vspd migration coordination

[xaur]

Update 2022-06-23: Things have changed, dcrstakepool is no longer functional and the majority has migrated to vspd. Some of the tasks below may no longer be necessary, while some are still nice to have. To be clear, most of them have never blocked the migration but rather suggested how to make it smoother for operators and users. See this comment for a more recent status.

• Notify operators privately
• Pick better terms to disambiguate old and new VSP staking
  • A name for the new VSP staking process dcrdocs#1156
  • Likely obsolete. May be no longer relevant if we have no more VSP2 tickets (until we get some VSP4 tickets :) )
• dcrstakepool updates
  • Deprecation notice in the README (Deprecation notice. dcrstakepool#634)
  • Add deprecation notice and link vspd replacement to legacy UI home page (Add deprecation notice and vspd link to UI home page dcrstakepool#635)
    • Canceled. There is a PR but it was not merged (Add closing notice to homepage UI dcrstakepool#638)
• vspd updates
  • Add link to legacy dcrstakepool instance (Add link to legacy dcrstakepool instance #224)
    • Canceled. There is a PR but it's no longer needed now that the legacy is gone (Support link to legacy vsp #325)
• dcrdocs updates
  • Migration entry point for operators.
    • Likely obsolete. degeri's guide posted in (VSP shutdown guidelines dcrdocs#1139) covered how to shutdown dcrstakepool. I guess the remaining step of "migration for operators" is to launch a vspd, so perhaps such an entry point is no longer needed. There was no process to carry over VSP2 tickets into a VSP3 server.
    • Operating a VSP page was updated.
  • VSP shutdown guidelines
    • VSP shutdown guidelines dcrdocs#1139
    • Still relevant for vspd and would be nice to have in a well-known place. Perhaps degeri's guide for shutting down a dcrstakepool could be ported for vspd.
  • Migration entry points for users (dcrwallet, Decrediton).
    • Likely obsolete. I thought it would be nice to have one link covering all aspects of migrating tickets to vspd (e.g. I had to get through some pains with CLI). I guess Decrediton users were guided by its GUI, and in any case there is no longer a choice to stay on dcrstakepool.
  • Update How to Stake page
    • Still talks about legacy stuff, update needed (Update How to Stake for vspd dcrdocs#1157)
  • Update How to Vote
    • I think its first image is still from the legacy web UI
  • Update Verifying Votes
    • Likely unneeded. I don't see anything specific to VSP, but someone double checking wouldn't hurt.
• Check Decrediton migration UX
  • Needs to have noticeable UI clues to prompt people to migrate, e.g. warn user when buying tickets with legacy VSP.
    • Done. Afaik it was implemented.
  • Help users choose which vspd to use now that they are not routed through VSP's website where they can learn about the advantages of that VSP (e.g. voted/revoked stats, count of voting wallets, operator name, etc.).
    • Possibly done. Does Decrediton show any info for the vspd server that helps to make a choice?
• decred.org updates
  • list vspd instances at /vsp (Add vspd operators to /vsp dcrweb#920)
    • Done in (Show vspd instances on /vsp page dcrweb#965)
• A dashboard to track migration progress
  • Ideally with charts
  • Maybe something similar to voting.decred.org?
  • Candidate locations: decred.org/vsp, dcrdata, PD Analytics
  • Obsolete. Nothing to track now. It may be interesting to researchers to analyze how various VSPs have performed but it is out of scope of this issue now.
• VSP operators should prompt their users to migrate to their vspds via email/Twitter/etc.
  • Done. I assume they did what they could.

Discussions:

• 2020-12-09: "Upcoming Changes in 1.6 for Proof-of-Stake using VSPs" has some user-friendly text about why users and operators should upgrade to vspd

[xaur]

Updated 2022-06-23.

First table tracks legacy dcrstakepools and their replacement vspd instances and versions.

dcrstakepool	vspd	vspd ver
	123.dcr.rocks	1.1.0
	vspd.synergy-crypto.net	1.1.1
99split.com	vspd.99split.com	1.1.1
dcr.farm	vsp.dcr.farm	1.1.0
dcrpool.dittrex.com	dcrvsp.dittrex.com	1.2.0-pre
dcrpool.ibitlin.com	dcrpool.ibitlin.com	1.1.0-pre
dcrstake.coinmine.pl	vsp.coinmine.pl	1.1.1
dcr.stakeminer.com	vsp.stakeminer.com	1.1.1
dcr.ubiqsmart.com	dcrvsp.ubiqsmart.com	1.1.1
decred.raqamiya.net
decredvoting.com	decredvoting.com	1.1.1
decred.yieldwallet.io
legacy.ultravsp.uk	ultravsp.uk	1.1.1
pool.d3c.red	vsp.decredcommunity.org	1.1.1
stake.decredbrasil.com	vspd.decredbrasil.com	1.1.1
stakepool.dcrstats.com
stakepool.eu
stakey.com	vspd.stakey.com	1.1.0
stakey.net	stakey.net	1.1.1

Second table captures how dcrstakepools have been shutdown.

dcrstakepool	API last	Imma	Live	Status	Listed?	Comment
99split.com	2021-10-24	0	0	Off	No	On 2021-10-26 it gave 404 Not Found
dcr.farm	2021-06-10	0	41	?	No	(1)
dcrpool.dittrex.com	2021-07-30	1	0	Off	No	Next day it went 504: Gateway Time-out
dcrpool.ibitlin.com	2021-11-11	0	7	Off	Yes	Later it started redirecting to vspd UI
dcrstake.coinmine.pl	2022-06-23	0	16	Up	Yes	Block 670438
dcr.stakeminer.com	2022-06-23	1	23	Up	Yes	Block 657279
dcr.ubiqsmart.com	2022-02-01	0	7	Off	Yes	Later it started redirecting to vspd UI
decred.raqamiya.net	2021-08-15	0	11	Off	No	Later it went 502: Bad Gateway
decredvoting.com	2022-03-05	0	5	Off	No	Later it went 404: Not Found
decred.yieldwallet.io	2021-06-29	0	0	Off	No	Later it went Connection timed out
legacy.ultravsp.uk	2022-02-13	3	58	Off	Yes	Later stats error - RPC server error, code 14
pool.d3c.red	2021-04-17	0	1	Off	No
stake.decredbrasil.com	2022-06-23	0	0	Up	Yes	Block 670438
stakepool.dcrstats.com	2021-05-14	0	77	Off	No	(2)
stakepool.eu	2022-03-05	0	2	Off	No	Later it went Connection refused
stakey.com	2021-09-15	1	0	Off	No	Next day it redirected to vspd UI
stakey.net	2022-05-15	0	9	Off	No	Later it went 502: Bad Gateway

Legend:

• Listed? means still served by dcrwebapi and shown at decred.org/vsp.

Notes:

1. dcr.farm: Wallets were promised to stay up until all tickets vote. Last known live ticket count was 32 on 2021-06-22.

2. dcrstats.com's legacy dcrstakepool API first was forked off, then returned errors, and then switched to a maintenance page. Last known data point was 77 live tickets on 2021-05-14.

[xaur]

@jholdstock I guess the instances with "pre" in the table above are not building from release branches.

[jholdstock]

Correct

[jholdstock]

Including a link to the operator guide put together by @degeri

https://gist.github.com/degeri/a489b458b1a850ff378914f464f158c6

[xaur]

Main checklist updated: decred.org udpates done, linked terminology coordination decred/dcrdocs#1156, added Decrediton bullet to help with vspd choice, tweaks.

vspd table updated: stakey.com and stakey.net seem to have deployed from release branches and have proper 1.0.0 versions now.

[xaur]

dcrstakepool-vspd mapping table updated: added 123.dcr.rocks and checked all versions. 4 VSPs still run 1.0.0-pre.

[jholdstock]

A 1.0.1 release will likely be coming up soon to pre-emptively fix some database scaling issues (#223). When that comes I will prompt operators to upgrade, rather than pushing for two updates in quick succession.

[jholdstock]

Tracking rollout of vspd 1.1.0 here. I plan to close this issue once the rollout is completed. Some of the points listed in the original post by @xaur are still relevant/useful, so I will open new issues in the relevant repos for those.

Communication log:

• 18 Feb - Github release, project account tweet, Matrix admin group notification
• 01 Mar - Direct Matrix notification for lagging admins
• 13 Mar - Another direct Matrix notification + email to listed support addresses

VSP	21 Feb	1 Mar	13 Mar	15 Mar	19 Mar	22 Mar
stakey.net	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
vsp.decredcommunity.org	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
vspd.stakey.com	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
vspd.synergy-crypto.net	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
ultravsp.uk	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
vspd.99split.com	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
vspd.decredbrasil.com	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️	✔️
vsp.coinmine.pl	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
vsp.dcr.farm	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️	✔️
123.dcr.rocks	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
vsp.stakeminer.com	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️	✔️
dcrvsp.ubiqsmart.com	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	✔️
dcrvsp.dittrex.com	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
dcrpool.ibitlin.com	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌
decredvoting.com	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌	❌

[jyap808]

dcrvsp.ubiqsmart.com has been upgraded for the past few days. cheers!

[ukane-philemon]

@xaur please can you update the todos? would love to see what's left.

[jholdstock]

@jyap808 I'm still seeing 1.1.0-pre on your API. This indicates a pre-release version, built from the master branch before the 1.1.0 release was tagged.

[jyap808]

Hmm, strange. OK, just pulled and rebuilt:
2022-03-19 10:38:09.699 [INF] VSP: Version 1.2.0-pre (Go version go1.17.6 linux/amd64)

[jholdstock]

The -pre suffix indicates you are building from master, please build from the release tags to ensure you are getting the correct code

[xaur]

@ukane-philemon I updated subtasks and commented on each.

[xaur]

Updated the legacy shutdown comparison table to see which operators did it the best way (fewer immature/live tickets at the end is better).

[ukane-philemon]

Add deprecation notice and link vspd replacement to legacy UI home page (decred/dcrstakepool#635)

@jholdstock can decide if we can tick this one off the list :).

[jholdstock]

I clicked the checkbox just to see if it would update and it did. I didnt know I would have permissions to do that lol.

Checked a couple of others too.

[xaur]

Right, repo admins can edit any issue or PR description. This is great as you can keep your repo/issues/PRs clean and pretty even if the initial submission was poorly formatted. Behind the scenes, "checking" a box does an edit changing [ ] to [x].

[jholdstock]

dcrstakepool is entirely phased out now so I'm closing this issue. Thanks @xaur for opening this and staying on top of the migration process.