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Package Architecture

This repo is a Kurtosis package. To get general information on what a Kurtosis package is and how it works, visit the Starlark documentation.

The overview of this particular package's operation is as follows:

  1. Parse user parameters
  2. Launch a network of Ethereum participants
    1. Generate execution layer (EL) client config data
    2. Launch EL clients
    3. Generate consensus layer (CL) client config data
    4. Launch CL clients
  3. Launch auxiliary services (Grafana, Forkmon, etc.)
  4. Run Ethereum Merge verification logic
  5. Return information to the user

Overview

The package has six main components, in accordance with the above operation:

  1. Main Function
  2. Package I/O
  3. Static Files
  4. Participant Network
  5. Auxiliary Services
  6. Merge Verification Logic

Main

The main function is the package's entrypoint, where parameters are received from the user, lower-level calls are made, and a response is returned.

Package I/O

This particular package has many configuration options (see the "Configuration" section in the README for the full list of values). These are passed in as a YAML or JSON-serialized string, and arrive to the package's main function via the input_args variable. The process of setting defaults, overriding them with the user's desired options, and validating the resulting config object requires some space in the codebase. All this logic happens inside the package_io directory, so you'll want to visit this directory if you want to:

  • View or change parameters that the package can receive
  • Change the default values of package parameters
  • View or change the validation logic that the package applies to configuration parameters
  • View or change the properties that the package passes back to the user after execution is complete

Static Files

Kurtosis packages can have static files that are made available inside the container during the package's operation. For this package, the static files included are various key files and config templates which get used during participant network operation.

Participant Network

The participant network is the beating heart at the center of the package. The participant network code is responsible for:

  1. Generating EL client config data
  2. Starting the EL clients
  3. Generating CL client config data
  4. Starting the CL clients

We'll explain these phases one by one.

Generating EL and CL client data

All EL clients require both a genesis file and a JWT secret. The exact format of the genesis file differs per client, so we first leverage a Docker image containing tools for generating this genesis data to create the actual files that the EL clients-to-be will need. This is accomplished by filling in a single genesis generation environment config files found in static_files.

CL clients, like EL clients also have a genesis and config files that they need. This is created at the same time as the EL genesis files.

Then the validator keys are generated. A tool called eth2-val-tools is used to generate the keys. The keys are then stored as a file artifact.

Starting EL clients

Next, we plug the generated genesis data into EL client "launchers" to start a mining network of EL nodes. The launchers come with a launch function that consumes EL genesis data and produces information about the running EL client node. Running EL node information is represented by an el_context struct. Each EL client type has its own launcher (e.g. Geth, Besu) because each EL client will require different environment variables and flags to be set when launching the client's container.

Starting CL clients

Once CL genesis data and keys have been created, the CL client nodes are started via the CL client launchers. Just as with EL clients:

  • CL client launchers implement come with a launch method
  • One CL client launcher exists per client type (e.g. Nimbus, Lighthouse)
  • Launched CL node information is tracked in a cl_context struct

There are only two major difference between CL client and EL client launchers. First, the cl_client_launcher.launch method also consumes an el_context, because each CL client is connected in a 1:1 relationship with an EL client. Second, because CL clients have keys, the keystore files are passed in to the launch function as well.

Auxiliary Services

After the Ethereum network is up and running, this package starts several auxiliary containers to make it easier to work with the Ethereum network. At time of writing, these are:

Testnet Verifier

Once the Ethereum network is up and running, verification logic will be run to ensure that the Merge has happened successfully. This happens via a testnet-verifying Docker image that periodically polls the network to check the state of the merge. If the merge doesn't occur, the testnet-verifying image returns an unsuccessful exit code which in turn signals the Kurtosis package to exit with an error. This merge verification can be disabled in the package's configuration (see the "Configuration" section in the README).