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Aaro Altonen 80616f6d03 Integrate litep2p into Polkadot SDK (#2944)
[litep2p](https://github.com/altonen/litep2p) is a libp2p-compatible P2P
networking library. It supports all of the features of `rust-libp2p`
that are currently being utilized by Polkadot SDK.

Compared to `rust-libp2p`, `litep2p` has a quite different architecture
which is why the new `litep2p` network backend is only able to use a
little of the existing code in `sc-network`. The design has been mainly
influenced by how we'd wish to structure our networking-related code in
Polkadot SDK: independent higher-levels protocols directly communicating
with the network over links that support bidirectional backpressure. A
good example would be `NotificationHandle`/`RequestResponseHandle`
abstractions which allow, e.g., `SyncingEngine` to directly communicate
with peers to announce/request blocks.

I've tried running `polkadot --network-backend litep2p` with a few
different peer configurations and there is a noticeable reduction in
networking CPU usage. For high load (`--out-peers 200`), networking CPU
usage goes down from ~110% to ~30% (80 pp) and for normal load
(`--out-peers 40`), the usage goes down from ~55% to ~18% (37 pp).

These should not be taken as final numbers because:

a) there are still some low-hanging optimization fruits, such as
enabling [receive window
auto-tuning](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-yamux/pull/176), integrating
`Peerset` more closely with `litep2p` or improving memory usage of the
WebSocket transport
b) fixing bugs/instabilities that incorrectly cause `litep2p` to do less
work will increase the networking CPU usage
c) verification in a more diverse set of tests/conditions is needed

Nevertheless, these numbers should give an early estimate for CPU usage
of the new networking backend.

This PR consists of three separate changes:
* introduce a generic `PeerId` (wrapper around `Multihash`) so that we
don't have use `NetworkService::PeerId` in every part of the code that
uses a `PeerId`
* introduce `NetworkBackend` trait, implement it for the libp2p network
stack and make Polkadot SDK generic over `NetworkBackend`
  * implement `NetworkBackend` for litep2p

The new library should be considered experimental which is why
`rust-libp2p` will remain as the default option for the time being. This
PR currently depends on the master branch of `litep2p` but I'll cut a
new release for the library once all review comments have been
addresses.

---------

Signed-off-by: Alexandru Vasile <alexandru.vasile@parity.io>
Co-authored-by: Dmitry Markin <dmitry@markin.tech>
Co-authored-by: Alexandru Vasile <60601340+lexnv@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Alexandru Vasile <alexandru.vasile@parity.io>
2024-04-08 16:44:13 +00:00

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# Schema: Polkadot SDK PRDoc Schema (prdoc) v1.0.0
# See doc at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paritytech/polkadot-sdk/master/prdoc/schema_user.json
title: "Integrate litep2p into Polkadot SDK"
doc:
- audience: Node Dev
description: |
litep2p is a libp2p-compatible P2P networking library. It supports all of the features of rust-libp2p
that are currently being utilized by Polkadot SDK and is a drop-in replacement for any node operator.
For node developers, introduction of litep2p implies specifying the networking backend that Polkadot SDK
shall use for P2P networking. A new trait called `NetworkBackend` is introduced which is implemented
by both the libp2p and litep2p backends and which is used to initialize any networking-related code.
- audience: Node Operator
description: |
litep2p is considered experimental and rust-libp2p will remain as the default networking backend
for Polkadot SDK but litep2p can be selected with `--network-backend litep2p`.
crates:
- name: "sc-network"
- name: "sc-service"
- name: "minimal-template-node"
- name: "solochain-template-node"
- name: "staging-node-cli"
- name: "polkadot-service"
- name: "parachain-template-node"