Alexandru Gheorghe
2bc4ed1153
As discovered during investigation of https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/3314 and https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/issues/3673 there are active validators which accidentally might change their network key during restart, that's not a safe operation when you are in the active set because of distributed nature of DHT, so the old records would still exist in the network until they expire 36h, so unless they have a good reason validators should avoid changing their key when they restart their nodes. There is an effort in parallel to improve this situation https://github.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/pull/3786, but those changes are way more intrusive and will need more rigorous testing, additionally they will reduce the time to less than 36h, but the propagation won't be instant anyway, so not changing your network during restart should be the safest way to run your node, unless you have a really good reason to change it. ## Proposal 1. Do not auto-generate the network if the network file does not exist in the provided path. Nodes where the key file does not exist will get the following error: ``` Error: 0: Starting an authorithy without network key in /home/alexggh/.local/share/polkadot/chains/ksmcc3/network/secret_ed25519. This is not a safe operation because the old identity still lives in the dht for 36 hours. Because of it your node might suffer from not being properly connected to other nodes for validation purposes. If it is the first time running your node you could use one of the following methods. 1. Pass --unsafe-force-node-key-generation and make sure you remove it for subsequent node restarts 2. Separetly generate the key with: polkadot key generate-node-key --file <YOUR_PATH_TO_NODE_KEY> ``` 2. Add an explicit parameters for nodes that do want to change their network despite the warnings or if they run the node for the first time. `--unsafe-force-node-key-generation` 3. For `polkadot key generate-node-key` add two new mutually exclusive parameters `base_path` and `default_base_path` to help with the key generation in the same path the polkadot main command would expect it. 4. Modify the installation scripts to auto-generate a key in default path if one was not present already there, this should help with making the executable work out of the box after an instalation. ## Notes Nodes that do not have already the key persisted will fail to start after this change, however I do consider that better than the current situation where they start but they silently hide that they might not be properly connected to their peers. ## TODO - [x] Make sure only nodes that are authorities on producation chains will be affected by this restrictions. - [x] Proper PRDOC, to make sure node operators are aware this is coming. --------- Signed-off-by: Alexandru Gheorghe <alexandru.gheorghe@parity.io> Co-authored-by: Dmitry Markin <dmitry@markin.tech> Co-authored-by: s0me0ne-unkn0wn <48632512+s0me0ne-unkn0wn@users.noreply.github.com> Co-authored-by: Bastian Köcher <git@kchr.de>
NOTE: We have recently made significant changes to our repository structure. In order to streamline our development process and foster better contributions, we have merged three separate repositories Cumulus, Substrate and Polkadot into this repository. Read more about the changes here.
Polkadot SDK
The Polkadot SDK repository provides all the resources needed to start building on the Polkadot network, a multi-chain blockchain platform that enables different blockchains to interoperate and share information in a secure and scalable way. The Polkadot SDK comprises three main pieces of software:
Polkadot
Implementation of a node for the https://polkadot.network in Rust, using the Substrate framework. This directory
currently contains runtimes for the Westend and Rococo test networks. Polkadot, Kusama and their system chain runtimes
are located in the runtimes repository maintained by
the Polkadot Technical Fellowship.
Substrate
Substrate is the primary blockchain SDK used by developers to create the parachains that make up the Polkadot network. Additionally, it allows for the development of self-sovereign blockchains that operate completely independently of Polkadot.
Cumulus
Cumulus is a set of tools for writing Substrate-based Polkadot parachains.
Releases
Note
Our release process is still Work-In-Progress and may not yet reflect the aspired outline here.
The Polkadot-SDK has two release channels: stable and nightly. Production software is advised to only use stable.
nightly is meant for tinkerers to try out the latest features. The detailed release process is described in
RELEASE.md.
Stable
stable releases have a support duration of three months. In this period, the release will not have any breaking
changes. It will receive bug fixes, security fixes, performance fixes and new non-breaking features on a two week
cadence.
Nightly
nightly releases are released every night from the master branch, potentially with breaking changes. They have
pre-release version numbers in the format major.0.0-nightlyYYMMDD.
Upstream Dependencies
Below are the primary upstream dependencies utilized in this project:
Security
The security policy and procedures can be found in docs/contributor/SECURITY.md.
Contributing & Code of Conduct
Ensure you follow our contribution guidelines. In every interaction and contribution, this project adheres to the Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct.
Additional Resources
- For monitoring upcoming changes and current proposals related to the technical implementation of the Polkadot network,
visit the
Requests for Comment (RFC)repository. While it's maintained by the Polkadot Fellowship, the RFC process welcomes contributions from everyone.