Mithril Team Update

High level overview

This week, the Mithril team released the 2642 distribution. This version reads the protocol configuration from the Cardano chain in the signer and the aggregator, supports the Cardano node 11.1.3 and the DMQ node 0.7.2.0, and removes the support for the Gzip compressed snapshot archives. It also introduces a certificate chain cache in the client, support for compact SNARK certificates with a genesis-signed registry of the trusted circuit verification keys, and preliminary support for IPFS as a storage location of the immutable files (all unstable). It includes various bug fixes and improvements as well.

The team also published the immutable archives directory of the aggregator under an IPNS name, and selected a crate for the user interaction of the setup command. They kept working on the deterministic resolution of the SNARK verification key collisions in the key registration, the progressive rollout strategy of the IPFS distribution, the new mithril-setup crate, and the findings of the M1.1 milestone audit.

Finally, they worked on the upgrade to Cardano node 11.2, the renaming of DeprecatedCommand to RemovedCommand in the client CLI, the cleanup of the mithril-test-lab directory, and the investigation of the blocks and transactions verification failure on the testing-preview network.

Low level overview

Features

• Completed the issue Publish the immutable archives directory under an IPNS name in the aggregator #3606
• Completed the issue Identify a crate to use for the user interaction (TUI) of the setup command #3618
• Worked on the issue Resolve SNARK verification key collisions deterministically in the key registration #3591
• Worked on the issue Define the progressive rollout strategy of the IPFS distribution #3607
• Worked on the issue Create a new mithril-setup crate #3616
• Worked on the issue Address the findings of the M1.1 milestone audit #3635

Protocol maintenance

• Released the new distribution 2642.0
• Published a dev blog post Distribution 2642 is now available
• Published a dev blog post Protocol configuration is now read from the Cardano chain
• Published a dev blog post Certificate chain cache available in the Mithril client
• Completed the issue Release 2642 distribution #3498
• Completed the issue Update DMQ node to 0.7.2.0 #3602
• Worked on the issue Upgrade to Cardano 11.2 #3585
• Worked on the issue Rename DeprecatedCommand to RemovedCommand in the client CLI #3626
• Worked on the issue Clean the mithril-test-lab directory #3595
• Worked on the issue Blocks and transaction verification fails on testing-preview #3526