9c18c3d9a4
In this commit, we fix a lingering bug related to the way that we deliver block epoch notifications to end users. Before this commit, we would launch a new goroutine for *each block*. This was done in order to ensure that the notification dispatch wouldn’t block the main goroutine that was dispatching the notifications. This method archived the goal, but had a nasty side effect that the goroutines could be re-ordered during scheduling, meaning that in the case of fast successive blocks, then notifications would be delivered out of order. Receiving out of order notifications is either disallowed, or can cause sub-systems that rely on these notifications to get into weird states. In order to fix this issue, we’ll no longer launch a new goroutine to deliver each notification to an awaiting client. Instead, each client will now gain a concurrent in-order queue for notification delivery. Due to the internal design of chainntnfs.ConcurrentQueue, the caller should never block, yet the receivers will receive notifications in order. This change solves the re-ordering issue and also minimizes the number of goroutines that we’ll create in order to deliver block epoch notifications.
Lightning Network Daemon
The Lightning Network Daemon (lnd) - is a complete implementation of a
Lightning Network node and currently deployed on
testnet3 - the Bitcoin Test Network. lnd has several pluggable back-end
chain services including btcd (a
full-node) and neutrino (a new
experimental light client). The project's codebase uses the
btcsuite set of Bitcoin libraries, and also
exports a large set of isolated re-usable Lightning Network related libraries
within it. In the current state lnd is capable of:
- Creating channels.
- Closing channels.
- Completely managing all channel states (including the exceptional ones!).
- Maintaining a fully authenticated+validated channel graph.
- Performing path finding within the network, passively forwarding incoming payments.
- Sending outgoing onion-encrypted payments through the network.
- Updating advertised fee schedules.
- Automatic channel management (
autopilot).
Lightning Network Specification Compliance
lnd fully conforms to the Lightning Network specification
(BOLTs). BOLT stands for:
Basic of Lightning Technologies. The specifications are currently being drafted
by several groups of implementers based around the world including the
developers of lnd. The set of specification documents as well as our
implementation of the specification are still a work-in-progress. With that
said, the current status of lnd's BOLT compliance is:
- BOLT 1: Base Protocol
- BOLT 2: Peer Protocol for Channel Management
- BOLT 3: Bitcoin Transaction and Script Formats
- BOLT 4: Onion Routing Protocol
- BOLT 5: Recommendations for On-chain Transaction Handling
- BOLT 7: P2P Node and Channel Discovery
- BOLT 8: Encrypted and Authenticated Transport
- BOLT 9: Assigned Feature Flags
- BOLT 10: DNS Bootstrap and Assisted Node Location
- BOLT 11: Invoice Protocol for Lightning Payments
Developer Resources
The daemon has been designed to be as developer friendly as possible in order
to facilitate application development on top of lnd. Two primary RPC
interfaces are exported: an HTTP REST API, and a gRPC
service. The exported API's are not yet stable, so be warned: they may change
drastically in the near future.
An automatically generated set of documentation for the RPC APIs can be found at api.lightning.community. A set of developer resources including talks, articles, and example applications can be found at: dev.lightning.community.
Finally, we also have an active
Slack
where protocol developers, application developers, testers and users gather to
discuss various aspects of lnd and also Lightning in general.
Installation
In order to build from source, please see the installation instructions.
IRC
- irc.freenode.net
- channel #lnd
- webchat