0157 - Draft - Standards - May 24, 2017 (9 years, 1 month ago)
24
2017
BIP: 157
Layer: Peer Services
Title: Client Side Block Filtering
Author: Olaoluwa Osuntokun <[email protected]>
Alex Akselrod <[email protected]>
Jim Posen <[email protected]>
Comments-Summary: None yet
Comments-URI: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/wiki/Comments:BIP 157
Status: Draft
Type: Standards Track
Created: 2017-05-24
License: CC0-1.0This BIP describes a new light client protocol in Bitcoin that improves upon currently available options. The standard light client protocol in use today, defined in BIP 37 1 , has known flaws that weaken the security and privacy of clients and allow denial-of-service attack vectors on full nodes 2 . The new protocol overcomes these issues by allowing light clients to obtain compact probabilistic filters of block content from full nodes and download full blocks if the filter matches relevant data.
New P2P messages empower light clients to securely sync the blockchain without relying on a trusted source. This BIP also defines a filter header, which serves as a commitment to all filters for previous blocks and provides the ability to efficiently detect malicious or faulty peers serving invalid filters. The resulting protocol guarantees that light clients with at least one honest peer are able to identify the correct block filters.
Bitcoin light clients allow applications to read relevant transactions from the blockchain without incurring the full cost of downloading and validating all data. Such applications seek to simultaneously minimize the trust in peers and the amount of bandwidth, storage space, and computation required. They achieve this by downloading all block headers, verifying the proofs of work, and following the longest proof-of-work chain. Since block headers are a fixed 80-bytes and are generated every 10 minutes on average, the bandwidth required to sync the block headers is minimal. Light clients then download only the blockchain data relevant to them directly from peers and validate inclusion in the header chain. Though clients do not check the validity of all blocks in the longest proof-of-work chain, they rely on miner incentives for security.
BIP 37 is currently the most widely used light client execution mode for Bitcoin. With BIP 37, a client sends a Bloom filter it wants to watch to a full node peer, then receives notifications for each new transaction or block that matches the filter. The client then requests relevant transactions from the peer along with Merkle proofs of inclusion in the blocks containing them, which are verified against the block headers. The Bloom filters match data such as client addresses and unspent outputs, and the filter size must be carefully tuned to balance the false positive rate with the amount of information leaked to peer. It has been shown, however, that most implementations available offer virtually zero privacy to wallets and other applications 3 4 . Additionally, malicious full nodes serving light clients can omit critical data with little risk of detection, which is unacceptable for some applications (such as Lightning Network clients) that must respond to certain on-chain events. Finally, honest nodes servicing BIP 37 light clients may incur significant I/O and CPU resource usage due to maliciously crafted Bloom filters, creating a denial-of-service (DoS) vector and disincentizing node operators from supporting the protocol 5 .
The alternative detailed in this document can be seen as the opposite of BIP 37: instead of the client sending a filter to a full node peer, full nodes generate deterministic filters on block data that are served to the client. A light client can then download an entire block if the filter matches the data it is watching for. Since filters are deterministic, they only need to be constructed once and stored on disk, whenever a new block is connected to the chain. This keeps the computation required to serve filters minimal, and eliminates the I/O asymmetry that makes BIP 37 enabled nodes vulnerable. Clients also get better assurance of seeing all relevant transactions because they can check the validity of filters received from peers more easily than they can check completeness of filtered blocks. Finally, client privacy is improved because blocks can be downloaded from any source , so that no one peer gets complete information on the data required by a client. Extremely privacy conscious light clients may opt to anonymously fetch blocks using advanced techniques such a Private Information Retrieval 6 .
[]byte
represents a vector of bytes.
[N]byte
represents a fixed-size byte array with length
N.
CompactSize is a compact encoding of unsigned integers used in the Bitcoin P2P protocol.
double-SHA256
is a hash algorithm defined by two invocations
of SHA-256:
double-SHA256(x) = SHA256(SHA256(x))
.
The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT", "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this document are to be interpreted as described in RFC 2119.
For the sake of future extensibility and reducing filter sizes, there are multiple filter types that determine which data is included in a block filter as well as the method of filter construction/querying. In this model, full nodes generate one filter per block per filter type supported.
Each type is identified by a one byte code, and specifies the contents and serialization format of the filter. A full node MAY signal support for particular filter types using service bits. The initial filter types are defined separately in BIP 158 , and one service bit is allocated to signal support for them.
This proposal draws inspiration from the headers-first mechanism that Bitcoin nodes use to sync the block chain 7 . Similar to how block headers have a Merkle commitment to all transaction data in the block, we define filter headers that have commitments to the block filters. Also like block headers, filter headers each have a commitment to the preceding one. Before downloading the block filters themselves, a light client can download all filter headers for the current block chain and use them to verify the authenticity of the filters. If the filter header chains differ between multiple peers, the client can identify the point where they diverge, then download the full block and compute the correct filter, thus identifying which peer is faulty.
The canonical hash of a block filter is the double-SHA256 of the serialized filter. Filter headers are 32-byte hashes derived for each block filter. They are computed as the double-SHA256 of the concatenation of the filter hash with the previous filter header. The previous filter header used to calculate that of the genesis block is defined to be the 32-byte array of 0's.
getcfilters
is used to request the compact filters of a
particular type for a particular range of blocks. The message contains
the following fields:
| Field Name | Data Type | Byte Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FilterType |
byte |
1 |
Filter type for which headers are requested |
|
StartHeight |
uint32 |
4 |
The height of the first block in the requested range |
|
StopHash |
[32]byte |
32 |
The hash of the last block in the requested range |
getcfilters
unless the peer has
signaled support for this filter type. Nodes receiving
getcfilters
with an unsupported filter type SHOULD NOT
respond.
headers
or
inv
message with that block or any
descendents. A node that receives
getcfilters
with an
unknown StopHash SHOULD NOT respond.
cfilter
message for each block in the requested range,
sequentially in order by block height.
cfilter
is sent in response to
getcfilters
,
one for each block in the requested range. The message contains the
following fields:
| Field Name | Data Type | Byte Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FilterType |
byte |
1 |
Byte identifying the type of filter being returned |
|
BlockHash |
[32]byte |
32 |
Block hash of the Bitcoin block for which the filter is being returned |
|
NumFilterBytes |
CompactSize |
1-5 |
A variable length integer representing the size of the filter in the following field |
|
FilterBytes |
[]byte |
NumFilterBytes |
The serialized compact filter for this block |
getcfilters
request, and BlockHash must correspond to a
block that is an ancestor of StopHash with height greater than or equal
to StartHeight.
getcfheaders
is used to request verifiable filter
headers for a range of blocks. The message contains the following
fields:
| Field Name | Data Type | Byte Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FilterType |
byte |
1 |
Filter type for which headers are requested |
|
StartHeight |
uint32 |
4 |
The height of the first block in the requested range |
|
StopHash |
[32]byte |
32 |
The hash of the last block in the requested range |
getcfheaders
unless the peer has
signaled support for this filter type. Nodes receiving
getcfheaders
with an unsupported filter type SHOULD NOT
respond.
headers
or
inv
message with that block or any
descendents. A node that receives
getcfheaders
with an
unknown StopHash SHOULD NOT respond.
cfheaders
is sent in response to
getcfheaders
. Instead of including the filter headers
themselves, the response includes one filter header and a sequence of
filter hashes, from which the headers can be derived. This has the
benefit that the client can verify the binding links between the
headers. The message contains the following fields:
| Field Name | Data Type | Byte Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FilterType |
byte |
1 |
Filter type for which hashes are requested |
|
StopHash |
[32]byte |
32 |
The hash of the last block in the requested range |
|
PreviousFilterHeader |
[32]byte |
32 |
The filter header preceding the first block in the requested range |
|
FilterHashesLength |
CompactSize |
1-3 |
The length of the following vector of filter hashes |
|
FilterHashes |
[][32]byte |
FilterHashesLength * 32 |
The filter hashes for each block in the requested range |
getcfheaders
request.
getcfcheckpt
is used to request filter headers at evenly
spaced intervals over a range of blocks. Clients may use filter hashes
from
getcfheaders
to connect these checkpoints, as is
described in the
Client Operation
section below. The
getcfcheckpt
message contains the following fields:
| Field Name | Data Type | Byte Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FilterType |
byte |
1 |
Filter type for which headers are requested |
|
StopHash |
[32]byte |
32 |
The hash of the last block in the chain that headers are requested for |
getcfcheckpt
unless the peer has
signaled support for this filter type. Nodes receiving
getcfcheckpt
with an unsupported filter type SHOULD NOT
respond.
headers
or
inv
message with any descendent
blocks. A node that receives
getcfcheckpt
with an unknown
StopHash SHOULD NOT respond.
cfcheckpt
is sent in response to
getcfcheckpt
. The filter headers included are the set of
all filter headers on the requested chain where the height is a positive
multiple of 1,000. The message contains the following fields:
| Field Name | Data Type | Byte Size | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
|
FilterType |
byte |
1 |
Filter type for which headers are requested |
|
StopHash |
[32]byte |
32 |
The hash of the last block in the chain that headers are requested for |
|
FilterHeadersLength |
CompactSize |
1-3 |
The length of the following vector of filter headers |
|
FilterHeaders |
[][32]byte |
FilterHeadersLength * 32 |
The filter headers at intervals of 1,000 |
getcfcheckpt
request.
Full nodes MAY opt to support this BIP and generate filters for any
of the specified filter types. Such nodes SHOULD treat the filters as an
additional index of the blockchain. For each new block that is connected
to the main chain, nodes SHOULD generate filters for all supported types
and persist them. Nodes that are missing filters and are already synced
with the blockchain SHOULD reindex the chain upon start-up, constructing
filters for each block from genesis to the current tip. They also SHOULD
keep every checkpoint header in memory, so that
getcfcheckpt
requests do not result in many random-access
disk reads.
Nodes SHOULD NOT generate filters dynamically on request, as malicious peers may be able to perform DoS attacks by requesting small filters derived from large blocks. This would require an asymmetrical amount of I/O on the node to compute and serve, similar to attacks against BIP 37 enabled nodes noted in BIP 111.
Nodes MAY prune block data after generating and storing all filters for a block.
This section provides recommendations for light clients to download filters with maximal security.
Clients SHOULD first sync the entire block header chain from peers using the standard headers-first syncing mechanism before downloading any block filters or filter headers. Clients configured with trusted checkpoints MAY only sync headers started from the last checkpoint. Clients SHOULD disconnect any outbound peers whose best chain has significantly less work than the known longest proof-of-work chain.
Once a client's block headers are in sync, it SHOULD download and
verify filter headers for all blocks and filter types that it might
later download. The client SHOULD send
getcfheaders
messages to peers and derive and store the filter headers for each
block. The client MAY first fetch headers at evenly spaced intervals of
1,000 by sending
getcfcheckpt
. The header checkpoints allow
the client to download filter headers for different intervals from
multiple peers in parallel, verifying each range of 1,000 headers
against the checkpoints.
Unless securely connected to a trusted peer that is serving filter
headers, the client SHOULD connect to multiple outbound peers that
support each filter type to mitigate the risk of downloading incorrect
headers. If the client receives conflicting filter headers from
different peers for any block and filter type, it SHOULD interrogate
them to determine which is faulty. The client SHOULD use
getcfheaders
and/or
getcfcheckpt
to first
identify the first filter headers that the peers disagree on. The client
then SHOULD download the full block from any peer and derive the correct
filter and filter header. The client SHOULD ban any peers that sent a
filter header that does not match the computed one.
Once the client has downloaded and verified all filter headers needed, and no outbound peers have sent conflicting headers, the client can download the actual block filters it needs. The client MAY backfill filter headers before the first verified one at this point if it only downloaded them starting at a later point. Clients SHOULD persist the verified filter headers for the last 100 blocks in the chain (or whatever finality depth is desired), to compare against headers received from new peers after restart. They MAY store more filter headers to avoid redownloading them if a rescan is later necessary.
Starting from the first block in the desired range, the client now MAY download the filters. The client SHOULD test that each filter links to its corresponding filter header and ban peers that send incorrect filters. The client MAY download multiple filters at once to increase throughput, though it SHOULD test the filters sequentially. The client MAY check if a filter is empty before requesting it by checking if the filter header commits to the hash of the empty filter, saving a round trip if that is the case.
Each time a new valid block header is received, the client SHOULD request the corresponding filter headers from all eligible peers. If two peers send conflicting filter headers, the client should interrogate them as described above and ban any peers that send an invalid header.
If a client is fetching full blocks from the P2P network, they SHOULD be downloaded from outbound peers at random to mitigate privacy loss due to transaction intersection analysis. Note that blocks may be downloaded from peers that do not support this BIP.
The filter headers and checkpoints messages are defined to help clients identify the correct filter for a block when connected to peers sending conflicting information. An alternative solution is to require Bitcoin blocks to include commitments to derived block filters, so light clients can verify authenticity given block headers and some additional witness data. This would require a network-wide change to the Bitcoin consensus rules, however, whereas this document proposes a solution purely at the P2P layer.
The constant interval of 1,000 blocks between checkpoints was chosen
so that, given the current chain height and rate of growth, the size of
a
cfcheckpt
message is not drastically different from a
cfheaders
message between two checkpoints. Also, 1,000 is a
nice round number, at least to those of us who think in decimal.
This light client mode is not compatible with current node deployments and requires support for the new P2P messages. The node implementation of this proposal is not incompatible with the current P2P network rules (ie. doesn't affect network topology of full nodes). Light clients may adopt protocols based on this as an alternative to the existing BIP 37. Adoption of this BIP may result in reduced network support for BIP 37.
We would like to thank bfd (from the bitcoin-dev mailing list) for
bringing the basis of this BIP to our attention, Joseph Poon for
suggesting the filter header chain scheme, and Pedro Martelletto for
writing the initial indexing code for
btcd
.
We would also like to thank Dave Collins, JJ Jeffrey, Eric Lombrozo, and Matt Corallo for useful discussions.
Light client: 1
Full-node indexing: https://github.com/Roasbeef/btcd/tree/segwit-cbf
Golomb-Rice Coded sets: https://github.com/Roasbeef/btcutil/tree/gcs/gcs
This document is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal license.