Overview and Logs for the Dev Meeting Held on 2019-09-08
September 08, 2019
Logs
<rbrunner> Looks like meeting will start in a few minutes. Stay tuned.
<hyc> time?
<hyc> who's already here?
<moneromooo> Well, it can start now. Who wants to say anything ?
<vtnerd__> present
<jtgrassie> hola
<rbrunner> Hi
<moneromooo> I've been working on a "sync pruned blocks" patch, it's proving annoying to test but it's almost ready.
<rbrunner> Asking around until get the full block?
<hyc> I'm reworking the randomx integration patch, it has gotten ugly with the added tweaks over the past few months
<moneromooo> I do not understand that question.
<hyc> and currently the daemon mining support is broken
<rbrunner> I mean what means "sync pruned blocks"
<moneromooo> You asked for pruned blocks when you can, rather than full blocks that you'd then prune.
<dEBRUYNE> hyc: Could you define ugly?
<rbrunner> Ah, ok. Thans
<rbrunner> Thanks
<hyc> dEBRUYNE: two different code paths for main blocks vs altchain blocks
<rehrar> hello, apologies for tardiness
<hyc> ought to be able to consolidate it back into 1
<hyc> but need to step back and rethink the overall structure
<moneromooo> (it's to save network bandwidth btw, it doesn't save more db size)
<rbrunner> How does reworking of RandomX PR look in regard to the calendar?
<hyc> well, it always takes 2-3 days to test and verify that the network is behaving
<jtgrassie> fwiw hyc, current state of pr seems to be working now
<rehrar> It's September, do we have a hard fork date?
<hyc> jtgrassie: we haven't crossed a nother epoch boundary yet, I don't think
<jtgrassie> ^ good point
<moneromooo> No fork date yet.
<rehrar> We were thinking Octoberish though, no?
<moneromooo> We were.
<hyc> I would assume mid-October
<hyc> we ought to be nailing that date down
<rehrar> so in theory there is a hypothetical freeze coming mid September? :D
<moneromooo> Though the randomx code being still changed makes me nervous about mid october.
<tevador> hyc: for testing, you could shorten the epoch to 128 blocks, then you can test it in 2 hours
<rehrar> fluffypony luigi1111 ArticMine smooth binaryFate ?
<hyc> tevador: we did that when the PR was originally written. for some reason the current problems never showed up then.
<dEBRUYNE> hyc, tevador: The recent change were made after audit recommendations or?
<hyc> successfully mined millions of blocks with epoch=128
<dEBRUYNE> Recent changes to RandomX
<tevador> that was with a private testnet perhaps?
<hyc> dEBRUYNE: changes to RandomX itself are independent of the randomx integration patch
<hyc> tevador: true
<tevador> dEBRUYNE: most changes were made based on audit recommendations
<dEBRUYNE> I see. I guess if we need more time we can always push it back to end of October, but most people and services are expecting a fork in October
<rehrar> dEBRUYNE: are they though?
<moneromooo> Nobody expects a monero fork.
<hyc> we could always release with daemon mining disabled, and fix it up in a point release if we need to
<hyc> since xmrig is already available
<rehrar> I realize we don't have to go Verge vaporware extreme where we push back indefinitely, but I think people are used to some "delays" if it means code that works from the get go (hopefully)
<rehrar> especially if it's just a couple of weeks
<hyc> but I'm pretty sure I can get a new patch ready in the next couple days
<tevador> hyc: I think you could change the testnet epoch to 128 blocks even for public testing
<rbrunner> No mining in daemon would make me nervous, I have to admit
<hyc> tevador: yeah I guess we can try that.
<endogenic> hello all
<rehrar> dsc_ or selsta here also?
<hyc> speeding up test verification to 2 hours would certainly help
<endogenic> i may be in and out
<selsta> yes
<rbrunner> Would also be a minor PR defeat, so to say, after telling everyboding about restoring everybody's capacity to mine
<hyc> my cat just died
<endogenic> :(
<hyc> ^ joke
<endogenic> o
<rehrar> I think launching with daemon mining is pretty crucial. Shows we are prepared and not reliant on just one software for it, no?
<dEBRUYNE> hyc: Oh, then we should still have plenty of time
<dEBRUYNE> There's like 6 weeks left until mid october
<hyc> ok then should be no problem
<dEBRUYNE> rbrunner: Yes I tend to agree. I'd prefer to release v0.15.0.0 with full functionality
<rehrar> selsta: what's the state of the GUI as we march toward this fork?
<tevador> yeah, we should make sure daemon mining is working, especially since there is not much difference in hashrate between xmrig and monerod
<dEBRUYNE> With respect to branching, I guess we just keep merging stuff into master until the RandomX pull request is ready?
<moneromooo> There's certainly more stuff to be merged atm.
<rbrunner> Pragmatic approach :)
<selsta> xiphon added simple mode public node discovery without a centralized service, I did some redesigned the balance card, dsc is working on i2p
<hyc> makes sense
<jtgrassie> we shouldn't release a pow change and it being reliant on some third party miner
<selsta> also small things
<endogenic> moneromooo: hyc i just got it
<hyc> lol
<rehrar> it seems like this is shaping up to be a standard Moenro fork :P
<rehrar> we'll have our standard debriefing afterward with our similar standard complaints
<rehrar> anything else currently being worked on?
<tevador> how long was the code freeze last time?
<hyc> oh well. the integration PR was pushed in May. if more people had been testing it since then we could've found this earlier
<rbrunner> Last time was quite rushed because of the "ASIC emergency"
<hyc> as it is, we found the problems on testnet, so that at least served its purpose
<rbrunner> Are the Wownero people running smoothly then? If yes, why?
<hyc> they aren't using daemon mining
<rbrunner> Oh
<jtgrassie> amuses me how the problem exists in loki and wow
<rehrar> does anyone take Wownero seriously as a testing bed? Serious question.
<hoochu> This problem is likely will not be detected unless someone mined 3 long altchains with epoch boundary in the middle privately and exposed them to hyc`s testnet
<hoochu> *would not be
<sech1> yes, mining issue only happens when there are long altchains across epoch boundary
<hoochu> I had another initial attempt when did that
<moneromooo> "long" means that one block on each side would not be enough to trigger ?
<sech1> not necessarily long, I guess they need to have different seed hashes
<nioc> RandomX was released for wow will only daemon mining, tthere were no 3rd party miners at first
<tevador> must be at least 64 blocks I think
<sech1> so 64 blocks is enough if split block is chosen carefully
<hoochu> I suppose enough but noone tried to expose them before daemon miner even started to mine epoch boundary block
<moneromooo> OK. I'll see if I can add tests for this.
<hoochu> There was a race
<rbrunner> That sounds like an awfully special situation
<sech1> yes
<hyc> yes, but one which any attacker can construct
<hoochu> And noone claims that he tested all possible special situations
<sech1> other than that, it works
<hoochu> But it's better test all of them
<rbrunner> Mining ahead 64 mainnet blocks? Good luck for that attacker :)
<rbrunner> But I understand of course.
<hoochu> rbrunner, you're wrong
<sech1> technically, you don't need 64 valid blocks to do it
<hoochu> mine 2 blocks before mainnet and expose them immediately
<sech1> just 64 blocks to trigged node to verify them
<sech1> and boom
<sech1> it's broken
<hyc> anyway we don't need to occupy the rest of the meeting with this
<hyc> discussion in -pow
<rehrar> kinda fascinating though
<rehrar> are there any questions about specific issues or PRs?
<rbrunner> Remember when PoW algorithms were easy and simple …
<rehrar> no core team seems to be here though :/
<hyc> rbrunner: I suppose we'd have similar problems with any PoW scheme that references previous blocks
<hoochu> this problem exist due to complex dependencies in monerod and lack of people to know all of them to write correct code but not local small changes
<hoochu> *that know all of them
<moneromooo> tewinget: if you're still working on loki: ^
<rehrar> is vtnerd here?
<rehrar> I think he said in one of the previous meetings that his networking stuff will probably not be ready in time, correct?
<dEBRUYNE> <rehrar> so in theory there is a hypothetical freeze coming mid September? :D <= I guess branching is technically a freeze right? Because typically only fixes go into the branch
<rehrar> though it doesn't need a hard fork for his stuff so it doesn't matter
<dEBRUYNE> rehrar: Yeah I think he said the dandellion++ stuff would not be ready in time
<iDunk> vtnerd__: can you take a look please https://paste.debian.net/hidden/bccdc3a2/
<dEBRUYNE> His white noise PR has been merged though
<iDunk> That's a MacOS depends build with Clang 3.7.1
<rehrar> was there anything else that needed discussing?
<rehrar> alright, so it looks like we can call it here for the meeting
<rehrar> discussion can obviously continue afterwards on various topics
<rehrar> I'll try to ping core team peeps to be present for next meeting since we're drawing very close to a fork
Post tags : Dev Diaries, Monero Core, Cryptography