interledger

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README

SOFIE Interledger Component

Table of Contents

Description

This is the Interledger component of the SOFIE Framework.

The Interledger component enables activity on an Initiator ledger to trigger activity on one or more Responder ledgers in an atomic manner. The ledgers can be of the same or different types (e.g. Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy, or KSI), and once triggered, Interledger passes a customisable payload from the Initiator ledger to the Responder ledger(s).

The distributed applications utilising the Interledger component can utilise the payload functionality to implement any customised features. Examples of how Interledger can be utilised include:

  • Transfering Data from one ledger to another.
  • Storing Data Hashes stores detailed information in a (private) ledger and a hash of the information is then stored in a (public) ledger at suitable intervals using Interledger to benefit from the higher trust of a public ledger.
  • Game Asset Transfer implements a state transfer protocol, which is used for managing in-game assets: the assets can either be used in a game or traded between gamers. For both activities, a separate ledger is used and Interledger ensures that each asset is active in only one of the ledgers.
  • Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLCs) describes how to use the Interledger to automate the asset exchange between two ledgers using Hash Time-Locked Contracs (HTLCs).
Architecture Overview

The Interledger component can run one or more Interledger instances in parallel. Each instance provides a unidirectional transaction with clear roles: one ledger acts as the Initiator that triggers the transaction, and the other ledger(s) acts as the Responder(s) that reacts to the trigger. The Initiator can also send a data payload to the Responder(s), but the Responder(s) can only reply a success/fail status, so the Interledger functions as a unidirectional data transfer from the Initiator to the Responders. However, a pair of ledgers can also be configured for bidirectional data transfer by defining two instances in opposite directions as described in the Configuration section.

On some ledgers (e.g. Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric), the Interledger communicates with an application smart contract on the ledger (the smart contract has to implement the Initiator and/or the Responder interface), while on others (e.g. Hyperledger Indy and KSI), no smart contract is required (or even available) and the Interledger communicates with the ledger directly. The ability to act as the Initiator and/or the Responder is normally included in the smart contract implementing the application logic, but separate proxy contracts can also be used as wrappers to interface with the Interledger component as has been done e.g. in the Food Supply Chain pilot (see the pilot's smart contracts for details).

Interledger Figure 1: using the Interledger module

As shown in figure 1, the Interledger component is run on a server and for each configured Interledger instance it listens for events (InterledgerEventSending) from the Initiator, which triggers the Interledger to call the interledgerReceive() function on the Responder. Once the Responder is finishied processing the transaction, it emits either InterledgerEventAccepted event, which triggers the Interledger to call interledgerCommit() function of the Initiator, or the InterledgerEventRejected event, which triggers the Interledger to call the interledgerAbort() function of the Initiator. If multiple responders have been defined in an instance, either all-N or k-out-of-N of them have to succeed (depending on which configuration was chosen), otherwise the whole transaction is aborted and the Interledger calls the interledgerAbort() function of the Initiator.

The id parameter of InterledgerEventSending is only for the Initiator's internal use: each transaction can have a unique id or multiple transactions can share the same id depending on the needs of the application smart contract. However, the id is not passed to the Responder, only the data parameter is (so if the Initiator wishes to send the id also to the Responder, it has to be included in the data parameter). Internally, the Interledger component processes each transaction individually, so each transaction is given a unique nonce, which is used in all activities with the Responder. Finally, when the success/failure of the transaction is communicated back to the Initiator, the nonce is mapped back to the original id.

Internally, as shown in Figure 2, the Interledger component is composed of two types of elements:

  • a single core that manages the transactions between ledgers. It passes the transactions from the Initiator adapter to the correct Responder adapter(s) and the corresponding success/fail statuses back to the Initiator adapter, enforces the all-N and k-out-of-N rules for transactions with multiple responders, but does no processing on the data payload.
  • DLT adapters (Initiators and Responders) links the core with the different ledger types. The adapter is responsible for translating between the core and the ledger's native commands (listening for events and calling functions). Normally, the adapter does no processing on the data payload, but it is possible to implement adapters with specific processing functionality, if the ledger itself lacks suitable functionality (e.g. the KSI Responder Adapter calculates a hash of the data payload and stores the hash to the KSI ledger).

Figure 2: internal structure of the Interledger module

Interledger component currently supports three DLT types: Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy and KSI. For Ethereum and Hyperledger Fabric, both an Initiator adapter and a Responder adapter are provided, while for Hyperledger Indy, only a Initiator adapter is provided, and for KSI only a Responder adapter. Other DLTs can be supported by implementing adapters for them. Support for additional ledgers is Future Work.

More details of the Interledger component's implementation and how it is utilised for one-on-one and multi-ledger transactions can be found in the Technical description.

Finally, this repository mostly focuses on describing a single-node implementation of the Interledger functionality, i.e. where one party runs a single node that performs all Interledger operations, thus necessitating the users of the IL services to trust that party. Work has begun on a Decentralised Interledger (DIL) implementation, where a consortium of parties each can run one or more Interledger nodes all of which are co-ordinated using a shared state. This reduces the trust required as now the users of the Interledger services only need to trust the whole consortium, as well as improves throughput and resiliency of Interledger. An initial implementation of the Decentralised Interledger (DIL) is now available. Specifically, the interfaces of state adapters are clearly defined at, and a proof-of-concept local state adapter is implemented and verified, with in-memory storage of the transfer entries. The Hyperledger Fabric version and relational database (SQL) version of the state adapter following the same interfaces are still under development. These work will continue in 2021 with more complete implementations, so for now, it's only recommended for testing purposes. Switching to DIL in no way affects the external interfaces or use of the Interledger service, only the internal operations of Interledger, so for the users of the Interledger service the change only appears as a more robust and trustworthy operation of Interledger.

Relation with SOFIE

Interledger is a key component of the SOFIE Federation Architecture as it enables transactions across ledgers. It is a a standalone module that may be used by other SOFIE components and applications as necessary.

SOFIE pilots utilise the Interledger for different purposes, eg.g. the Food Supply Chain uses the Interledger to automatically store hashes of the transactions on private ledgers onto a public Ethereum ledger for integrity verification, while the Context-aware Mobile Gaming utilises Interledger to enforce that in-game assets are either available for gaming or being traded between gamers.

Key Technologies

The software modules are implemented in Python. Currently the component supports the Ethereum ledger, and thus Solidity smart contracts, Hyperledger Fabric, as well as the KSI ledger.

Usage

The src/interledger directory contains the code implementing the software modules of Interledger and the default adapters for Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric and KSI.

The solidity/contracts contains the smart contracts including the data transfer interfaces used by the component.

Prerequisites

Software modules: Python 3.6.

Smart contracts: Solidity 0.5.

Ganache CLI and Truffle to test Interledger locally.

Installation

The dependencies of the Interledger component can be installed with the following commands (note that it is also possible to run the component using a docker image as described in the Docker Images section):

python3 setup.py develop # Install project dependencies locally

The following commands also apply.

python3 setup.py build
python3 setup.py install
Install Smart Contracts using NPM

Users who only need the essential smart contracts related to Interledger data or asset transfer interfaces and their example implementations have the option to use the separate SOFIE Interledger Contracts npm module, without the need to include this whole repository.

npm install sofie-interledger-contracts

This command installs the module with all the essential smart contracts of interfaces and sample implementations. These can then be extended for a custom application logic.

Configuration

The configuration file, following the ini format, has three main sections:

  1. [service]: defines the connected ledgers, left and right, and the direction of the data transfer;

    • direction = both | left-to-right | right-to-left
    • left = left
    • right = right

  2. [left]: indicates the type of that ledger and lists its options. The options depend on the specific ledger.

    • type = ethereum | fabric | indy | ksi | ...
    • ...

  3. [right]: same as above.

    • type = ethereum | fabric | indy |ksi | ...
    • ...

The direction can have three values:

  • left-to-right means that a single unidirectional Interledger instance is started so that it listens for events on the left ledger with the Initator adapter and transfers data to the right ledger with the Responder adapter;
  • right-to-left the same, but with inverse order;
  • both means that the two Interledger instances will be started in opposite directions to allow transfering data in both directions and that both Initiator and Responder adapters will be instantiated for both ledgers.

left and right are custom names and provide all the options needed to setup the ledgers. The available options depend on the type of the ledger, and more details of Ethereum, Hyperledger Fabric, Hyperledger Indy and KSI configuration options are available in their respective documents. Finally, left and right can also be the same, so it is possible to use Interledger to connect smart contracts on the same ledger, which can be used e.g. in testing; in that case, section 3 can be omitted.

Configuration Example for Ethereum

For ledger type = ethereum, the required options are:

  • url: the ethereum network url (localhost or with Infura);
  • port: if the url is localhost;
  • minter: the contract minter (creator) address, which is also the account triggering the operations on a ledger;
  • contract: the contract address;
  • contract_abi: path to the file describing the contract ABI in JSON format.

As an example, there is the Interledger configuration file config-file-name.cfg for Ethereum, which defines two ledgers that are running locally on ports 7545 and 7546:

[service]
direction=both
left=left
right=right

[left]
type=ethereum
url=http://localhost
port=7545
minter=0x63f7e0a227bCCD4701aB459b837446Ce61aaEb6D
contract=0x50dc31410Cae2527b034233338B85872BE67EEe6
contract_abi=solidity/contracts/GameToken.abi.json

[right]
type=ethereum
url=http://localhost
port=7546
minter=0xc4C13639a867EfA9f863aF99A4c8d002E57198e0
contract=0xba83df5f1DF4aB344240eC9F1E096790c88A216A
contract_abi=solidity/contracts/GameToken.abi.json

For public Ethereum networks, external providers such as Infura can be utilised to avoid running a full Ethereum node. For external providers the additional option is:

  • private_key the private key of the minter account used to sign the transaction;

Specifically, when using the Infura endpoints, please use the websocket version only so that the events emitted can be listened for properly. An example can be found in the [infura] part of the sample configuration local-config.cfg.

Configuration for multi-ledgers operation

For multi-ledgers mode, the Interledger component should be configured according to the following manner.

  1. [service]: defines the connected ledgers in a similar way for one-to-one connection, where the direction would be multi to indicate the multi-ledgers mode, and left and rights would be the connected ledgers. Note that since there is no bi-directional bridge for multi-ledgers situation, it is assumed that the single initiator would always be on the left, and the multiple responders are put at the right side. threshold indicates the minimum number of positive results required from the Responders to commit the transaction: if 'threshold' equals N (= the number of rights defined), this corresponds to an all-N scenario, while a lower value 0<k<N equals a k-out-of-N scenario.

    • direction = multi
    • left = left
    • right = right1,right2,...
    • threshold= minimum-positives

  2. [left]: indicates the type of that ledger and lists its options. The options depend on the specific ledger.

    • type = ethereum | fabric | ksi | ...
    • ...

  3. [right1], [right2]: those sections follow the same way, to include the options for all the ledgers connected on the right side as the responders.

    • type = ethereum | fabric | ksi | ...
    • ...

A typical example of configuration file for multi-ledger connection can be found below (also available as local-config-multi.cfg, which defines a 1-out-of-2 instance i.e. the transaction will succeed if at least one of the Responders succeeds:

[service]
direction=multi
left=left
right=right1,right2
threshold=1

[left]
type=ethereum
url=http://localhost
port=7545
minter=0xa1381e07D38Ddd2B82733407C43769dEd76d190a
contract=0x7f41e2562A34242423174eFa30204F77cd0E0e55
contract_abi=solidity/contracts/DataSender.abi.json

[right1]
type=ethereum
url=http://localhost
port=7546
minter=0xC57747a9682Cf7683a6B6161fdFbCd53b0695062
contract=0x2D429a3543a5fb6c3818f384EDd03b53a7434261
contract_abi=solidity/contracts/DataReceiver.abi.json

[right2]
type=ethereum
url=http://localhost
port=7547
minter=0x63f7e0a227bCCD4701aB459b837446Ce61aaEb6D
contract=0x50dc31410Cae2527b034233338B85872BE67EEe6
contract_abi=solidity/contracts/DataReceiver.abi.json
Execution

For local testing, ensure that local ledger instances are running, and smart contracts are deployed to them (check testing section for an example).

Then, run the following command:

python3 start_interledger.py config-file-name.cfg

where config-file-name.cfg is a configuration file for the setup of the interledger component, following the previously described ini format.

This script will create an Interledger instance(s) according to the configuration file and then call the Interledger.run() routine, which will listen to events coming from the connected ledger(s). The script can be interrupted with: ^C.

There are multiple examples of utilising the Interledger component:

  • CLI demo app can be used to directly interact with the Interledger component.
  • A simple example for data transfer between two ledgers (both Ethereum or Hyperledger Fabric examples are included).
  • Interledger component supports storing hashes to the Guardtime KSI blockchain using Catena DB service.
  • The game asset transfer example shows how a protocol for enforcing that in-game assets are only active in one of the connected ledgers at a time can be built on top of the Interledger.
  • Hash Time Locked Contracts (HTLCs) example describes how to use the Interledger to automate the asset exchange between two ledgers using HTLCs.
Docker Images

Execute the script docker-build.sh to build a Docker image for the Interledger component. Configuration file can be provided to the image at runtime with the command docker run -v /path/to/config.cfg:/var/interledger/local-config.cfg interledger.

Dockerfile contains multiple build targets:

  • build: only installs dependencies
  • interledger_compose: in addition to the above, also compiles smart contracts; this target is used by the Docker Compose setup
  • run_demo: runs Interledger command line demo
  • run (default): runs Inteledger component

Docker Compose

Docker Compose setup allows an easy usage of the Interledger CLI demo by running sh compose_start.sh. Note that starting the whole setup will take some time, especially for the first time when all the necessary Docker images are built, so it is important to allow the startup script to shutdown gracefully.

The setup contains two Ganache CLI instances that act as local ledgers, the Interledger component, and the command line demo, see docker-compose.yaml for more details.

If there are any updates to the Interledger component, example smart contracts, Dockerfile, or docker-compose.yaml, run docker-compose build command to rebuild the containers.

Testing

The tests/ directory contains the scripts to test the software modules of the component, including unit tests, integration tests, and system tests, while the solidity/test/ directory contains the tests for the smart contracts.

Prerequisites for Testing

The easiest way to run the tests for the component is by using Tox, which will install all dependencies for testing and run all the tests. It is also possible to run the tests directly using pytest, which also allows running tests independently.

Install Tox:

pip install tox

Or install pytest and dependencies:

pip install pytest pytest-asyncio

Some of the tests assume that local Ethereum networks are running. Ganache CLI tool can be used for this:

npm install -g ganache-cli

To run component tests requiring local Ethereum networks, and to test example smart contracts, install Truffle:

cd solidity/
npm install
Environment
Running the Tests

First, local test networks need to be set up:

ganache-cli -p 7545 -b 1
ganache-cli -p 7546 -b 1

Here the block time is set to be one second as simulation of mining.

Afterwards, deploy the smart contracts to the local test networks:

make migrate-left
make migrate-right

Then, to test the component, run either:

tox

Or:

pytest --ignore=tests/system/test_ksi_responder.py --ignore=tests/system/test_interledger_ethereum_ksi.py --ignore=tests/system/test_timeout.py tests/

Read the README for pytest tests and test structure.

Note that testing the KSI support requires valid credentials for the Catena service. The tests can be run manually after adding credentials to local-config.cfg:

pytest tests/system/test_ksi_responder.py tests/system/test_interledger_ethereum_ksi.py

Note that testing timeout handling requires starting ganache-cli with -b <blocking-time> parameter:

ganache-cli -b 1 -p 7545
ganache-cli -b 1 -p 7546

pytest tests/system/test_timeout.py

To test the smart contracts located in the solidity directory, shutdown ganache-cli instances (they will block the tests) and run the following (smart contracts are compiled automatically):

make test-contracts
Evaluating the Results

When using Tox and Truffle, test results in JUnit format are stored in the tests directory. Files python_test_results.xml and smart_contracts_test_results.xml contain results for the Python and smart contracts' tests respectively.

Test for multi-ledgers transaction

Integration tests for multi-ledgers mode have been included as well, with each step of the processing validated. It is not part of the default tests above, so to have to be run separately in the virtual envrionment with the following command:

python -m pytest --capture=sys tests/integration/test_interledger_multi.py

Generating Documentation

A documentation file including the information provided by this readme and the docs for different modules and functions (both Python and Solidity) can be generated by using the Sphinx tool. This section provides the commands to generate documentation in HTML and PDF formats.

Requirements
  • Install dependencies for generating documentation:
pip install 'sphinx<3.0.0' m2r sphinxcontrib-httpdomain sphinxcontrib-soliditydomain sphinxcontrib-seqdiag

  • Solidity: To generate code documentation for Solidity, install soliditydomain.

  • PDF: To generate documentation in PDF format, the latexmk package is required to be installed. Please follow the instructions. warning! Does not work if Solidity files are included. Exlude them from the documentation if you want to generate PDF documentation.

Generation
  • For HTML docs
make html
  • For PDF docs via LaTeX
make latexpdf
Miscs

In case a new sphinx documentation project is created:

  • select yes when the sphinx quickstart command asks for autodoc;
  • include the lines below in doc/conf.py:
import sys
sys.path.insert(0, os.path.abspath('..'))

extensions = ['sphinx.ext.autodoc',
    'sphinxcontrib.soliditydomain',
    'sphinx.ext.coverage',
    ]

# autodoc lookup paths for solidity code
autodoc_lookup_path = '../solidity/contracts' # or any other path to smart-contracts

Open Issues

  • Each run of the module is done with empty data

This means that pending transactions from previous runs will not be considered and there is no recovery mechanism during re-start.

  • Congestion of Ethereum transactions

If multiple transactions are invoked simultaneously, the (Ethereum) nonce of transactions generated by the component may be out of sync, thus making those invalid.

Future Work

Some of the planned future improvements to the Interledger component include

Release Notes

2020-12-17
Added
2020-09-17
Added
  • support multiple Responders in a single transaction (both all-N and k-out-of-N)
2020-08-07
Added
Changed
  • Performance improvements and optimizations for the Interledger core
Security
  • Updated Truffle dependencies due to vulnerability in lodash

Contact Information

Contact: Wu, Lei lei.1.wu@aalto.fi

Contributors: can be found in authors

License

This component is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Directories

Path Synopsis
fabric
chaincode/src/data_receiver
chaincode/src/data_sender

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