Add community run bootnodes to ensure Chaos Unicorn Day Resistance #1616

oskarth · 2019-09-23T14:28:06Z

Problem

If all our servers are down, e.g. during a Chaos Unicorn Day event, Status stops functioning. This is due to all bootnodes being hosted by us. It'd be good to have this in v1 since we'll likely want to do a CUD fairly soon.

Implementation

Issue PR that updates default bootnodes with community (Status core contributors primarily) run nodes.

Acceptance Criteria

Things still work. Bootnode can be connected to.

Notes

See https://discuss.status.im/t/increasing-bootstrap-node-diversity-kiss-edition/1138

Future Steps

oskarth · 2019-09-23T14:28:28Z

^ @jacqueswww @3esmit

fyi @corpetty @adambabik @cammellos

corpetty · 2019-09-23T14:31:00Z

thoughts on using a smart contract repository to register nodes?

cammellos · 2019-09-23T14:35:43Z

As part of the network incentives initiative, we already implemented a smart contract approach that rewards well behaving nodes and bans misbehaving ones. A POC has already been implemented in status-react ( not sybil resistant and easy to game), but the app can be run using a set of nodes pulled from a smart contract that police themselves.

…

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 16:31 Corey Petty ***@***.***> wrote: thoughts on using a smart contract repository to register nodes? — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1616?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAHYJMFKSZP44NBGIC5MA33QLDHKTA5CNFSM4IZLSFP2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOD7LBWCI#issuecomment-534125321>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAHYJMDXJOWEZZEQIAPOVITQLDHKTANCNFSM4IZLSFPQ> .

corpetty · 2019-09-23T14:39:13Z

thoughts on including the same curve dynamics dapp discovery uses? so a misbehaving node can be downvoted, but all staked with SNT

oskarth · 2019-09-23T14:40:07Z

I think that's a great idea to explore, but not for v1. Too many unknowns and risk factors imo. I'd rather keep it as simple as possible, and we can extend in iteration after.

corpetty · 2019-09-23T14:42:59Z

agreed

cammellos · 2019-09-23T14:54:31Z

yes, definitely not v1 material, in terms of staking, other similar projects avoid it (DASH, loki), likely because false positive are possible, and it is relatively easy to cause a dos to a node.

…

On Mon, Sep 23, 2019, 16:43 Corey Petty ***@***.***> wrote: agreed — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#1616?email_source=notifications&email_token=AAHYJMF6I3IR2MN5WPT4JPDQLDIXPA5CNFSM4IZLSFP2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOD7LC6ZY#issuecomment-534130535>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AAHYJMHJD7N7IF54JDWXP2LQLDIXPANCNFSM4IZLSFPQ> .

Swader · 2019-09-24T12:41:56Z

thoughts on using a smart contract repository to register nodes?

you need to be in sync with the network to read the contract though, so kind of a catch 22?

cammellos · 2019-09-24T12:45:57Z

kind of, you need to ask a synced node, if we were to use this strategy service nodes would be expected to be synced with the ethereum chain, so that you have a few options:

Ask any synced node
Use services such as infura
Fallback on an hardcoded list of bootnodes (at which point you can ask for the contract list if you wish)

This is no different from ethereum, ultimately we will need a list of hardcoded bootnodes/contract address

oskarth · 2019-10-22T06:56:33Z

Ping @jacqueswww any luck with this? @adambabik are all the docs up to date here? I believe there were some issues running a node but don't know details.

Also cc @3esmit and fyi @andremedeiros

3esmit · 2019-10-22T20:02:31Z

How we would deal with dynamic IPs?
I would happily run a bootnode, but my IP changes every time the modem connects with ISP. I also get disconnects from ISP and return with different IP.

oskarth · 2019-10-23T05:07:01Z

That is indeed a problem. With the current architecture, it is recommended you have a static IP. The cluster has specific static IPs (decoupled from ad hoc VPSes) for that reason. No worries!

corpetty · 2019-10-23T11:59:49Z

I'd love to find a way to handle dynamic IPs. It is $500 for a static IP from my provider. Most webservices get around this through proxy services like dyndns, but AFAIK our node discovery only takes IPs.

corpetty · 2019-10-23T12:02:23Z

I wonder if something like handshake could help with this.

Swader · 2019-10-23T12:25:26Z

Mobile routers connecting with data-only SIM cards generally have static IPs if they stay put in an area. I have one such router running on my nodes and it costs $20 per month for flat rate 4G. I don't know how other countries handle this but maybe look into it.

3esmit · 2019-10-23T14:55:24Z

We need a way to support dynamic IPs. In case of an active censorship over the use of bootnodes, static IPs are easy target.

I see that this problem goes deep in rabbit hole.

oskarth · 2019-10-28T03:28:20Z

I think it is an OK requirement for bootnodes to be static IPs. You want that mechanism to be as KISS as possible, since it is how you discover the rest of the network. For nodes that are being discovered (Whisper relay nodes / mailservers / etc) that's a different question.

The only thing that seems similarly KISS is to add support for DNS a la Bitcoin, but that's a bigger change. The problem with something like ENS is that you need to actually sync up your chain to get to it, which in itself requires bootnodes. So you haven't really solved any problem if you just require some other static nodes (or Infura DNS), just added another layer of indirection.

adambabik · 2019-10-28T06:20:01Z

In geth 1.9, discovery based on DNS was implemented:

I can do a POC with @jakubgs this week I believe.

It does not necessarily simplifies things for folks who have dynamic IPs, though. They would need to update their DNS every time an IP changes to make it useful. Also, updating DNS takes time.

jacqueswww · 2019-10-28T06:55:32Z

It does not necessarily simplifies things for folks who have dynamic IPs, though. They would need to update their DNS every time an IP changes to make it useful. Also, updating DNS takes time.

Actually this is can usually be setup on your router just look for DynDNS settings, I used to be very happy using freedns.afraid.org to host my own dynamic DNS.

Using DNS bootnodes is one more way to improve censorship resistance (it's obviously not full proof but it's one more layer).

oskarth · 2019-10-28T09:28:07Z

Oh right, forgot about that EIP! Nice one, poc would be awesome

oskarth · 2019-12-17T03:01:30Z

Ping @jacqueswww

jakubgs · 2019-12-17T10:10:24Z

I've added two simple ways of running bootnodes, can be read about here:
https://github.com/status-im/status-go/blob/develop/BOOTNODE.md
And the configuration is defined here:

jacqueswww · 2019-12-17T12:55:27Z

Cool thanks; will check it out.

jacqueswww · 2019-12-20T13:20:27Z

Alrighty; My new node is running at:

Bootnode:

enode://e6bfafb5c0c9961c0fca4cbe1da69f7fe0129e00b1b353e4a87adf85405c017f90f6d7197fa51a8a69e758d7821407422f3a29139aa24848dbce0c412ce0c859@51.15.70.35:30303

Mailserver

enode://e6bfafb5c0c9961c0fca4cbe1da69f7fe0129e00b1b353e4a87adf85405c017f90f6d7197fa51a8a69e758d7821407422f3a29139aa24848dbce0c412ce0c859:status-offline-inbox@51.15.70.35:30303

I believe it's a v1 node; so I get a PoW() error message from my Playstore Status client.

Anyone want to give it a go?

corpetty · 2019-12-20T17:37:53Z

@jacqueswww I think I've added you and connected but current V1 doesn't show previously added bootnodes (new bug I think)

corpetty · 2019-12-20T17:42:21Z

after adding mailserver, I got "The mailserver couldn't be reached"

jakubgs · 2019-12-21T08:19:54Z

I don't think it works, your port doesn't appear to be open. Either a NAT or a firewall issue:

 $ node-canary -log WARN -mailserver 'enode://e6bfafb5c0c9961c0fca4cbe1da69f7fe0129e00b1b353e4a87adf85405c017f90f6d7197fa51a8a69e758d7821407422f3a29139aa24848dbce0c412ce0c859@51.15.70.35:30303' 
ERROR[12-21|09:18:43.259] Error detected while waiting for mailserver peer to be added package=status-go/cmd/node-canary error="wait for peer: timeout"

 $ sudo nmap -Pn -p 30303 51.15.70.35
Starting Nmap 7.80 ( https://nmap.org ) at 2019-12-21 09:19 CET
Nmap scan report for 35-70-15-51.rev.cloud.scaleway.com (51.15.70.35)
Host is up (0.029s latency).

PORT      STATE  SERVICE
30303/tcp closed unknown

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 0.22 seconds

jacqueswww · 2019-12-22T01:12:19Z

@jakubgs @corpetty thanks for testing! OK please try now - looking at the logs I must've stopped the service - please try again :)

PORT      STATE SERVICE
30303/tcp open  unknown

jakubgs · 2019-12-22T13:03:25Z

Down again:

Nmap scan report for 35-70-15-51.rev.cloud.scaleway.com (51.15.70.35)
Host is up (0.026s latency).

PORT      STATE  SERVICE
30303/tcp closed unknown

How do you run your node? What do you see in logs?

 $ pwd
/home/me/work/status-go
 $ cd _assets/systemd/mailserver 
 $ make logs
journalctl --user-unit statusd
...

jacqueswww · 2019-12-22T13:21:55Z

@jakubgs so I think the moment I log out the job kills itself.

Dec 22 03:33:40 status-node systemd[3151]: Stopping Status.im Mailserver Service...
Dec 22 03:33:40 status-node systemd[3151]: Stopped Status.im Mailserver Service.
Dec 22 15:20:02 status-node systemd[14365]: Starting Status.im Mailserver Service...

jacqueswww · 2019-12-22T13:26:59Z

I think for my use case i.e. for being able to logout of my machine however be able to keep the process in the background I should use Type=simple instead ? I have logged out and it does seem to still have the port open :o) Will try again a bit later.

jakubgs · 2019-12-22T14:31:38Z

Well, the way make run-mailserver-systemd works is that it runs as a user service, so yes, logging out would terminate it. I did it this way to simplify the process and avoid the need for sudo.

If you want to make it into a system service you'd have to remove it as a user service and use the same kind of *.service files but located in /etc/systemd/system For example /etc/systemd/system/statusd.service. Something like:

sudo cp ~/.config/systemd/user/statusd.service /etc/systemd/system
cd ~/wherever/you/have/status-go/_assets/systemd/mailserver
make clean
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable statusd
sudo systemctl start statusd

That should make it into a system service that will run with system boot.

jakubgs · 2019-12-22T14:53:27Z

In hindsight this might be something worth adding to our README files in status-go.

@jacqueswww please review and test the branch to see if that works for you: #1755

jacqueswww · 2020-01-03T14:57:41Z

@jakubgs great thanks; just tested worked for me.

jacqueswww · 2020-01-03T15:23:14Z

I used new configs; so:
Bootnode:

enode://bfa9df5a5dc3c6bb788ea63eac48c29058a0f4a089adaa573720e76ca0a29f0f8bb79e4a8a4b79afb7bc01bf05a0c3df4d10a37bf3e327ccfe3efa83a7a0d2ec@51.15.70.35:30303

Mailserver:

enode://bfa9df5a5dc3c6bb788ea63eac48c29058a0f4a089adaa573720e76ca0a29f0f8bb79e4a8a4b79afb7bc01bf05a0c3df4d10a37bf3e327ccfe3efa83a7a0d2ec:status-offline-inbox@51.15.70.35:30303

status-github-bot · 2021-08-05T16:00:24Z

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. It will be closed if no further activity occurs. Thank you for your contributions.

oskarth · 2021-08-06T02:39:15Z

Was this solved? It is still a problem :)

Though perhaps more on status-react as a user-facing issue

jakubgs · 2021-08-06T08:13:14Z

@oskarth because I thought Chaos Unicorn Day was over =].

oskarth · 2021-08-06T09:59:43Z

It's never over!

You know, you could just shut down the whole cluster and watch people panic...

jakubgs · 2021-08-06T15:22:27Z

Now that you say it... that does sound fun.

weekly-digest bot mentioned this issue Sep 29, 2019

Weekly Digest (22 September, 2019 - 29 September, 2019) #1621

Closed

weekly-digest bot mentioned this issue Oct 27, 2019

Weekly Digest (20 October, 2019 - 27 October, 2019) #1654

Closed

jakubgs mentioned this issue Dec 22, 2019

allow running systemd service as root #1755

Merged

status-github-bot bot added the stale label Aug 5, 2021

jakubgs closed this as completed Aug 5, 2021

oskarth reopened this Aug 6, 2021

status-github-bot bot removed the stale label Aug 6, 2021

cammellos closed this as completed Nov 6, 2023

Add community run bootnodes to ensure Chaos Unicorn Day Resistance #1616

Add community run bootnodes to ensure Chaos Unicorn Day Resistance #1616

Comments

oskarth commented Sep 23, 2019

Problem

Implementation

Acceptance Criteria

Notes

Future Steps

oskarth commented Sep 23, 2019

corpetty commented Sep 23, 2019

cammellos commented Sep 23, 2019 via email

corpetty commented Sep 23, 2019

oskarth commented Sep 23, 2019

corpetty commented Sep 23, 2019

cammellos commented Sep 23, 2019 via email

Swader commented Sep 24, 2019

cammellos commented Sep 24, 2019 • edited Loading

oskarth commented Oct 22, 2019

3esmit commented Oct 22, 2019

oskarth commented Oct 23, 2019

corpetty commented Oct 23, 2019

corpetty commented Oct 23, 2019

Swader commented Oct 23, 2019

3esmit commented Oct 23, 2019

oskarth commented Oct 28, 2019 • edited Loading

adambabik commented Oct 28, 2019 • edited Loading

jacqueswww commented Oct 28, 2019 • edited Loading

oskarth commented Oct 28, 2019

oskarth commented Dec 17, 2019

jakubgs commented Dec 17, 2019

jacqueswww commented Dec 17, 2019

jacqueswww commented Dec 20, 2019

corpetty commented Dec 20, 2019

corpetty commented Dec 20, 2019

jakubgs commented Dec 21, 2019 • edited Loading

jacqueswww commented Dec 22, 2019 • edited Loading

jakubgs commented Dec 22, 2019

jacqueswww commented Dec 22, 2019

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jakubgs commented Dec 22, 2019

jacqueswww commented Jan 3, 2020

jacqueswww commented Jan 3, 2020

status-github-bot bot commented Aug 5, 2021

oskarth commented Aug 6, 2021 • edited Loading

jakubgs commented Aug 6, 2021

oskarth commented Aug 6, 2021

jakubgs commented Aug 6, 2021

cammellos commented Sep 24, 2019 •

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oskarth commented Oct 28, 2019 •

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adambabik commented Oct 28, 2019 •

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jacqueswww commented Oct 28, 2019 •

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jakubgs commented Dec 21, 2019 •

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jacqueswww commented Dec 22, 2019 •

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jacqueswww commented Dec 22, 2019 •

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jakubgs commented Dec 22, 2019 •

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oskarth commented Aug 6, 2021 •

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