zolfa
/
tendermint


								/*

								Package lite allows you to securely validate headers without a full node.


								This library pulls together all the crypto and algorithms, so given a

								relatively recent (< unbonding period) known validator set, one can get

								indisputable proof that data is in the chain (current state) or detect if the

								node is lying to the client.


								Tendermint RPC exposes a lot of info, but a malicious node could return any

								data it wants to queries, or even to block headers, even making up fake

								signatures from non-existent validators to justify it. This is a lot of logic

								to get right, to be contained in a small, easy to use library, that does this

								for you, so you can just build nice applications.


								We design for clients who have no strong trust relationship with any Tendermint

								node, just the blockchain and validator set as a whole.


								SignedHeader


								SignedHeader is a block header along with a commit -- enough validator

								precommit-vote signatures to prove its validity (> 2/3 of the voting power)

								given the validator set responsible for signing that header. A FullCommit is a

								SignedHeader along with the current and next validator sets.


								The hash of the next validator set is included and signed in the SignedHeader.

								This lets the lite client keep track of arbitrary changes to the validator set,

								as every change to the validator set must be approved by inclusion in the

								header and signed in the commit.


								In the worst case, with every block changing the validators around completely,

								a lite client can sync up with every block header to verify each validator set

								change on the chain. In practice, most applications will not have frequent

								drastic updates to the validator set, so the logic defined in this package for

								lite client syncing is optimized to use intelligent bisection and

								block-skipping for efficient sourcing and verification of these data structures

								and updates to the validator set (see the DynamicVerifier for more

								information).


								The FullCommit is also declared in this package as a convenience structure,

								which includes the SignedHeader along with the full current and next

								ValidatorSets.


								Verifier


								A Verifier validates a new SignedHeader given the currently known state. There

								are two different types of Verifiers provided.


								BaseVerifier - given a validator set and a height, this Verifier verifies

								that > 2/3 of the voting power of the given validator set had signed the

								SignedHeader, and that the SignedHeader was to be signed by the exact given

								validator set, and that the height of the commit is at least height (or

								greater).


								DynamicVerifier - this Verifier implements an auto-update and persistence

								strategy to verify any SignedHeader of the blockchain.


								Provider and PersistentProvider


								A Provider allows us to store and retrieve the FullCommits.


								    type Provider interface {

								        // LatestFullCommit returns the latest commit with

								        // minHeight <= height <= maxHeight.

								        // If maxHeight is zero, returns the latest where

								        // minHeight <= height.

								        LatestFullCommit(chainID string, minHeight, maxHeight int64) (FullCommit, error)

								    }


								* client.NewHTTPProvider - query Tendermint rpc.


								A PersistentProvider is a Provider that also allows for saving state.  This is

								used by the DynamicVerifier for persistence.


								    type PersistentProvider interface {

								        Provider


								        // SaveFullCommit saves a FullCommit (without verification).

								        SaveFullCommit(fc FullCommit) error

								    }


								* DBProvider - persistence provider for use with any libs/DB.


								* MultiProvider - combine multiple providers.


								The suggested use for local light clients is client.NewHTTPProvider(...) for

								getting new data (Source), and NewMultiProvider(NewDBProvider("label",

								dbm.NewMemDB()), NewDBProvider("label", db.NewFileDB(...))) to store confirmed

								full commits (Trusted)


								How We Track Validators


								Unless you want to blindly trust the node you talk with, you need to trace

								every response back to a hash in a block header and validate the commit

								signatures of that block header match the proper validator set.  If there is a

								static validator set, you store it locally upon initialization of the client,

								and check against that every time.


								If the validator set for the blockchain is dynamic, verifying block commits is

								a bit more involved -- if there is a block at height H with a known (trusted)

								validator set V, and another block at height H' (H' > H) with validator set V'

								!= V, then we want a way to safely update it.


								First, we get the new (unconfirmed) validator set V' and verify that H' is

								internally consistent and properly signed by this V'. Assuming it is a valid

								block, we check that at least 2/3 of the validators in V also signed it,

								meaning it would also be valid under our old assumptions.  Then, we accept H'

								and V' as valid and trusted and use that to validate for heights X > H' until a

								more recent and updated validator set is found.


								If we cannot update directly from H -> H' because there was too much change to

								the validator set, then we can look for some Hm (H < Hm < H') with a validator

								set Vm.  Then we try to update H -> Hm and then Hm -> H' in two steps.  If one

								of these steps doesn't work, then we continue bisecting, until we eventually

								have to externally validate the validator set changes at every block.


								Since we never trust any server in this protocol, only the signatures

								themselves, it doesn't matter if the seed comes from a (possibly malicious)

								node or a (possibly malicious) user.  We can accept it or reject it based only

								on our trusted validator set and cryptographic proofs. This makes it extremely

								important to verify that you have the proper validator set when initializing

								the client, as that is the root of all trust.


								The software currently assumes that the unbonding period is infinite in

								duration.  If the DynamicVerifier hasn't been updated in a while, you should

								manually verify the block headers using other sources.


								TODO: Update the software to handle cases around the unbonding period.


								*/

								package lite