 +10:00
bors.toml Remove macos tests (#1687) 2020-09-30 01:27:36 +00:00
Cargo.lock Remove eth1 deposit functionality (#1780) 2020-10-22 07:19:30 +00:00
Cargo.toml Upgrade discovery and restructure task execution (#1693) 2020-10-05 18:45:54 +11:00
CONTRIBUTING.md Update CONTRIBUTING.md (#751) 2020-01-03 10:45:53 +11:00
Cross.toml Ensure RUSTFLAGS is passed through on cross compile (#1529) 2020-08-17 10:06:06 +00:00
Dockerfile Revert 1502 - Switching docker user to lighthouse (#1578) 2020-09-01 01:32:02 +00:00
LICENSE Update License to Apache 2.0 2019-04-15 16:47:35 +10:00
Makefile Spadina support (v2) (#1670) 2020-09-26 01:58:31 +00:00
README.md Update consensus code and tests to v0.12.3 (#1655) 2020-09-26 01:58:29 +00:00

Lighthouse: Ethereum 2.0

An open-source Ethereum 2.0 client, written in Rust and maintained by Sigma Prime.

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Documentation

terminalize

Overview

Lighthouse is:

  • Fully open-source, licensed under Apache 2.0.
  • Security-focused. Fuzzing has begun and security reviews are underway.
  • Built in Rust, a modern language providing unique safety guarantees and excellent performance (comparable to C++).
  • Funded by various organisations, including Sigma Prime, the Ethereum Foundation, ConsenSys and private individuals.
  • Actively involved in the specification and security analysis of the emerging Ethereum 2.0 specification.

Like all Ethereum 2.0 clients, Lighthouse is a work-in-progress.

Development Status

Current development overview:

  • Specification v0.12.3 implemented, optimized and passing test vectors.
  • Rust-native libp2p with Gossipsub and Discv5.
  • RESTful JSON API via HTTP server.
  • Events via WebSocket.
  • Metrics via Prometheus.

Roadmap

  • April 2019: Inital single-client testnets.
  • September 2019: Inter-operability with other Ethereum 2.0 clients.
  • Q1 2020: lighthouse-0.1.0 release: All major phase 0 features implemented.
  • Q2 2020: Public, multi-client testnet with user-facing functionality.
  • Q2 2020: Third-party security review.
  • Q3 2020: Additional third-party security reviews.
  • Q3 2020: Long-lived, multi-client Beacon Chain testnet
  • Q4 2020: Production Beacon Chain (tentative).

Documentation

The Lighthouse Book contains information for testnet users and developers.

If you'd like some background on Sigma Prime, please see the Lighthouse Update #00 blog post or sigmaprime.io.

Contributing

Lighthouse welcomes contributors.

If you are looking to contribute, please head to the Contributing section of the Lighthouse book.

Contact

The best place for discussion is the Lighthouse Discord server. Alternatively, you may use the sigp/lighthouse gitter.

Encrypt sensitive messages using our PGP key.

Donations

Lighthouse is an open-source project and a public good. Funding public goods is hard and we're grateful for the donations we receive from the community via:

  • Gitcoin Grants.
  • Ethereum address: 0x25c4a76E7d118705e7Ea2e9b7d8C59930d8aCD3b (donation.sigmaprime.eth).