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If you fail at the beginning, try again.
These are the words of wisdom that the central developers of Ethereum have taken to heart since a vulnerability in the network code was discovered just 48 hours before the deployment of the code.
The upgrade of the network, called Constantinople, would have introduced a series of changes incompatible with earlier versions – also known as the "hard range" – of the second largest cryptocurrency in the world in terms of market capitalization. However, the discovered bug caused a delay, followed by a test plan again at the end of February.
The code to be activated during the last week of February, more precisely to the block figure of 7,280,000, the central developers of Ethereum are convinced that Constantinople will not fail this time.
"I think it will happen as planned. The block number has been defined and [the upgrade] Hudson Jameson, developer relations manager for the Ethereum Foundation, told CoinDesk.
Jameson added that one of the major benefits of the difficult attempt last January was to "improve communication with minors to inform them of the upgrade".
Although the problem in the code did not have a direct impact on the miners, the miners and other users executing complete copies of the Ethereum encapsulated chain, called nodes, had to be quickly informed of the cancellation of Constantinople in order to to prevent it from being deployed and causing disturbances.
ChainSecurity, the intelligent contract security audit firm, who discovered this vulnerability, told CoinDesk that the Ethereum developer organization was already quite impressive.
"I was impressed by the speed with which everyone responded and by the way everyone organized responded," said CTO Hubert Ritzdorf. "Many people had to update to find out what to update. At many different levels, it became clear even though there was no central command, [ethereum] the community collaborates very effectively. "
Called Ethereum Improvement Proposals (EIP), four out of five EIPs will actually be activated on the main network, or the main network. And for all technical purposes, the upgrade will be deployed in two parts – simultaneously.
Greet 'Petersberg'
At a meeting held in late January, the developers proposed to temporarily drop EIP and continue as planned with the rest of Constantinople, believing that a solution to the buggy EIP – EIP 1283 – would delay the activation of the fork too long by Ethereum.
However, as several ethereum test networks, including Ropsten, already activated Constantinople in all its splendor before the security breach was discovered, the central developers of thereum also agreed that a second critical step, consisting of to remove the EIP protocol safely, was necessary.
Thus, "Petersberg" was born.
Already published on Ropsten, Petersberg is the informal name for the hard fork specifically designed to remove the EIP 1283 protocol from an active Ethereum network. Later this month, the original code of Constantinople will be activated on the main network together with Petersberg.
"All developers have access to all the practical means on the network, it will not really have Constantinople, just Petersberg … Technically, in the code, you have two conditions," explained Matthias Egli, director of operations from ChainSecurity. "It is said that Constantinople becomes active at the block number [7,280,000] and at the same block number, Petersberg is activated, which takes precedence over Constantinople and replaces it immediately. "
And regarding what remains to be done for the launch of Petersberg on the network, Jameson said that all the tests for its release were complete and that the main clients of the software, including Geth and Parity, were ready to be deployed on the agreed block number.
Today, as Martin Holst Swende, Head of Security at Ethereum has pointed out, Ethereum users should be informed of the important changes to the Ethereum network following Constantinople and Petersberg.
The new "corner case"
tweeting On a questionnaire aimed at users last Thursday, Mr Swende said that after Constantinople, smart contracts on the ethereum, considered virtually immutable, would be able to modify the code under certain conditions during multiple transactions.
The new feature introduced in EIP 1014 – called "Skinny CREATE2" – aims to facilitate off-line Ethereum transactions by allowing what Ritzdorf describes as a "deterministic deployment".
"When you deploy a new smart contract on Ethereum, it calculates the address at which the contract will be deployed. You know it in advance, but it depends on many variables, "Ritzdorf told CoinDesk. "CREATE2 makes it easier to say," We will deploy a contract for this particular address in the future. "
As a result, Ritzdorf explains that smart contract developers could technically deploy "for the second time" contracts at the same address, noting:
"[After Constantinople] you can change the code because you can first deploy to this address, destroy the code and then deploy it again. "
Egli pointed out that it was not "a security bug" but rather an "angle case" which developers on Ethereum should be wary of once the changes put into production. He added that continuous training of listeners before February was needed on the other four IEPs originally planned to be integrated in Constantinople outside of IAP 1283.
Users planning to launch Constantinople can visit forkmon.ethdevops.io or Ethernodes to view the real-time version. A number of other sites are also available for live measurements, including mining rate and market prices.
According to a difficult countdown created by Afri Schoedon, responsible for the publication of the client of Parity Ethereum, Constantinople and Petersberg should be online Thursday, February 28.
Movie clapper image via Shutterstock
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