AE node plugin for the "ae_dev" (on-demand) consensus mode

This plugin is a simple example of how to plug in development mode logic in Aeternity nodes. It registers itself to run when dev_mode is activated, and provides a simple Web interface to demonstrate the effects of on-demand consensus.

Aeternity is a Proof-of-Work (mining) blockchain, where miners on the network compete for production of the next block. Mined blocks are broadcast, and validated by each receiving node. This is safe, but slow and computation-heavy.

When running tests or developing apps on top of the chain, one prefers a mode where blocks are produced as quickly and cheaply as possible. While this takes place on a local node, the logic for cryptographically sealing blocks, as well as the computation requirement protecting against brute-force attacks, can all be dispensed with.

There is such a consensus mode in Aeternity, called on_demand. Once it is activated, there is no going back, as the blocks produced by it would fail validation. Also, when on_demand consensus is activated, the sync application in Aeternity is not run. This is for development and testing only.

The plugin uses the aeplugin_rebar3 rebar plugin. This collects dependencies from https://github.com/aeternity/aeternity (master). If you want to build against another version of Aeternity, checkout the README for aeplugin_rebar3.

Dependencies that are already part of the Aeternity node are given on the form {lager, {ae, lager}}. Other dependencies are declared as usual.

To simply compile the code:

$ rebar3 compile

To build a plugin archive (will also compile), run the following command:

$ rebar3 ae_plugin

This should cause generation of a file _build/default/aeplugin_dev_mode.ez. This file is then copied or symlinked into the AETERNITY_ROOT/plugins/ directory.

After this, the node can be started either with a configuration as suggested below, or most simply by providing some OS environment variables, for example:

AE__SYSTEM__DEV_MODE=true \
  AE__SYSTEM__PLUGINS='[{"name":"aeplugin_dev_mode"}]' \
  bin/aeternity console

An example of a (presumably minimal) configuration file can be found in examples/devmode.yaml.

Some comments below:

First, some system parameters for locating and identifying the dev_mode plugin. The lib root is a directory under which Erlang applications reside, much like the Erlang/OTP applications under (Erlang Top)/lib. Only the plugins listed under system:plugins will be loaded.

system:
    dev_mode: true
    plugins:
        -
          name: aeplugin_dev_mode
dev_mode:
    keyblock_interval: 0
    microblock_interval: 0
    auto_emit_microblocks: true

NOTE: In earlier versions of the dev_mode plugin, the block interval and auto-emit options were given in the plugin config. They have now been moved to the Aeternity node config.

This makes it possible to specify a custom path to where the plugin can read and write files. The directiory must be read/write accessible. The default path is AETERNITY_ROOT/data/aeplugin_dev_mode/.

This specifies an optional subdirectory under the workspace path. The default is "" - i.e. no subdirectory.

When the dev_mode plugin is initialized, it looks for a prefunded accounts file either specified with the plugin config prefunded:file, or as WorkSpacePath[/WorkspaceName]/devmode_prefunded_accounts.json. If there is no such file, it checks if parameters are provided for automatically generating accounts. Generation can only proceed if there isn't aleady a genesis block (the database has not yet been created). If there is no specified prefunded accounts file, and the chain exists, startup proceeds as normal. This would be the case when starting in dev mode based on an existing chain.

Here is an example aeternity config, which initializes a workspace, also placing the chain database in that workspace directory:

chain:
  db_path: data/aeplugin_dev_mode/ws1
system:
  dev_mode: true
  plugins:
      -
        name: aeplugin_dev_mode
        config:
          workspace_name: ws1
          prefunded:
            gen:
              quantity: 10
              balance: 1000000

The default workspace path of AE_ROOT/data/aeplugin_dev_mode is assumed. Note that if another workspace path is defined in the plugin config, the chain:db_path value needs to be modified to match. The node will expand all path strings to absolute paths from AE_ROOT. It will also create intermediate directories if possible, and ensure that the user has write access to the target directory.

In the above case, the plugin will look for the default prefunded accounts file data/aeplugin_dev_mode/ws1/devmode_prefunded_accounts.json. During the first startup, the file isn't present, so a file is generated using the parameters in the plugin config prefunded:gen. The generated file contains both public and private keys for each account.

In order to make the accounts be created as the genesis block is created, a public version of the file is made. The name is the same as the full file, except that "-PUB" is added just before the extension. This file contains only the public keys and the account, on the format expected by the node.

After first startup, the contents of the ws1 directory would be:

$ ls data/aeplugin_dev_mode/ws1/
devmode_prefunded_accounts.json      devmode_prefunded_accounts-PUB.json  mnesia/

NOTE: The node will reconstitute and validate the genesis block at each subsequent restart, so the prefunded accounts must remain unchanged. If you want to delete and re-generate, you will also need to delete the database.

Note that the config attribute can be left out. The values in the example are the default values, except for auto_emit_microblocks, which defaults to false.

Setting dev_mode: true instructs the node to set sensible defaults for development, unless those parameters are explicitly set to other values. These defaults are:

The beneficiary account is a keypair created for testing purposes, which can be accessed from the node using aecore_env:patron_keypair_for_testing(). It is automatically loaded during dev mode and testing as a pre-configured account, loaded with 10³² AE.

Note that setting the network_id to ae_dev activates some defaults in itself - mainly: the on_demand consensus mode.

The parameters keyblock_interval, microblock_interval and auto_emit_microblocks are defined in the node schema and handled by the node's built-in dev mode emitter. The settings are automatically checked against the schema at node startup, and processed by the built-in emitter when dev_mode is activated.

Setting the reward delay as low as it will go (2), will ensure that rewards are paid out sooner, which can be useful to generate funds in the beneficiary account by producing keyblocks.

The strictly_follow_top option should be set to ensure that each new microblock is based on the latest microblock top. When blocks are generated as quickly as possible, there is otherwise a risk that micro-forks occur. There will be no human-noticeable performance penalty for enabling this option.

There is a very simple web interface to illustrate what the plugin does. By default, it listens to port 3313, but this can be changed by setting the OS environment variable AE_DEVMODE_PORT.

The demo web page lets you generate a given number of key blocks instantly. It lists all account balances on the node (presumably, they will be pretty few). It also provides a way to send tokens between a set of demo accounts - one of which should be the beneficiary account, thereby accumulating funds.

Whenever a transaction is pushed to the mempool, the plugin will be notified and emits a microblock.

The REST interface can return JSON data. See the JSON REST API documentation for details.

For the purposes of the demo web interface, the following primitive REST API was added:

• /emit_mb - Emit a microblock
• /emit_kb?n=<N> - Emit N keyblocks
• /kb_interval?secs=<S> - Set a keyblock interval of S seconds (secs=0 turns off)
• /mb_interval?secs=<S> - Set a microblock interval of S seconds (secs=0 turns off)
• /auto_emit_mb?auto_emit=on - Turn on auto-emission of microblocks on tx push
• /auto_emit_mb?auto_emit=off - Turn off auto-emission of microblocks on tx push

Note that when auto_emit is on, the devmode consensus logic will interleave microblocks and keyblocks (one microblock followed by one keyblocks) until all expected transactions are on-chain.

There is a Dockerfile in the repository for testing. It uses the aeternity/aeternity:master docker image. Remember to do docker pull aeternity/aeternity:master on occasion, if there have been updates to the aeternity code. You don't have to do it for every build.

Building the docker file (assuming that you have Docker installed):

docker pull aeternity/aeternity:master
docker build -t devmode .

Running the above image:

docker run -t -p 3313:3313 devmode:latest

Consult tutorials and documentation on Docker features. Specifically here, you need to use the -p opition to map the HTTP port (default: 3313) so you can access the REST interface.

You can feed configuration data into the docker container using OS environment variables:

docker run -t -p 3313:3313 -e "DEVMODE__PREFUNDED__GEN={\"quantity\":10, \"balance\":100000}" devmode:latest

(NOTE that this is similar to setting config data for the Aeternity node using the AE__ prefix. The corresponding prefix for the dev mode plugin is DEVMODE__.)