Aurora Update [2021-04-30]

[alexauroradev]

Aurora Update [2021-04-30]

The video of the call is available here
The forum discussion is available here

Agenda

• Status, current goal
• Updates
• Discussion
• Next week

Status, current goal

Working on preparing everything to Aurora release.

Planned items:

• FB: Fix the error with #12842, batching txs
• AS: hiring, legal structure & supportive docs, bridge docs
• AB: Adding relayer methods, adding web-socket support; security aspects, indexing Aurora transactions; documentation, hardhat plugin
• EK: help Marcelo with proof generation bug, eth-connector review, near2eth-relayer fixing
• EU: finish eth-connector, test and debug it, precompiles
• JB: engine implementation, completing Math API, supporting Frank
• KA: finish event-relayer, add tests for eth-connector, perhaps, additional indexing for event-relayer
• MH: move prototype repo to aurora-is-near, handover the prototype to Pierre, make the website ready for internal review on Friday
• MF: ERC-20 connector, bug fix of proof generation
• MB: keep working on benchmarking, also some free time for additional tasks
• PAO: Aurora FE implementation, catching up on eth-connector

Weekly update

Alex Shevchenko

• Preparation and presenting during the townhall
• Legal setup of Aurora
• Working on the investor pitch deck
• First calls with potential investors and partners
• Various management

Arto Bendiken

• Continued work on the Aurora Relayer for production:
  • https://github.com/aurora-is-near/aurora-relayer
  • Implemented an indexer process for EVM transactions.
  • Added a PostgreSQL database for storing indexer/relayer state.
  • Began working on WebSockets subscriptions support.
  • Implemented eth_getLogs, etc, which were blocking partners.
  • Collected partner requirements for the nonstandard tracing APIs:
    • Implement Geth's tracing APIs aurora-is-near/aurora-relayer#12
    • Implement Parity's tracing APIs aurora-is-near/aurora-relayer#13
• Updated the BetaNet and TestNet relayer deployments.
• Continued work on the Aurora documentation website:
  • https://doc.aurora.dev
  • https://github.com/aurora-is-near/doc.aurora.dev
• Figured out EVM event log emission and EVM gas usage recording with Joshua:
  • fix: logs aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#48
• Figured out a plan for EVM block hashes with Alex, Bowen, Frank, Joshua, Max, and Michael:
  • Support blockhash API near/nearcore#3456
  • feat: add block hash API to near_vm_logic near/nearcore#4256
• Reviewed and merged PRs in the Aurora Engine:
  • https://github.com/aurora-is-near/aurora-engine

Eugene Kapun

• Found and fixed an issue with Ropsten bridge deployment (with Marcelo)
  • The problem is with the 102 blocks reorg of the network, which caused gaslimitting
• Old NEAR proof withdrawals not being able to finalise on Ethereum
  • Solution: we need to re-generate proofs
  • Probably requires a fix on the FE
• Check of the hight of the proof has issues
  • This check is not required now, but in the future we can make use of it
  • There's an issue with the implementation of this check

Eugene Ukhanov

• Improved ETH connector logic aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#36
• Completely removed JSON dependency (only borsh serialization), which decreased contract size
• Testing of eth-connector
• What is not tested:
  • Exit precompiles
  • Calling of ERC-20 contracts
• Found and helped an issue with skipping the checks (with Kirill)

Frank Braun

• Investigated how often BLOCKHASH appears in contracts:

  • Implemented evm-bully stats command, but ran into issues with disassembler from go-ethereum.
  • Talked to Guillaume Ballet from the Ethereum foundation. It turned out he already did such a calculation for mainnet looking and the opcodes BLOCKHASH and DIFFICULTY are not used often in production. Ethereum wants to remove these opcodes, because they lose their meaning in Eth2.

• While trying to fix the error the evm-bully got hung up last week I ran into weird error message from near-cli about DeleteAccountWithLargeState:

  • First I thought it's a problem with near-cli and implemented the evm-bully delete command.
  • Turned out it's not a problem with near-cli, but a limitation of nearcore which cannot be lifted: Cannot delete account with large state (Aurora Engine) near/nearcore#4265
  • Filed issue for near-cli to improve error message: Improve error message when attempting to delete large accounts near/near-cli#730
  • Changed local test script to use random account.

Joshua J. Bouw

• Explored implementing blockhash, and bringing it back up. After much deliberate conversation, it was decided to return 0 for now and hand it off to Michael.
  • Related issue nearcore#3456
  • Draft PR nearcore#4256
• Worked on moving the Blake2 library into near-crypto. This will be a higher proriety after EVM release however.
  • nearcore#3954
• Reviewed the backend engine implementation, ensure that everything was there and had discussions regarding some outputs. For example, the gas_limit was changed to return the max value.
  • aurora-engine#43
  • aurora-engine#47
• Started on aurora-engine docs lightly, filling in some of the gaps as required. Hadn't submitted anything for this yet as there were some other pressing matters. (with Arto)
  • https://doc.aurora.dev
  • https://github.com/aurora-is-near/doc.aurora.dev
• Worked on fixing the LOG opcodes to be returned through the public submit method (which used to be called raw_call). (with Arto)
  • aurora-engine#48
• Reviewed Michael's PR
  • aurora-engine#41

Kirill Abramov

• Working on the EVM precompiles (with Marcelo).
• Verify, fix and test Aurora ETH connector design (with Evgeny U.).
• Updated ETH-connector contracts, scripts and step-by-step guide to work with Aurora.
• Updating the eth-to-near-event relayer to relay events to Aurora.
• Found and fixed serious security issue in Aurora ETH-connector.

Marcelo Fornet

• Work on the ERC20-Connector (with Kirill A.)
• Fix Ropsten bridge (with Evgeny K.)
  • It was not possible to relay new blocks to Ethereum Client after a deep reorg in Ropsten.
• Found issue with some old unfinished withdrawal tx from NEAR to Ethereum (with Evgeny K.)
• Support on Bridge related channels
• Discussion with Mario H. about the release process for the bridge.
  • Compile and publish artifacts directly from CI
  • Use versioned release
  • Publish cli to npm

Matt Henderson

• Finalization of the Aurora Bridge UI prototype
• Design & implementation of the Aurora website
• Management/planning related to the Aurora launch
  • Setup a Basecamp project as the number of small tasks between Alex B. and myself grew too large to manage ad-hoc.
  • Started a final punch list on the Trello board
• Minor things
  • Various discussions and meetings
  • Started compiling a list of investor leads

Michael Birch

• Benchmarks
  • Aurora Engine Benchmarks aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#41
  • Near gas vs execution time
  • Near gas vs Eth gas
  • Room for improvement in automating measuring gas usage
    • Better mechanism for capturing gas usage in benchmarks aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#45
  • Precompiles in wasm directly are very expensive, one cannot even complete
    • Optimize gas usage in ecpair precompile aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#46
• Bug fixes
  • Feat: Check and increment nonce aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#42
  • Fix Precompiles: RIPEMD160, modexp aurora-is-near/aurora-engine#44
• Support for BLOCKHASH op-code
  • Picking up where Joshua left off on
    • feat: add block hash API to near_vm_logic near/nearcore#4256
  • Branch with active development
    • https://github.com/birchmd/nearcore/tree/vm-block-hash

Pierre-Alain Ouvrard

• eNEAR connector and frontend wip 80%
  • All except unlock of burnt tokens.
  • feat: add eNear connector package aurora-is-near/rainbow-bridge-client#30
  • https://github.com/aurora-is-near/rainbow-bridge-frontend/tree/eNear
• Aurora connector and webapp integration wip 40%
  • Ready webapp for rainbow-bridge-client connector integration.
  • Multi-network support.
  • Connector structure, Approve and Lock.

Discussion

• Things required for Aurora webapp integration:
  • MetaMask RPC
    • To be provided by Arto
  • Checking a transfer was minted/unlocked by the relayer
    • API from the event-relayer. To be discussed with Kirill
    • Perhaps it's worth adding a view function to the factory & Aurora
    • Perhaps, we can use indexer to keep our tool stateless
  • Checking a bridged token's address on Aurora
    • Need to add a view method (getAuroraTokenAddres(string nep141Account))
  • Burn contract call
    • This is done through Exit to Ethereum precompile (bridgedTokenAddress, recipient, amount)
    • Idea: Precompile should be called after approve -- this can make us reuse the logic of Ethereum->NEAR brodging in the Aurora-native assets bridging
    • Current solution: go with a single tx for now.
• EVM block hash discussion and outcome:
  • Support blockhash API near/nearcore#3456
  • feat: add block hash API to near_vm_logic near/nearcore#4256
• Custom ERC-20 contracts
  • Need to have a way to deploy it
  • AI: Alex & Marcelo to discuss further
• How do we deal with that nearcore limitation of deletion of the contracts / is that a problem for us?
  • 10 kB size of the state of contract is a limit
  • Locally one can compile nearcore with a custom parameter for the above
• Security review of the EVM contract and the ETH Connector
  • Planned to start on Monday

Next week

• AS: general management wrt Aurora release, pitch deck for investors & reaching to them
• AB: Focus on QA/validation and DevX & documentation. WebSockets support for the Web3 relayer. TestNet faucet. Hardhat plugin.
• EK: Aurora review, open to helping with the bugs
• EU: eth-connector, docs, testing
• FB: extend testing on local node with adjusted test script, get to higher block numbers with bully
• JJB: Docs, Math API, connector logic review, general Aurora engine contract review
• KA: collaborate with Pierre to have the frontend for the ETH-connector. Testing Aurora precompiles & ERC20 connector interaction. Aurora-engine review.
• MF: Finalizing the ERC20 connector
• MH: Finalizing website and activities related to Aurora release
• MB: BLOCKHASH nearcore implementation, review of Eth Connector, other EVM review / testing
• PAO: Finish ongoing (eNEAR + Aurora webapp)