evm-lite

README

EVM-LITE

A lean Ethereum node with interchangeable consensus.

We took the Go-Ethereum implementation (Geth) and extracted the EVM and Trie components to create a lean and modular version with interchangeable consensus.

The EVM is a virtual machine specifically designed to run untrusted code on a network of computers. Every transaction applied to the EVM modifies the State which is persisted in a Merkle Patricia tree. This data structure allows to simply check if a given transaction was actually applied to the VM and can reduce the entire State to a single hash (merkle root) rather analogous to a fingerprint.

The EVM is meant to be used in conjunction with a system that broadcasts transactions across network participants and ensures that everyone executes the same transactions in the same order. Ethereum uses a Blockchain and a Proof of Work consensus algorithm. EVM-Lite makes it easy to use any consensus system, including Babble .

ARCHITECTURE

                +-------------------------------------------+
+----------+    |  +-------------+         +-------------+  |       
|          |    |  | Service     |         | State       |  |
|  Client  <-----> |             | <------ |             |  |
|          |    |  | -API        |         | -EVM        |  |
+----------+    |  |             |         | -Trie       |  |
                |  |             |         | -Database   |  |
                |  +-------------+         +-------------+  |
                |         |                       ^         |     
                |         v                       |         |
                |  +-------------------------------------+  |
                |  | Engine                              |  |
                |  |                                     |  |
                |  |       +----------------------+      |  |
                |  |       | Consensus            |      |  |
                |  |       +----------------------+      |  |
                |  |                                     |  |
                |  +-------------------------------------+  |
                |                                           |
                +-------------------------------------------+

Usage

EVM-Lite is a Go library, which is meant to be used in conjunction with a consensus system like Babble, Tendermint, Raft, etc.

This repo contains Solo, a bare-bones implementation of the consensus interface, which is used for testing or launching a standalone node. It relays transactions directly from Service to State.

Configuration

The Ethereum genesis file defines Ethereum accounts and is stripped of all the Ethereum POW stuff. This file is useful to predefine a set of accounts that own all the initial Ether at the inception of the network.

Example Ethereum genesis.json defining two account:

{
   "alloc": {
        "629007eb99ff5c3539ada8a5800847eacfc25727": {
            "balance": "1337000000000000000000"
        },
        "e32e14de8b81d8d3aedacb1868619c74a68feab0": {
            "balance": "1337000000000000000000"
        }
   }
}

API

The Service exposes an HTTP API.

Get Account

Retrieve information about any account.

host:~$ curl http://[api_addr]/account/0x629007eb99ff5c3539ada8a5800847eacfc25727 -s | json_pp
{
    "address": "0xa10aae5609643848fF1Bceb76172652261dB1d6c",
    "balance": 1234567890000000000000,
    "nonce": 0,
    "bytecode": ""
}

Call

Call a smart-contract READONLY function. These calls will NOT modify the EVM state, and the data does NOT need to be signed.

curl http://localhost:8080/call \
    -d '{"constant":true,"to":"0xabbaabbaabbaabbaabbaabbaabbaabbaabbaabba","value":0,"data":"0x8f82b8c4","gas":1000000,"gasPrice":0,"chainId":1}' \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -X POST -s | json_pp
    {
      "data": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001"
    }

Submit Transaction

Send a SIGNED, NON-READONLY transaction. The client is left to compose a transaction, sign it and RLP encode it. The resulting bytes, represented as a Hex string, are passed to this method to be forwarded to the EVM. This is an ASYNCHRONOUS operation and the effect on the State should be verified by fetching the transaction's receipt.

example:

host:~$ curl -X POST http://[api_addr]/rawtx -d '0xf8628080830f424094564686380e267d1572ee409368e1d42081562a8e8201f48026a022b4f68bfbd4f4c309524ebdbf4bac858e0ad65fd06108c934b45a6da88b92f7a046433c388997fd7b02eb7128f4d2401ef2d10d574c42edf15875a43ee51a1993' -s | json_pp
{
    "txHash":"0x5496489c606d74ad7435568393fa2c4619e64497267f80864109277631aa849d"
}

Get Transaction Receipt

Get a transaction receipt. When a transaction is applied to the EVM, a receipt is saved to record if/how the transaction affected the state. This contains such information as the address of a newly created contract, how much gas was use, and the EVM Logs produced by the execution of the transaction.

example:

host:~$ curl http://[api_addr]/tx/0xeeeed34877502baa305442e3a72df094cfbb0b928a7c53447745ff35d50020bf -s | json_pp
{
   "to" : "0xe32e14de8b81d8d3aedacb1868619c74a68feab0",
   "root" : "0xc8f90911c9280651a0cd84116826d31773e902e48cb9a15b7bb1e7a6abc850c5",
   "gasUsed" : "0x5208",
   "from" : "0x629007eb99ff5c3539ada8a5800847eacfc25727",
   "transactionHash" : "0xeeeed34877502baa305442e3a72df094cfbb0b928a7c53447745ff35d50020bf",
   "logs" : [],
   "cumulativeGasUsed" : "0x5208",
   "contractAddress" : null,
   "logsBloom" : "0x00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000"
}

Info

The /info endpoint exposes a map of information provided by the consensus system.

example (with Babble consensus):

host:-$ curl http://[api_addr]/info | json_pp
{
   "rounds_per_second" : "0.00",
   "type" : "babble",
   "consensus_transactions" : "10",
   "num_peers" : "4",
   "consensus_events" : "10",
   "sync_rate" : "1.00",
   "transaction_pool" : "0",
   "state" : "Babbling",
   "events_per_second" : "0.00",
   "undetermined_events" : "22",
   "id" : "1785923847",
   "last_consensus_round" : "1",
   "last_block_index" : "0",
   "round_events" : "0"
}

CLIENT

Please refer to EVM-Lite CLI for Javascript utilities and a CLI to interact with the API.

DEV

DEPENDENCIES

We use glide to manage dependencies:

[...]/evm-lite$ curl https://glide.sh/get | sh
[...]/evm-lite$ glide install

This will download all dependencies and put them in the vendor folder; it could take a few minutes.