High level overview​

This week, the Mithril team continued implementing the certification of Cardano transactions in Mithril networks. They worked on scaling proof generation for mainnet by prototyping optimizations and benchmarking performance improvements. They also made progress on low-latency certification by completing the retrieval of the chain tip and importing transactions from the Cardano mini-protocol with Pallas. Additionally, they worked on a new explorer page to display in/out SPOs for the latest Cardano epochs.

Finally, the team upgraded the testing-sanchonet network following the SanchoNet network respin, created a module for building test transactions, and began removing the deprecated snapshot command from the client CLI.

Low level overview​

• Completed the issue Aggregator stress test crashes during signer registration #1676
• Completed the issue Prune Cardano transactions stored on signer #1645
• Completed the issue ChainObserver supports retrieving the Chain Point of the tip of the chain #1589
• Completed the issue Prepare testing-sanchonet for respin with Cardano 8.11-pre #1694
• Completed the issue MacOS Rust tests are flaky in CI #1556
• Worked on the issue Prototype optimizations for increasing Cardano transactions proof generation throughput #1687
• Worked on the issue Retrieve Cardano blocks with chainsync in pallas PoC #1590
• Worked on the issue Explorer display in/out SPOs in registered signers page #1686
• Worked on the issue Create a test Cardano transactions builder #1667
• Worked on the issue Cardano signatures are not produced on testing-sanchonet and testing-mainnet #1681
• Worked on the issue Remove snapshot command in client CLI #1690
• Worked on the issue Mithril Signer Local Error Policy : Error 182 - MuxError #1632

High level summary​

• Released Consensus for Node 8.11 (#1101)
• Improved the Praos chain order:
  • Restricted VRF tiebreaker based on slot distance (#1047)
  • Small tweak to the issue number tiebreaker (#1086)
• Wrote overview on the statistics on the leader schedule (#1096)
• Integrated robustness refinement for concluding that a node is caught up in the context of bootstrap peers (#1031)
• The P&T team managed to complete the UTXO-HD benchmarks using the LMDB backend and the results are promising.
• We're working on setting up the Consensus Technical Working Group within Intersect, so if you'd like to participate please reach out to Damian Nadales.

High level overview​

This week, the Mithril team released the new distribution 2418.1, which includes broader CPU support for pre-built binaries and a new memory allocator for the signer and aggregator nodes aimed at preventing memory fragmentation. They also continued implementing the certification of Cardano transactions in Mithril networks and worked on scaling the signature and proof generation for mainnet. Specifically, they completed the implementation of compressing the transaction Merkle tree using sub-Merkle trees based on transaction block ranges and initiated testing and assessing performance on mainnet in a test Mithril network. Additionally, they started working on minimizing the extra disk space requirements for the signer on the SPO infrastructure.

Finally, the team implemented some optimizations for the aggregator, fixed some bugs on the client, and introduced new documentation for compiling the Mithril relay from source.

Low level overview​

• Released the new distribution 2418.1
• Completed the issue Use Block Range Merkle roots to sign Cardano transactions #1634
• Completed the issue Use Block Range Merkle roots to prove Cardano transactions #1635
• Completed the issue Deploy Cardano transactions to testing-mainnet #1647
• Completed the issue Consistent sorting of transactions from GetCardanoTransactionProvider in signer and aggregator #1657
• Completed the issue Use SQLite transactions when inserting Cardano Transactions and Block Range Roots #1656
• Completed the issue Implement Ord on SignedEntityTypeDiscriminants #1648
• Completed the issue Merkle roots don't have fixed size in the block_range_root table #1668
• Completed the issue Refactor Cardano transactions database layer in persistence for signer and aggregator #1677
• Completed the issue Some timing tests fail on ARM #1466
• Completed the issue Add Mithril networks configurations in networks.json #1638
• Completed the issue Add section for manual setup of squid in SPO guide #1610
• Worked on the issue Aggregator stress test crashes during signer registration #1676
• Worked on the issue Prune Cardano transactions stored on signer #1645
• Worked on the issue ChainObserver supports retrieving the Chain Point of the tip of the chain #1589
• Worked on the issue Retrieves Cardano blocks with chainsync in pallas PoC #1590
• Worked on the issue Mithril Signer Local Error Policy : Error 182 - MuxError #1632

2024-04-27 - 2024-05-13

High level summary​

Enhancements to the CLI encompass several noteworthy additions. These include the introduction of a new hardfork initiation command, rendering --prev-governance-action-tx-id optional for create-no-confidence actions, addressing scenarios where the committee is defined in the Conway Genesis file, and refining help texts. Additionally, there have been updates to the description fields in governance action files.

Adjust maximum understood protocol version from 9 to 10 when the experimental hardforks flag is enabled. This allows us to bypass Conway's bootstrap phase in testing

Continued work in testing implementation of CIP1694 with cardano-testnet.

cardano-cli​

• Make --prev-governance-action-tx-id and --prev-governance-action-tx-id optional for create-no-confidence command
• Clarify help texts related to JSON and CBOR
• Release 8.23.0.0 + upgrade cardano-api to 8.45.2.0
• Export friendly function that returns ByteString + export buildShelleyAddress
• action create-hardfork cmd + update description fields in all governance action files.
• Export toTxOutInAnyEra
• Enable manual specification of execution units for plutus voting and proposing scripts

cardano-api​

• Release cardano-api-8.45.2.0
• Update estimateBalancedTxBody to account for required deposits

cardano-node​

• Count votes in Propose Constitution test before ratification
• Adjust maximum understood protocol version from 9 to 10

cardano-testnet​

• Refactor: Use KeyPair type for key pairs in cardano-testnet
• Count votes in Propose Constitution test before ratification
• Disable DRep Activity test
• Reorganize cardano-testnet
• cardano-testnet: Add new constitutional committee
• Enable epoch state logging by default
• Refactor ProposeNewConstitutionSPO test to reuse code

docs​

CI & project maintenance​

High-level summary​

This week, the Hydra team upgraded the hydra-node networking layer to use a versioned handshake protocol, as well as extensive documentation restructuring and bug fixes to the hydra-tui.

What did the team achieve this week​

• Use versioned hadshake when connecting hydra-nodes.
• Restructure documentation.
• Fixed the transaction envelope type parsing in order to be compatible with cardano-cli and update our docs.
• Show the contestations in the hydra-tui
• Experiment with removing persistence in the reliability layer and adding custom command to Reset the head state to the last confirmed snapshot

What are the goals of next week​

• Provide aarch64-linux docker images for hydra-node.
• Release hydra-node 0.17.0
• Finish new model spec changes related to decommit testing