SIMD-0204: Slashable event verification

Author: AshwinSekar

proposals/0204-slashable-event-verification.md

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+---
+simd: '0204'
+title: Slashable event verification
+authors:
+  - Ashwin Sekar
+category: Standard
+type: Core
+status: Review
+created: 2024-11-26
+feature: (fill in with feature tracking issues once accepted)
+---
+
+## Summary
+
+This proposal describes an enshrined on-chain program to verify proofs that a
+validator committed a slashable infraction. This program creates reports on chain
+for use in future SIMDs.
+
+**This proposal does not modify any stakes or rewards, the program will
+only verify and log infractions.**
+
+## Motivation
+
+There exists a class of protocol violations that are difficult to detect synchronously,
+but are simple to detect after the fact. In order to penalize violators we provide
+a means to record these violations on chain.
+
+This also serves as a starting point for observability and discussions around the
+economics of penalizing these violators. This is a necessary step to implement
+slashing in the Solana Protocol.
+
+## New Terminology
+
+None
+
+### Feature flags
+
+`create_slashing_program`:
+
+- `sProgVaNWkYdP2eTRAy1CPrgb3b9p8yXCASrPEqo6VJ`
+
+## Detailed Design
+
+On the epoch boundary where the `create_slashing_program` feature flag is first
+activated the following behavior will be executed in the first block for the new
+epoch:
+
+1. Create a new program account at `S1ashing11111111111111111111111111111111111`
+  with an upgrade authority set to the system program
+  `11111111111111111111111111111111`
+
+2. Verify that the program account
+  `8sT74BE7sanh4iT84EyVUL8b77cVruLHXGjvTyJ4GwCe` has a verified build hash of
+  `<FILL IN AFTER IMPLEMENTATION>` [\[1\]](#notes)
+
+3. Copy the contents of `8sT74BE7sanh4iT84EyVUL8b77cVruLHXGjvTyJ4GwCe` into
+  `S1ashing11111111111111111111111111111111111`
+
+This program (hereafter referred to as the slashing program) supports 2
+instructions `DuplicateBlockProof`, and `CloseProofReport`.
+
+`DuplicateBlockProof` requires 1 account:
+
+0. `proof_account`, expected to be previously intiialized with the proof data.
+
+`DuplicateBlockProof` has an instruction data of 48 bytes, containing:
+
+- `0x00`, a fixed-value byte acting as the instruction discriminator
+- `offset`, an unaligned eight-byte little-endian unsigned integer indicating
+  the offset from which to read the proof
+- `slot`, an unaligned eight-byte little-endian unsigned integer indicating the
+  slot in which the violation occured
+- `node_pubkey`, an unaligned 32 byte array representing the public key of the
+  node which committed the violation
+
+We expect the contents of the `proof_account` when read from `offset` to
+deserialize to a struct of two byte arrays representing the duplicate shreds.
+The first 4 bytes correspond to the length of the first shred, and the 4 bytes
+after that shred correspond to the length of the second shred.
+
+```rust
+struct DuplicateBlockProofData {
+  shred1_length: u32,
+  shred1: &[u8],
+  shred2_length: u32,
+  shred2: &[u8]
+}
+```
+
+`DuplicateBlockProof` aborts if:
+
+- The difference between the current slot and `slot` is greater than 1 epoch's
+  worth of slots as reported by the `Clock` sysvar
+- `offset` is larger than the length of `proof_account`
+- `proof_account[offset..]` does not deserialize cleanly to a
+  `DuplicateBlockProofData`.
+- The resulting shreds do not adhere to the Solana shred format [\[2\]](#notes)
+  or are legacy shred variants.
+- The resulting shreds specify a slot that is different from `slot`.
+- The resulting shreds specify different shred versions.
+
+After deserialization the slashing program will attempt to verify the proof, by
+checking that `shred1` and `shred2` constitute a valid duplicate proof for
+`slot` and are correctly signed by `node_pubkey`. This is similar to logic used
+in Solana's gossip protocol to verify duplicate proofs for use in fork choice.
+
+### Proof verification
+
+`shred1` and `shred2` constitute a valid duplicate proof if any of the following
+conditions are met:
+
+- Both shreds specify the same index and shred type, however their payloads
+  differ
+- Both shreds specify the same FEC set, however their merkle roots differ
+- Both shreds specify the same FEC set and are coding shreds, however their
+  erasure configs conflict
+- At least one shred is a coding shred, and its erasure meta indicates an FEC set
+  overlap.
+- The shreds are data shreds with different indices and the shred with the lower
+  index has the `LAST_SHRED_IN_SLOT` flag set
+
+Note: We do not verify that `node_pubkey` was the leader for `slot`. Any node that
+willingly signs duplicate shreds for a slot that they are not a leader for is
+eligible for slashing.
+
+---
+
+### Signature verification
+
+In order to verify that `shred1` and `shred2` were correctly signed by
+`node_pubkey` we use instruction retrospection.
+
+Using the `Instructions` sysvar we verify that the previous two instructions of
+this transaction are for the program ID
+`Ed25519SigVerify111111111111111111111111111`
+
+For each of these instructions, verify the instruction data:
+
+- The first byte is `0x01`
+- The second byte (padding) is `0x00`
+
+And then deserialize the remaining instruction data as 2 byte little-endian
+unsigned integers:
+
+```rust
+struct Ed25519SignatureOffsets {
+    signature_offset: u16,             // offset to ed25519 signature of 64 bytes
+    signature_instruction_index: u16,  // instruction index to find signature
+    public_key_offset: u16,            // offset to public key of 32 bytes
+    public_key_instruction_index: u16, // instruction index to find public key
+    message_data_offset: u16,          // offset to start of message data
+    message_data_size: u16,            // size of message data
+    message_instruction_index: u16,    // index of instruction data to get message
+                                       // data
+}
+```
+
+We wish to verify that these instructions correspond to
+
+```
+verify(pubkey = node_pubkey, message = shred1.merkle_root, signature = shred1.signature)
+verify(pubkey = node_pubkey, message = shred2.merkle_root, signature = shred2.signature)
+```
+
+We use the deserialized offsets to calculate [\[3\]](#notes) the `pubkey`,
+`message`, and `signature` of each instruction and verify that they correspond
+to the `node_pubkey`, `merkle_root`, and `signature` specified by the shred payload.
+
+If both proof and signer verification succeed, we continue on to store the incident.
+
+---
+
+### Incident reporting
+
+After verifying a successful proof we store the results in a program derived
+address for future use. The PDA is derived using the `node_pubkey`, `slot`, and
+the violation type:
+
+```rust
+let (pda, _) = find_program_address(&[
+  node_pubkey.to_bytes(),
+  slot.to_le_bytes(),
+  ViolationType::DuplicateBlock.to_u8(),
+])
+```
+
+At the moment `DuplicateBlock` is the only violation type but future work will
+add additional slashing types.
+
+If the `pda` account has non-zero lamports, then we abort as the violation has
+already been reported. Otherwise we create the account, with the slashing program
+as the owner. In this account we store the following:
+
+```rust
+struct ProofReport {
+  reporter: Pubkey,              // Fee payer, to allow the account to be closed
+  epoch: Epoch,                  // Epoch in which this report was created
+  pubkey: Pubkey,                // The pubkey of the node that committed the violation
+  slot: Slot,                    // Slot in which the violation occured
+  violation_type: u8,            // The violation type
+  proof: Vec<u8>                 // The serialized proof
+  proof_account: Option<Pubkey>, // Optional account where proof is stored instead
+}
+```
+
+The `DuplicateBlockProofData` is serialized into the `proof` field. This provides
+an on chain trail of the reporting process, since the `proof_account` supplied in
+the `DuplicateBlockProof` account could later be modified.
+
+The `pubkey` is populated with the `node_pubkey`. For future violation types that
+involve votes, this will instead be populated with the vote account's pubkey.
+The work in SIMD-0180 will allow the `node_pubkey` to be translated to a vote account
+if needed.
+
+Note that PDA's can only be created with a 10kb initial size.
+Although not a problem for `DuplicateBlockProofData`, if future proof types require
+more space, we allow the proof to be stored in a separate account, and linked back
+to the PDA using the `proof_account` field.
+
+---
+
+### Closing the incident report
+
+After the slashing violation has been processed by the runtime, the initial fee
+payer may wish to close their `ProofReport` account to reclaim the lamports.
+
+They can accomplish this via the `CloseProofReport` instruction which requires
+2 accounts:
+
+0. `report_account`: The PDA account storing the report: Writable, owned by the
+  slashing program
+1. `destination`: Writable account to reclaim the lamports
+
+`CloseProofReport` has an instruction data of 42 bytes, containing:
+
+- `0x01`, a fixed-value byte acting as the instruction discriminator
+- `violation_type`, a one byte value acting as the violation type discriminator
+- `slot`, an unaligned eight-byte little-endian unsigned integer indicating the
+  slot which was reported
+- `pubkey`, an unaligned 32 byte array representing the public key of the node
+  which was reported
+
+We abort if:
+
+- `violation_type` is not `0x00` (corresponds to `DuplicateBlock` violation)
+- Deriving the pda using `pubkey`, `slot`, and `ViolationType::DuplicateBlock`
+  as outlined above does not result in the adddress of `report_account`
+- `report_account` is not writeable
+- `report_account` does not deserialize cleanly to `ProofReport`
+- `report_account.reporter` is not a signer
+- `report_account.epoch + 3` is greater than the current epoch reported from
+  the `Clock` sysvar. We want to ensure that these accounts do not get closed before
+  they are observed by indexers and dashboards.
+
+Otherwise we close the `report_account` and credit the `lamports` to `destination`
+
+---
+
+## Alternatives Considered
+
+This proposal deploys the slashing program in an "enshrined" account, only upgradeable
+through code changes in the validator software. Alternatively we could follow the
+SPL program convention and deploy to an account upgradeable by a multisig. This
+allows for more flexibility in the case of deploying hotfixes or rapid changes,
+however allowing upgrade access to such a sensitive part of the system via a handful
+of engineers poses a security risk.
+
+## Impact
+
+A new program will be enshrined at `S1ashing11111111111111111111111111111111111`.
+
+Reports stored in PDAs of this program might be queried for dashboards which could
+incur additional indexing overhead for RPC providers.
+
+## Security Considerations
+
+None
+
+## Drawbacks
+
+None
+
+## Backwards Compatibility
+
+The feature is not backwards compatible
+
+## Notes
+
+\[1\]: Sha256 of program data, see
+  https://github.com/Ellipsis-Labs/solana-verifiable-build/blob/214ba849946be0f7ec6a13d860f43afe125beea3/src/main.rs#L331
+  for details.
+
+\[2\]: The slashing program will support any combination of merkle shreds, chained
+  merkle shreds, and retransmitter signed chained merkle shreds, see https://github.com/anza-xyz/agave/blob/4e7f7f76f453e126b171c800bbaca2cb28637535/ledger/src/shred.rs#L6
+  for the full specification.
+
+\[3\]: Example of offset calculation can be found here https://docs.solanalabs.com/runtime/programs#ed25519-program