## 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>
We were batch removing chains when purging, and then updating the status of the collection for each of those. This makes the range status be out of sync with the real status. This represented no harm to the global sync status, but I've changed it to comply with a correct debug assertion that I got triggered while doing some testing.
Also added tests and improved code quality as per @paulhauner 's suggestions.
## Issue Addressed
Running a beacon node I triggered a sync debug panic. And so finally the time to create tests for sync arrived. Fortunately, te bug was not in the sync algorithm itself but a wrong assertion
## Proposed Changes
- Split Range's impl from the BeaconChain via a trait. This is needed for testing. The TestingRig/Harness is way bigger than needed and does not provide the modification functionalities that are needed to test sync. I find this simpler, tho some could disagree.
- Add a regression test for sync that fails before the changes.
- Fix the wrong assertion.
## Description
The `eth2_libp2p` crate was originally named and designed to incorporate a simple libp2p integration into lighthouse. Since its origins the crates purpose has expanded dramatically. It now houses a lot more sophistication that is specific to lighthouse and no longer just a libp2p integration.
As of this writing it currently houses the following high-level lighthouse-specific logic:
- Lighthouse's implementation of the eth2 RPC protocol and specific encodings/decodings
- Integration and handling of ENRs with respect to libp2p and eth2
- Lighthouse's discovery logic, its integration with discv5 and logic about searching and handling peers.
- Lighthouse's peer manager - This is a large module handling various aspects of Lighthouse's network, such as peer scoring, handling pings and metadata, connection maintenance and recording, etc.
- Lighthouse's peer database - This is a collection of information stored for each individual peer which is specific to lighthouse. We store connection state, sync state, last seen ips and scores etc. The data stored for each peer is designed for various elements of the lighthouse code base such as syncing and the http api.
- Gossipsub scoring - This stores a collection of gossipsub 1.1 scoring mechanisms that are continuously analyssed and updated based on the ethereum 2 networks and how Lighthouse performs on these networks.
- Lighthouse specific types for managing gossipsub topics, sync status and ENR fields
- Lighthouse's network HTTP API metrics - A collection of metrics for lighthouse network monitoring
- Lighthouse's custom configuration of all networking protocols, RPC, gossipsub, discovery, identify and libp2p.
Therefore it makes sense to rename the crate to be more akin to its current purposes, simply that it manages the majority of Lighthouse's network stack. This PR renames this crate to `lighthouse_network`
Co-authored-by: Paul Hauner <paul@paulhauner.com>
## Issue Addressed
`BlocksByRange` requests were the main culprit of a series of timeouts to peer's requests in general because they produce build up in the router's processor. Those were moved to the blocking executor but a task is being spawned for each; also not ideal since the amount of resources we give to those is not controlled
## Proposed Changes
- Move `BlocksByRange` and `BlocksByRoots` to the `beacon_processor`. The processor crafts the responses and sends them.
- Move too the processing of `StatusMessage`s from other peers. This is a fast operation but it can also build up and won't scale if we keep it in the router (processing one at the time). These don't need to send an answer, so there is no harm in processing them "later" if that were to happen. Sending responses to status requests is still in the router, so we answer as soon as we see them.
- Some "extras" that are basically clean up:
- Split the `Worker` logic in sync methods (chain processing and rpc blocks), gossip methods (the majority of methods) and rpc methods (the new ones)
- Move the `status_message` function previously provided by the router's processor to a more central place since it is used by the router, sync, network_context and beacon_processor
- Some spelling
## Additional Info
What's left to decide/test more thoroughly is the length of the queues and the priority rules. @paulhauner suggested at some point to put status above attestations, and @AgeManning had described an importance of "protecting gossipsub" so my solution is leaving status requests in the router and RPC methods below attestations. Slashings and Exits are at the end.