Installation and usage of the platform
General platform configuration: consensus algorithm¶
The Waves Enterprise blockchain platform supports three consensus algorithms - PoS, PoA and CFT. Detailed information about the consensus algorithms used can be found in the article Consensus algorithms.
The consensus settings are located in the consensus
block of the blockchain
section:
consensus {
type = ""
...
}
Select the preferred consensus type in the type
field. Possible values: pos
, poa
, and cft
.
type = "pos"
or the commented consensus
block¶
If you do not select a consensus type in this field, leaving it blank, the default PoS algorithm will be used. This option is equivalent to selecting the pos
value. In this case other fields in the consensus
block are not required, you only need to configure the PoS mining operation in the genesis
block:
consensus {
type = "pos"
}
...
genesis {
average-block-delay = "60s"
initial-base-target = 153722867
initial-balance = "16250000 WEST"
...
}
The following parameters of the genesis
block in the blockchain
section are responsible for mining with PoS:
average-block-delay
- average block creation delay. The default value is 60 seconds.initial-base-target
- the initial base number to regulate the mining process. The higher the value, the more often the blocks are created. Also, the value of the miner balance affects the use of this parameter in mining - the higher the balance of the miner, the lower the value ofinitial-base-target
becomes when calculating the queue of node-miner in the current round.initial-balance
- the initial balance of the network. The greater the share of the miner’s balance from the initial balance of the network, the smaller the value ofinitial-base-target
becomes for determining the miner node of the current round.
type = "poa"
¶
To configure the PoA consensus algorithm, add the following parameters to the consensus
block:
consensus {
type = "poa"
round-duration = "17s"
sync-duration = "3s"
ban-duration-blocks = 100
warnings-for-ban = 3
max-bans-percentage = 40
}
round-duration
- length of the block mining round in seconds.sync-duration
- the block mining synchronization period in seconds. The total round time is the sum ofround-duration
andsync-duration
.ban-duration-blocks
- the number of blocks for which the miner node is banned.warnings-for-ban
- the number of rounds during which the miner node receives warnings. At the end of this number of rounds, the node is banned.max-bans-percentage
- percentage of miner node from the total number of nodes in the network that can be banned.
type = "cft"
¶
The basic settings of the CFT are identical to those of the PoA consensus:
consensus {
type: cft
warnings-for-ban: 3
ban-duration-blocks: 15
max-bans-percentage: 33
round-duration: 7s
sync-duration: 2s
max-validators: 7
finalization-timeout: 4s
full-vote-set-timeout: 4s
}
In comparison with the PoA, the CFT has two additional configuration parameters needed to validate blocks in a voting round:
max-validators – limit of validators participating in a current round.
finalization-timeout – time period, during which a miner waits for finalization of the last block in a blockchain. After that time, the miner will return the transactions back to the UTX pool and start mining the round again.
full-vote-set-timeout - optional parameter which defines, how much time a miner will wait for the full set of votes from all validators after the end of the round (node configuration file parameter:
round-duration
).
While configuring CFT, please note the following recommendations:
The
sync-duration
parameter must be different from zero. It is recommended to set the value from 1 to 5 seconds, depending on the size and complexity of transactions.Approximate calculation of the
finalization-timeout
parameter: (round-duration
+sync-duration
) / 2. It is not recommended to underestimate this value to speed up finalization: if the miner gathers the necessary number of votes before the end of this time, it will immediately release the finalizing microblock.If there is a large number of miners in the network, limit the number of round validators by the
max-validators
parameter. The validator selection mechanism will ensure that all validators rotate evenly across rounds. Too many validators can adversely affect network performance. The recommended range of values is: from 5 to 10.If the network is running under constant load, set the
full-vote-set-timeout
parameter. Until this timeout expires, the miner waits for a full set of votes from the validators. If the validator encounters any problem, the network uses thefull-vote-set-timeout
to create an additional time slot that allows the lagging validator to complete synchronization. The recommended value issync-duration
* 2, it should not exceedsync-duration
+finalization-timeout
.