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Network Q1 2023 Update

· 3 min read
Marcin Szamotulski

2023-01 - 2023-03​

Main achievements​

Gradual dynamic P2P release on mainnet​

We released two version of cardano-node with dynamic P2P capabilities:

  • 1.35.6
    • we found and fixed a bug in exception handling in peer-state-actionspull-4357
    • we found and fixed a busy loop when demoting a peer from hot to warm pull-4385
  • 1.35.7
    • includes interoperability in the legacy non-p2p network stack pull-4467
  • we fixed a busy loop of demotion & promotions: warm -> hot -> warm[pull-4485] /it will be included in cardano-node-8.0.0 release/.

Currently there are more than 200 P2P relays on mainnet.

Peer Sharing​

We implemented /peer sharing/ pull-4019 which will be available as an experimental feature in one of the future cardano-node releases.

We implemented /light peer sharing/, e.g. adding inbound connections to the set of known peers of the outbound governor, which allows to bootstrap relays not registered on chain. This complements peer sharing. The pull-4277 is in late review stages.

Eclipse Evasion​

We finalised design of eclipse evasion and we started implementing it. We have an initial implementation (not merged). We are in the process of extending our test suite to cover new implementation details: issue-3886, pull-4462.

Cardano Network Service Assurance​

Galois has been making progress on Cardano Network Service Assurance project.

  • In cardano-node, they have developed a datapoint abstraction that creates a queue of (existing) log events, they now have two such datapoints (of log events) implemented.

  • They have developed a datapoint client executable that can connect to a node which serves the "new tracing".

  • They have been exploring approaches for the consolidation and analysis of datapoint data to extract actionable network health status.

Cardano-Node​

  • We made it possible to configure accepted connections limit pull-4902.

Testing improvements​

  • We fixed a bug in network simulation implementation of TCP simultaneous open pull-4265.

  • We introduced header-body split in the diffusion simulation pull-4419 (in review).

  • We introduced initiator only nodes in the diffusion simulation pull-4280.

  • We fixed a connection-manager test failure issue-4370.

Technical Debt​

  • We refactored Snocket interface decoupling it from the multiplexer pull-4260. This simplified some aspects of the KES agent implementation.

  • We introduces a record for CBOR codecs which are used for various data structures by mini-protocol codecs pull-4430.

Documentation​

  • We explained some limitations of CDDL in our technical report pull-4351.

IO-Sim​

  • We fixed implementation of MVar's pull-70.

NoThunks​

  • We published a new version of nothunks library to Hackage.

Next steps​

  • Finish implementation & testing of eclipse evasion issue-3886.
  • Optimise connectivity to peers behind firewall issue-4381.
  • Finish the work on enabling block production dynamically to allow using P2P on block producers issue-3159.
  • If time permits we would like also to reserve some time for finishing publication of io-sim to Hackage.