Daemons intended for public use can be set up to require payment
in the form of hashes in exchange for RPC service. This enables
public daemons to receive payment for their work over a large
number of calls. This system behaves similarly to a pool, so
payment takes the form of valid blocks every so often, yielding
a large one off payment, rather than constant micropayments.
This system can also be used by third parties as a "paywall"
layer, where users of a service can pay for use by mining Monero
to the service provider's address. An example of this for web
site access is Primo, a Monero mining based website "paywall":
https://github.com/selene-kovri/primo
This has some advantages:
- incentive to run a node providing RPC services, thereby promoting the availability of third party nodes for those who can't run their own
- incentive to run your own node instead of using a third party's, thereby promoting decentralization
- decentralized: payment is done between a client and server, with no third party needed
- private: since the system is "pay as you go", you don't need to identify yourself to claim a long lived balance
- no payment occurs on the blockchain, so there is no extra transactional load
- one may mine with a beefy server, and use those credits from a phone, by reusing the client ID (at the cost of some privacy)
- no barrier to entry: anyone may run a RPC node, and your expected revenue depends on how much work you do
- Sybil resistant: if you run 1000 idle RPC nodes, you don't magically get more revenue
- no large credit balance maintained on servers, so they have no incentive to exit scam
- you can use any/many node(s), since there's little cost in switching servers
- market based prices: competition between servers to lower costs
- incentive for a distributed third party node system: if some public nodes are overused/slow, traffic can move to others
- increases network security
- helps counteract mining pools' share of the network hash rate
- zero incentive for a payer to "double spend" since a reorg does not give any money back to the miner
And some disadvantages:
- low power clients will have difficulty mining (but one can optionally mine in advance and/or with a faster machine)
- payment is "random", so a server might go a long time without a block before getting one
- a public node's overall expected payment may be small
Public nodes are expected to compete to find a suitable level for
cost of service.
The daemon can be set up this way to require payment for RPC services:
monerod --rpc-payment-address 4xxxxxx \
--rpc-payment-credits 250 --rpc-payment-difficulty 1000
These values are an example only.
The --rpc-payment-difficulty switch selects how hard each "share" should
be, similar to a mining pool. The higher the difficulty, the fewer
shares a client will find.
The --rpc-payment-credits switch selects how many credits are awarded
for each share a client finds.
Considering both options, clients will be awarded credits/difficulty
credits for every hash they calculate. For example, in the command line
above, 0.25 credits per hash. A client mining at 100 H/s will therefore
get an average of 25 credits per second.
For reference, in the current implementation, a credit is enough to
sync 20 blocks, so a 100 H/s client that's just starting to use Monero
and uses this daemon will be able to sync 500 blocks per second.
The wallet can be set to automatically mine if connected to a daemon
which requires payment for RPC usage. It will try to keep a balance
of 50000 credits, stopping mining when it's at this level, and starting
again as credits are spent. With the example above, a new client will
mine this much credits in about half an hour, and this target is enough
to sync 500000 blocks (currently about a third of the monero blockchain).
There are three new settings in the wallet:
- credits-target: this is the amount of credits a wallet will try to
reach before stopping mining. The default of 0 means 50000 credits.
- auto-mine-for-rpc-payment-threshold: this controls the minimum
credit rate which the wallet considers worth mining for. If the
daemon credits less than this ratio, the wallet will consider mining
to be not worth it. In the example above, the rate is 0.25
- persistent-rpc-client-id: if set, this allows the wallet to reuse
a client id across runs. This means a public node can tell a wallet
that's connecting is the same as one that connected previously, but
allows a wallet to keep their credit balance from one run to the
other. Since the wallet only mines to keep a small credit balance,
this is not normally worth doing. However, someone may want to mine
on a fast server, and use that credit balance on a low power device
such as a phone. If left unset, a new client ID is generated at
each wallet start, for privacy reasons.
To mine and use a credit balance on two different devices, you can
use the --rpc-client-secret-key switch. A wallet's client secret key
can be found using the new rpc_payments command in the wallet.
Note: anyone knowing your RPC client secret key is able to use your
credit balance.
The wallet has a few new commands too:
- start_mining_for_rpc: start mining to acquire more credits,
regardless of the auto mining settings
- stop_mining_for_rpc: stop mining to acquire more credits
- rpc_payments: display information about current credits with
the currently selected daemon
The node has an extra command:
- rpc_payments: display information about clients and their
balances
The node will forget about any balance for clients which have
been inactive for 6 months. Balances carry over on node restart.
If the peer (whether pruned or not itself) supports sending pruned blocks
to syncing nodes, the pruned version will be sent along with the hash
of the pruned data and the block weight. The original tx hashes can be
reconstructed from the pruned txes and theur prunable data hash. Those
hashes and the block weights are hashes and checked against the set of
precompiled hashes, ensuring the data we received is the original data.
It is currently not possible to use this system when not using the set
of precompiled hashes, since block weights can not otherwise be checked
for validity.
This is off by default for now, and is enabled by --sync-pruned-blocks
2cd4fd8 Changed the use of boost:value_initialized for C++ list initializer (JesusRami)
4ad191f Removed unused boost/value_init header (whyamiroot)
928f4be Make null hash constants constexpr (whyamiroot)
One considers the blockchain, while the other considers the
blockchain and some recent actions, such as a recently created
transaction which spend some outputs, but isn't yet mined.
Typically, the "balance" command wants the latter, to reflect
the recent action, but things like proving ownership wants
the former.
This fixes a crash in get_reserve_proof, where a preliminary
check and the main code used two concepts of "balance".
bdfc63a Add ref-counted buffer byte_slice. Currently used for sending TCP data. (vtnerd)
3b24b1d Added support for 'noise' over I1P/Tor to mask Tx transmission. (vtnerd)
914b106 wallet_rpc_server: use original addresses in destinations in get_transfers (moneromooo-monero)
da694d4 functional_tests: add tests for pending/out transfer addresses (moneromooo-monero)
c8709fe wallet: do not print log settings when unset (moneromooo-monero)
7b18e83 unit_tests: check return values on test data parsing (moneromooo-monero)
eeca5ca epee: support unicode in parsed strings (moneromooo-monero)
3e11bb5 functional_tests: test creating wallets with local language names (moneromooo-monero)
According to [1], std::random_shuffle is deprecated in C++14 and removed
in C++17. Since std::shuffle is available since C++11 as a replacement
and monero already requires C++11, this is a good replacement.
A cryptographically secure random number generator is used in all cases
to prevent people from perhaps copying an insecure std::shuffle call
over to a place where a secure one would be warranted. A form of
defense-in-depth.
[1]: https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/algorithm/random_shuffle
When the wallet auto refreshes after mining the last two blocks
but before popping them, it will then try to use outputs which
are not unlocked yet. This is really a wallet problem, which
will be fixed later.
aba2b2e7 functional_tests: reset blockchain on test start (moneromooo-monero)
375fde94 hardfork: fix off by one updating fork index after popping (moneromooo-monero)
e9fac29a unit_tests/long_term_block_weight: some tweaks that seem to make more sense (stoffu)
467f4c7e tests/block_weight: use integer division when computing median (stoffu)
815d08dc tests/block_weight: remove unused MULTIPLIER_SMALL (stoffu)
661f1fb8 blockchain: remove unused calc of short_term_constraint (stoffu)
The db txn in add_block ending caused the entire overarching
batch txn to stop.
Also add a new guard class so a db txn can be stopped in the
face of exceptions.
Also use a read only db txn in init when the db itself is
read only, and do not save the max tx size in that case.
0eee6cd7 block_weight: catch exceptions in main for clean exit on error (moneromooo-monero)
4b3bb829 epee: init a new ssl related variable in ctor (moneromooo-monero)
ae6885f6 blockchain: incremental long term block weight cache (moneromooo-monero)
9b687c78 blockchain: simple cache for the long term block weights (moneromooo-monero)
It allows one to connect to a running daemon or wallet, and use
its RPC API from python.
Usage: python -i console.py <port>
It will detect whether it's talking to a daemon or wallet and
initialize itself accordingly.
- tests fixes for HF10, builder change, rct_config; fix_chain
- get_tx_key test
- proper testing after live refresh added
- live refresh synthetic test
- log available funds for easier test construction
- wallet::API tests with mocked daemon
RPC connections now have optional tranparent SSL.
An optional private key and certificate file can be passed,
using the --{rpc,daemon}-ssl-private-key and
--{rpc,daemon}-ssl-certificate options. Those have as
argument a path to a PEM format private private key and
certificate, respectively.
If not given, a temporary self signed certificate will be used.
SSL can be enabled or disabled using --{rpc}-ssl, which
accepts autodetect (default), disabled or enabled.
Access can be restricted to particular certificates using the
--rpc-ssl-allowed-certificates, which takes a list of
paths to PEM encoded certificates. This can allow a wallet to
connect to only the daemon they think they're connected to,
by forcing SSL and listing the paths to the known good
certificates.
To generate long term certificates:
openssl genrsa -out /tmp/KEY 4096
openssl req -new -key /tmp/KEY -out /tmp/REQ
openssl x509 -req -days 999999 -sha256 -in /tmp/REQ -signkey /tmp/KEY -out /tmp/CERT
/tmp/KEY is the private key, and /tmp/CERT is the certificate,
both in PEM format. /tmp/REQ can be removed. Adjust the last
command to set expiration date, etc, as needed. It doesn't
make a whole lot of sense for monero anyway, since most servers
will run with one time temporary self signed certificates anyway.
SSL support is transparent, so all communication is done on the
existing ports, with SSL autodetection. This means you can start
using an SSL daemon now, but you should not enforce SSL yet or
nothing will talk to you.
This curbs runaway growth while still allowing substantial
spikes in block weight
Original specification from ArticMine:
here is the scaling proposal
Define: LongTermBlockWeight
Before fork:
LongTermBlockWeight = BlockWeight
At or after fork:
LongTermBlockWeight = min(BlockWeight, 1.4*LongTermEffectiveMedianBlockWeight)
Note: To avoid possible consensus issues over rounding the LongTermBlockWeight for a given block should be calculated to the nearest byte, and stored as a integer in the block itself. The stored LongTermBlockWeight is then used for future calculations of the LongTermEffectiveMedianBlockWeight and not recalculated each time.
Define: LongTermEffectiveMedianBlockWeight
LongTermEffectiveMedianBlockWeight = max(300000, MedianOverPrevious100000Blocks(LongTermBlockWeight))
Change Definition of EffectiveMedianBlockWeight
From (current definition)
EffectiveMedianBlockWeight = max(300000, MedianOverPrevious100Blocks(BlockWeight))
To (proposed definition)
EffectiveMedianBlockWeight = min(max(300000, MedianOverPrevious100Blocks(BlockWeight)), 50*LongTermEffectiveMedianBlockWeight)
Notes:
1) There are no other changes to the existing penalty formula, median calculation, fees etc.
2) There is the requirement to store the LongTermBlockWeight of a block unencrypted in the block itself. This is to avoid possible consensus issues over rounding and also to prevent the calculations from becoming unwieldy as we move away from the fork.
3) When the EffectiveMedianBlockWeight cap is reached it is still possible to mine blocks up to 2x the EffectiveMedianBlockWeight by paying the corresponding penalty.
Note: the long term block weight is stored in the database, but not in the actual block itself,
since it requires recalculating anyway for verification.
- Support for ".onion" in --add-exclusive-node and --add-peer
- Add --anonymizing-proxy for outbound Tor connections
- Add --anonymous-inbounds for inbound Tor connections
- Support for sharing ".onion" addresses over Tor connections
- Support for broadcasting transactions received over RPC exclusively
over Tor (else broadcast over public IP when Tor not enabled).
b6534c40 ringct: remove unused senderPk from ecdhTuple (moneromooo-monero)
7d375981 ringct: the commitment mask is now deterministic (moneromooo-monero)
99d946e6 ringct: encode 8 byte amount, saving 24 bytes per output (moneromooo-monero)
cdc3ccec ringct: save 3 bytes on bulletproof size (moneromooo-monero)
f931e16c add a bulletproof version, new bulletproof type, and rct config (moneromooo-monero)
The blockchain prunes seven eighths of prunable tx data.
This saves about two thirds of the blockchain size, while
keeping the node useful as a sync source for an eighth
of the blockchain.
No other data is currently pruned.
There are three ways to prune a blockchain:
- run monerod with --prune-blockchain
- run "prune_blockchain" in the monerod console
- run the monero-blockchain-prune utility
The first two will prune in place. Due to how LMDB works, this
will not reduce the blockchain size on disk. Instead, it will
mark parts of the file as free, so that future data will use
that free space, causing the file to not grow until free space
grows scarce.
The third way will create a second database, a pruned copy of
the original one. Since this is a new file, this one will be
smaller than the original one.
Once the database is pruned, it will stay pruned as it syncs.
That is, there is no need to use --prune-blockchain again, etc.
464097e5 blockchain_ancestry: allow getting ancestry of a single output (moneromooo-monero)
a6216d1a blockchain_db: allow getting output keys without commitment (moneromooo-monero)
Number matching semantics are slightly changed: since this is used
as a filter to check whether a number is signed and/or floating
point, we can speed this up further. strto* functions are called
afterwards and will error out where necessary. We now also accept
numbers like .4 which were not accepted before.
The strto* calls on a boost::string_ref will not access unallocated
memory since the parsers always stop at the first bad character,
and the original string is zero terminated.
in arbitrary time measurement units for some arbitrary test case:
match_number2: 235 -> 70
match_word2: 330 -> 108
get_output_key method is commonly used when working with txs and their key images. Because the method is not const, passing blockchain object though const& or pointers to const is not possible in this context. This is especially problematic in external projects (e.g., projects in moneroexamples) that use monero C++ api to operate on the blockchain and txs.
Thus, having get_output_key method will simplify moving blockchain object around through const references and pointers to const objects.
a48f2dab blockchain_prune_known_spent_data: blackball file is now optional (moneromooo-monero)
17b45725 Outputs where all amounts are known spent can now be pruned (moneromooo-monero)
aee7a4e3 wallet_rpc_server: do not use RPC data if the call failed (moneromooo-monero)
1a0733e5 windows_service: fix memory leak (moneromooo-monero)
0dac3c64 unit_tests: do not rethrow a copy of an exception (moneromooo-monero)
5d9915ab cryptonote: fix get_unit for non default settings (moneromooo-monero)
d4f50cb1 remove some unused code (moneromooo-monero)
61163971 a few minor (but easy) performance tweaks (moneromooo-monero)
30023074 tests: slow_memmem now returns size_t (moneromooo-monero)
b36353e2 unit_tests: add some hex parsing test for non hex input (xiphon)
6671110c unit_tests: add a test for parse_hexstr_to_binbuff (moneromooo-monero)
f6187cd8 epee: speed up parse_hexstr_to_binbuff a little (Howard Chu)
Only for pre rct for obvious reasons.
Note: DO NOT use a known spent list which includes outputs
which are not known spent. If the list includes any output
that's just strongly thought to be spent, but not provably
so, you risk finding yourself unable to sync past the point
where that output is spent.
I estimate only 200 MB saved on current mainnet though,
unless the new blackballing rule unearths a good amount of
large-amount-set extra spent outs.
