--- layout: post title: Overview and Logs for the Dev Meeting Held on 2019-09-08 summary: Development status, Code & ticket discussion, 0.15 release discussion, and miscellaneous tags: [dev diaries, core, crypto] author: el00ruobuob / moneromooo / rehrar --- # 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