Overview

discovery-node Go Report Card GoDoc

Draft implementation of discovery-node of the decentralized discovery protocol over Pss Swarm

Overview

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Types of node: - gateway (passive): are the nodes that only perform petitions, acting as gateways to the discovery network. This node can be trustless, as all the data that gets from the network and that is returned to its petitions, have the proofs of validity (merkleproofs) - active: are the nodes that are answering requests, each identity trusts its active discovery-node

Node Storage

The discovery-node data storage is a leveldb database. It’s organized with prefixes, where each type of data is stored under a prefix.

Databases: - dbOwnIds: holds the data about the identities that the discovery-node manages - dbAnswCache: holds the data about the discovered identites. Each data packet of a discovered identity, has a timestamp, the data packets are valid under a time window where the timestamp allows to determine if it’s already valed or is too old

Sample discovery flow

Roles: - user: user identity, from a phone/laptop device - Requester: discovery-node that wants to know about one identity - Id_Agent: discovery-node that knows the info about the identity, and is listening in Swarm Pss in the topic id_discovery

Flow when a discovery-node receives an Id discover request:

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Discovery flow:

  1. discovery-node receives an https petition from the user asking for an identity info, from now, this discovery-node will be the Requester
  2. Requester checks if already knows a fresh copy of the data packet of the identity
    • in case that has the data, checks that the timestamp is not too old
    • if the data is fresh, returns it and finishes the process
    • if the identity data was not in its databases, ask to the network for it (following steps)
  3. Requester creates Query packet asking for who is the relay of identity john@domain.eth
  4. Requester sends the Query packet into the Swarm Pss network under the topic id_discovery
    • the Requester waits a configured amount of time, if the Answer don’t comes inside that time window, returns an error msg through https to the user
  5. the Id_Agent server of that identity will receive the Query packet and will see that is a user under its umbrella
  6. Id_Agent server will answer the Answer packet (with the proofs of validity, signature, etc) to the Requester
  7. Requester receives the Answer packet (verifies the signature), and now knows how to reach the Relay node of john@domain.eth, and can answer to the user
Requester                       Id_Agent
   +                            +
   |                            |
   * 1                          |
   * 2                          |
   * 3                          |
   |             4              |
   +--------------------------->+
   |                            * 5
   |             6              |
   +<---------------------------+
   * 7                          |
   |                            |
   +                            +

Data structures

Each data packet that is sent over the network, goes with a ProofOfWork, and a Signature of the emmiter.

// Service holds the data about a node service (can be a Relay, a NameServer, a DiscoveryNode, etc)
type Service struct {
    IdAddr       common.Address
    KademliaAddr []byte // Kademlia address
    PssPubK      PubK   // Public Key of the pss node, to receive encrypted data packets
    Url          string
    Type         string // TODO define type specification (relay, nameserver, etc)
    Mode         string // Active or Passive(gateway) (this only affects to discovery-node's type)
    ProofService []byte // TODO ProofClaimService data type (to be defined)
}

// Query is the data packet that a node sends to discover data about one identity
type Query struct {
    Version          string         // version of the protocol
    MsgId            string         // random msg id, to identify and relate Query and Answer
    AboutId          common.Address // About Who is requesting data (about which identity address)
    RequesterId      common.Address
    RequesterKAddr   []byte // Kademlia address
    RequesterPssPubK PubK   // Public Key of the pss node requester, to receive encrypted data packets
    InfoFrom         []byte // TODO to be defined
    Timestamp        int64
    Nonce            uint64 // for the PoW
}

// Answer is the data packet that a node sends when answering to a Query data packet
type Answer struct {
    Version   string // version of the protocol
    MsgId     string // random msg id, to identify and relate Query and Answer
    AboutId   common.Address
    FromId    common.Address
    AgentId   Service
    Services  []Service
    Timestamp int64
    Signature []byte
}
Run

Run one node

go run *.go --config config0.yaml start

Run 3 nodes and test endpoints

bash run-tmux-demo.sh
Test

Unit tests:

go test ./...