hotstuff

README

hotstuff

relab/hotstuff is an implementation of the HotStuff protocol [1]. It uses the Gorums [2] RPC framework for sending messages between replicas.

Running the examples

We have written an example client located in cmd/hotstuffclient and an example server located in cmd/hotstuffserver. These can be compiled by running make. They read a configuration file named hotstuff.toml from the working directory. An example configuration that runs on localhost is included in the root of the project. To generate public and private keys for the servers, run cmd/hotstuffkeygen/hotstuffkeygen -p 'r*' -n 4 --hosts 127.0.0.1 --tls keys. To start four servers, run scripts/run_servers.sh with any desired options. To start the client, run cmd/hotstuffclient/hotstuffclient.

TODO

• Further benchmarking and testing
• Improving performance
  • Allow leaders to send command hashes instead of resending whole commands.
• Allow a replica to "catch up" by fetching missing nodes
• Add reconfiguration

References

[1] M. Yin, D. Malkhi, M. K. Reiter, G. Golan Gueta, and I. Abraham, “HotStuff: BFT Consensus in the Lens of Blockchain,” Mar 2018.

[2] Tormod Erevik Lea, Leander Jehl, and Hein Meling. Towards New Abstractions for Implementing Quorum-based Systems. In 37th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), Jun 2017.

Documentation

Index

• type HotStuff
  • func New(conf *config.ReplicaConfig, pacemaker Pacemaker, tls bool, ...) *HotStuff
  • func (hs *HotStuff) Close()
  • func (hs *HotStuff) Propose()
  • func (hs *HotStuff) SendNewView(id config.ReplicaID)
  • func (hs *HotStuff) Start() error
• type Pacemaker

Types

type HotStuff

type HotStuff struct {
	*consensus.HotStuffCore
	// contains filtered or unexported fields
}

HotStuff is a thing

func New

func New(conf *config.ReplicaConfig, pacemaker Pacemaker, tls bool, connectTimeout, qcTimeout time.Duration) *HotStuff

New creates a new GorumsHotStuff backend object.

func (*HotStuff) Close

func (hs *HotStuff) Close()

Close closes all connections made by the HotStuff instance

func (*HotStuff) Propose

func (hs *HotStuff) Propose()

Propose broadcasts a new proposal to all replicas

func (*HotStuff) SendNewView

func (hs *HotStuff) SendNewView(id config.ReplicaID)

SendNewView sends a NEW-VIEW message to a specific replica

func (*HotStuff) Start

func (hs *HotStuff) Start() error

Start starts the server and client

type Pacemaker

type Pacemaker interface {
	GetLeader(view int) config.ReplicaID
	Init(*HotStuff)
}

Pacemaker is a mechanism that provides synchronization