Add RPC endpoint to call tx without commit

[gegaowp]

Tests:

1. curl with prepared arguments like tx bytes etc.
2. test with wallet transfer & NFT mint, making sure tx can still be executed

curl --location --request POST http://127.0.0.1:9000 \
--header 'Content-Type: application/json' \
--data-raw '{ "jsonrpc":"2.0", "method":"sui_callTransaction","id":1, "params":["VHJhbnNhY3Rpb25EYXRhOjoAA6cX+ums6YaOYWcwGNuac9DsItb+AWcrAAAAAAAA81CQ+9jZWfQZAMaenws7ICwj3rYjuxrAqWGpFXg4HaW8XtjMjfnHFAEAAAAAAAAAIFvTUM2y6Wk8Dm6HoTaarmIl7ddopKmibbkOkzJtxbkiAQAAAAAAAABkAAAAAAAAAA==", "ED25519", "1us4z7FQoI9KxQNVlAh6ZxPniX56QEE9odgs+XmXfAwWv83aDR/ch4WXd+PGVnArnicAAombbaHAjMOhnsgUBw==", "0QMT8bP3W5YppT2aWb3HD7NPWMSxfOxKUuET+xlaNiQ="]}'
{"jsonrpc":"2.0","result":{"status":{"status":"success"},"gasUsed":{"computationCost":45,"storageCost":48,"storageRebate":32},"transactionDigest":"rm6LcSKTYJ5cXYnpwaYFwUUsfGGqij0kxkzjbOOk2DI=","created":[{"owner":{"AddressOwner":"0xa717fae9ace9868e61673018db9a73d0ec22d6fe"},"reference":{"objectId":"0xdaab3a82b9ddde937fe5a55a53e10212007b2257","version":1,"digest":"s/rNVIQoTTpL9DFSZI8c7ubOuFKzdgdx18lFQWBs80w="}}],"mutated":[{"owner":{"AddressOwner":"0xf35090fbd8d959f41900c69e9f0b3b202c23deb6"},"reference":{"objectId":"0x23bb1ac0a961a91578381da5bc5ed8cc8df9c714","version":2,"digest":"sa1Mb0xP9WOGXJFKppwNORmvxSEnZfLdci18uFYxlfQ="}}],"gasObject":{"owner":{"AddressOwner":"0xf35090fbd8d959f41900c69e9f0b3b202c23deb6"},"reference":{"objectId":"0x23bb1ac0a961a91578381da5bc5ed8cc8df9c714","version":2,"digest":"sa1Mb0xP9WOGXJFKppwNORmvxSEnZfLdci18uFYxlfQ="}},"events":[{"transferObject":{"packageId":"0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000002","transactionModule":"native","sender":"0xf35090fbd8d959f41900c69e9f0b3b202c23deb6","recipient":{"AddressOwner":"0xa717fae9ace9868e61673018db9a73d0ec22d6fe"},"objectId":"0x23bb1ac0a961a91578381da5bc5ed8cc8df9c714","version":1,"type":"Coin","amount":11111}}],"dependencies":["D5EwdUY7/XB2HbMAXSBVH81Wj+/uavhoYVlg9b3bMfg="]},"id":1}%

[patrickkuo]

just my personal opinion :)

will calling it dry_run_transaction makes it more obvious that this method doesn't commit? call_transaction is a bit ambiguous for me.

[patrickkuo]

also I think it makes more sense to put it in QuorumDriverApi together with execute_transaction

[gegaowp]

@patrickkuo dry_run_transaction is a better name indeed, will change it accordingly!

to put it in QuorumDriverApi

I was thinking about this as well, if I do it this way, iirc the "dry_tx" will go to NetworkAuthorityClient and then try to reach validators, instead of executing it on the local fullnode following the current impl.

Executing locally on the fullnode is better I think bc

• its not necessary to involve validators here
• dry run request traffic on the fullnode is isolated from other nodes in case of abusing

Did I miss sth?

[patrickkuo]

to do this we will need to pass in the AuthorityState to the FullNodeQuorumDriverApi, this should execute locally.

Having 2nd thoughts, the QuorumDriver is configurable, so fullnode can choose to disable it, maybe it's not a good idea to put it in QuorumDriverApi depends on the use case.

[gegaowp]

the QuorumDriver is configurable, so fullnode can choose to disable it

right, iirc QuorumDriver drives txns with a quorum of validators as the name says, and dry_run to me is more like a read-only endpoint.

[666lcz]

If the transaction contains shared objects, we need to ensure they have been scheduled
// for processing by the consensus protocol.

Does this also apply to call_transaction? If so, it seems to open up a vulnerability for DDOS where consensus protocol can be called without gas. cc @lxfind

[gegaowp]

iirc, check_shared_locks only checks local DB of AuthorityState, and the fullnode that processes this dry_run request will not send it elsewhere either, so it will not add extra traffic or workload to other nodes.
https://github.com/gegaowp/sui/blob/5d346fdcceb3e0f42b2b23feb7cffd367a98ed49/crates/sui-core/src/authority.rs#L530
will leave it to Xun to confirm.

[lxfind]

Correct, this only checks for shared object locks, and does not do consensus.
However, if a transaction does involve shared objects, trying to execute it here without consensus is not going to work.
What do we want to do with call_transaction that involves shared objects? Maybe we should abort it earlier in call_transaction by checking this first.

[gegaowp]

@lxfind thanks for the info!

trying to execute it here without consensus is not going to work.

other than the sequence number, does the execution also need anything else from consensus?

What do we want to do with call_transaction that involves shared objects?

the original idea is to implement an eth_call equivalent so ideally we can dry run txns with shared objects as well, but if that is indeed tricky, I think it would still be useful for owned objects only. And yes I should abort earlier if do so.

[lxfind]

Sequence number is what it needs, which is usually set by the consensus.
One alternative is that you could just use whatever is the latest state of the shared objects to execute the transaction, which may be useful in most cases if the shared object is not updated all the time. To do that, you can probably bypass the shared object lock check if it's attempting to execute a transaction instead of a certificate.
Some tests would be useful just to make sure this works.

[gegaowp]

@lxfind I made a couple of changes accordingly and it should be ready for another review, thanks!

• dry run will skip the shared objects check, I also reverted the helper function change as code sharing is small now
• added a dry run test.