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AccountsDB Replication for RPC Services

Problem​

Validators fall behind the network when bogged down by heavy RPC load. This seems to be due to a combination of CPU load and lock contention caused by serving RPC requests. The most expensive RPC requests involve account scans.

Solution Overview​

AccountsDB replicas that run separately from the main validator can be used to offload account-scan requests. Replicas would only: request and pull account updates from the validator, serve client account-state RPC requests, and manage AccountsDb and AccountsBackgroundService clean + shrink.

The replica communicates to the main validator via a new RPC mechanism to fetch metadata information about the replication and the accounts update from the validator. The main validator supports only one replica node. A replica node can relay the information to 1 or more other replicas forming a replication tree.

At the initial start of the replica node, it downloads the latest snapshot from a validator and constructs the bank and AccountsDb from it. After that, it queries its main validator for new slots and requests the validator to send the updated accounts for that slot and update to its own AccountsDb.

The same RPC replication mechanism can be used between a replica to another replica. This requires the replica to serve both the client and server in the replication model.

On the client RPC serving side, JsonRpcAccountsService is responsible for serving the client RPC calls for accounts related information similar to the existing JsonRpcService.

The replica will also take snapshots periodically so that it can start quickly after a restart if the snapshot is not too old.

Detailed Solution​

The following sections provide more details of the design.

Consistency Model​

The AccountsDb information is replicated asynchronously from the main validator to the replica. When a query against the replica's AccountsDb is made, the replica may not have the latest information of the latest slot. In this regard, it will eventually be consistent. However, for a particular slot, the information provided is consistent with that of its peer validator for commitment levels confirmed and finalized. For V1, we only support queries at these two levels.

Solana Replica Node​

A new node named solana-replica-node will be introduced whose main responsibility is to maintain the AccountsDb replica. The RPC node or replica node is used interchangeably in this document. It will be a separate executable from the validator.

The replica consists of the following major components:

The ReplicaSlotConfirmationRequestor: this service is responsible for periodically sending the request ReplicaSlotConfirmationRequest to its peer validator or replica for the latest slots. It specifies the latest slot (last_replicated_slot) for which the replica has already fetched the accounts information for. This maintains the ReplWorkingSlotSet and manages the lifecycle of BankForks, BlockCommitmentCache (for the highest confirmed slot) and the optimistically confirmed bank.

The ReplicaSlotConfirmationServer: this service is responsible for serving the ReplicaSlotConfirmationRequest and sends the ReplicaSlotConfirmationResponse back to the requestor. The response consists of a vector of new slots the validator knows of which is later than the specified last_replicated_slot. This service also runs in the main validator. This service gets the slots for replication from the BankForks, BlockCommitmentCache and OptimiscallyConfirmBank.

The ReplicaAccountsRequestor: this service is responsible for sending the request ReplicaAccountsRequest to its peer validator or replica for the ReplicaAccountInfo for a slot for which it has not completed accounts db replication. The ReplicaAccountInfo contains the ReplicaAccountMeta, Hash and the AccountData. The ReplicaAccountMeta contains info about the existing AccountMeta in addition to the account data length in bytes.

The ReplicaAccountsServer: this service is responsible for serving the ReplicaAccountsRequest and sends ReplicaAccountsResponse to the requestor. The response contains the count of the ReplAccountInfo and the vector of ReplAccountInfo. This service runs both in the validator and the replica relaying replication information. The server can stream the account information from its AccountCache or from the storage if already flushed. This is similar to how a snapshot package is created from the AccountsDb with the difference that the storage does not need to be flushed to the disk before streaming to the client. If the account data is in the cache, it can be directly streamed. Care must be taken to avoid account data for a slot being cleaned while serving the streaming. When attempting a replication of a slot, if the slot is already cleaned up with accounts data cleaned as result of update in later rooted slots, the replica should forsake this slot and try the later uncleaned root slot.

During replication we also need to replicate the information of accounts that have been cleaned up due to zero lamports, i.e. we need to be able to tell the difference between an account in a given slot which was not updated and hence has no storage entry in that slot, and one that holds 0 lamports and has been cleaned up through the history. We may record this via some "Tombstone" mechanism -- recording the dead accounts cleaned up for a slot. The tombstones themselves can be removed after exceeding the retention period expressed as epochs. Any attempt to replicate slots with tombstones removed will fail and the replica should skip this slot and try later ones.

The JsonRpcAccountsService: this is the RPC service serving client requests for account information. The existing JsonRpcService serves other client calls than AccountsDb ones. The replica node only serves the AccountsDb calls.

The existing JsonRpcService requires BankForks, OptimisticallyConfirmedBank and BlockCommitmentCache to load the Bank. The JsonRpcAccountsService will need to use information obtained from ReplicaSlotConfirmationResponse to construct the AccountsDb.

The AccountsBackgroundService: this service also runs in the replica which is responsible for taking snapshots periodically and shrinking the AccountsDb and doing accounts cleaning. The existing code also uses BankForks which we need to keep in the replica.

Compatibility Consideration​

For protocol compatibility considerations, all the requests have the replication version which is initially set to 1. Alternatively, we can use the validator's version. The RPC server side shall check the request version and fail if it is not supported.

Replication Setup​

To limit adverse effects on the validator and the replica due to replication, they can be configured with a list of replica nodes which can form a replication pair with it. And the replica node is configured with the validator which can serve its requests.

Fault Tolerance​

The main responsibility of making sure the replication is tolerant of faults lies with the replica. In case of request failures, the replica shall retry the requests.

Interface​

Following are the client RPC APIs supported by the replica node in JsonRpcAccountsService.

  • getAccountInfo
  • getBlockCommitment
  • getMultipleAccounts
  • getProgramAccounts
  • getMinimumBalanceForRentExemption
  • getInflationGovenor
  • getInflationRate
  • getEpochSchedule
  • getRecentBlockhash
  • getFees
  • getFeeCalculatorForBlockhash
  • getFeeRateGovernor
  • getLargestAccounts
  • getSupply
  • getStakeActivation
  • getTokenAccountBalance
  • getTokenSupply
  • getTokenLargestAccounts
  • getTokenAccountsByOwner
  • getTokenAccountsByDelegate

Following APIs are not included:

  • getInflationReward
  • getClusterNodes
  • getRecentPerformanceSamples
  • getGenesisHash
  • getSignatueStatuses
  • getMaxRetransmitSlot
  • getMaxShredInsertSlot
  • sendTransaction
  • simulateTransaction
  • getSlotLeader
  • getSlotLeaders
  • minimumLedgerSlot
  • getBlock
  • getBlockTime
  • getBlocks
  • getBlocksWithLimit
  • getTransaction
  • getSignaturesForAddress
  • getFirstAvailableBlock
  • getBlockProduction

Action Items

  1. Build the replica framework and executable
  2. Integrate snapshot restore code for bootstrap the AccountsDb.
  3. Develop the ReplicaSlotConfirmationRequestor and ReplicaSlotConfirmationServer interface code
  4. Develop the ReplicaSlotConfirmationRequestor and ReplicaSlotConfirmationServer detailed implementations: managing the ReplEligibleSlotSet lifecycle: adding new roots and deleting root to it. And interfaces managing ReplWorkingSlotSet interface: adding and removing. Develop component synthesising information from BankForks, BlockCommitmentCache and OptimistcallyConfirmedBank on the server side and maintaining information on the client side.
  5. Develop the interface code for ReplicaAccountsRequestor and ReplicaAccountsServer
  6. Develop detailed implementation for ReplicaAccountsRequestor and ReplicaAccountsServer and develop the replication account storage serializer and deserializer.
  7. Develop the interface code JsonRpcAccountsService
  8. Detailed Implementation of JsonRpcAccountsService, refactor code to share with part of JsonRpcService.
  9. Integrate with the AccountsBackgroundService in the replica for shrinking, cleaning, snapshotting.
  10. Metrics and performance testing