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aggregator

README.md

BLS Aggregator

Aggregation service for bls-signed transaction data.

Accepts transaction bundles (including bundles that contain a single transaction) and submits aggregations of these bundles to the configured Verification Gateway.

Docker Usage

Docker images of the aggregator are available on DockerHub.

If you're targeting a network that already has a deployment of the BLSWallet contracts, you can use these images standalone (without this repository) as follows:

mkdir aggregator
cd aggregator

curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/web3well/bls-wallet/main/aggregator/.env.example >.env

# Replace CHOSEN_NETWORK below
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/web3well/bls-wallet/main/contracts/networks/CHOSEN_NETWORK.json >networkConfig.json

In .env:

  • Change RPC_URL
    • (If using localhost, you probably want host.docker.internal)
  • Change PRIVATE_KEY_AGG
  • Ignore NETWORK_CONFIG_PATH (it's not used inside docker)
  • See Configuration for more detail and other options

If you're running in production, you might want to set AUTO_CREATE_INTERNAL_BLS_WALLET to false. The internal BLS wallet is needed for user fee estimation. Creating it is a one-time setup that will use PRIVATE_KEY_AGG to pay for gas. You can create it explicitly like this:

docker run \
  --rm \
  -it \
  --mount type=bind,source="$PWD/.env",target=/app/.env \
  --mount type=bind,source="$PWD/networkConfig.json",target=/app/networkConfig.json \
  blswallet/aggregator \
  ./ts/programs/createInternalBlsWallet.ts

Finally, start the aggregator:

docker run \
  --name choose-container-name \ # Optional
  -d \ # Optional
  -p3000:3000 \ # If you chose a different PORT in .env, change it here too
  --restart=unless-stopped \ # Optional
  --mount type=bind,source="$PWD/.env",target=/app/.env \
  --mount type=bind,source="$PWD/networkConfig.json",target=/app/networkConfig.json \
  blswallet/aggregator # Tags of the form :git-$VERSION are also available

(You may need to remove the comments before pasting into your terminal.)

Installation

Install Deno

Configuration

cp .env.example .env

Edit values as needed, e.g. private key and contract addresses.

You can also configure multiple environments by appending .<name>, for example you might have:

.env.local
.env.arbitrum-goerli
.env.optimism-goerli

If you don't have a .env, you will need to append --env <name> to all commands.

Environment Variables

Name Example Value Description
RPC_URL https://localhost:8545 The RPC endpoint for an EVM node that the BLS Wallet contracts are deployed on
RPC_POLLING_INTERVAL 4000 How long to wait between retries, when needed (used by ethers when waiting for blocks)
USE_TEST_NET false Whether to set all transaction's gasPrice to 0. Workaround for some networks
ORIGIN http://localhost:3000 The origin for the aggregator client. Used only in manual tests
PORT 3000 The port to bind the aggregator to
NETWORK_CONFIG_PATH ../contracts/networks/local.json Path to the network config file, which contains information on deployed BLS Wallet contracts
PRIVATE_KEY_AGG 0xac0974bec39a17e36ba4a6b4d238ff944bacb478cbed5efcae784d7bf4f2ff80 Private key for the EOA account used to submit bundles on chain. Transactions are paid by the account linked to PRIVATE_KEY_AGG. By default, bundles must pay for themselves by sending funds to tx.origin or the aggregator’s onchain address
PRIVATE_KEY_ADMIN 0x59c6995e998f97a5a0044966f0945389dc9e86dae88c7a8412f4603b6b78690d Private key for the admin EOA account. Used only in tests
TEST_BLS_WALLETS_SECRET test-bls-wallets-secret Secret used to seed BLS Wallet private keys during tests
DB_PATH aggregator.sqlite File path of the sqlite db
BUNDLE_QUERY_LIMIT 100 Maximum number of bundles returned from sqlite
MAX_GAS_PER_BUNDLE 2000000 Limits the amount of user operations which can be bundled together by using this value as the approximate limit on the amount of gas in an aggregate bundle
MAX_AGGREGATION_DELAY_MILLIS 5000 Maximum amount of time in milliseconds aggregator will wait before submitting bundles on chain. A higher number will allow more time for bundles to fill, but may result in longer periods before submission. A lower number allows more frequent L2 submissions, but may result in smaller bundles
MAX_UNCONFIRMED_AGGREGATIONS 3 Maximum unconfirmed bundle aggregations that will be submitted on chain
LOG_QUERIES false Whether to print sqlite queries in event log. When running tests, TEST_LOGGING must also be enabled
TEST_LOGGING false Whether to print aggregator server events to stdout during tests. Useful for debugging & logging
REQUIRE_FEES true Whether to require that user bundles pay the aggregator a sufficient fee
BREAKEVEN_OPERATION_COUNT 4.5 The aggregator must pay an overhead to submit a bundle regardless of how many operations it contains. This parameter determines how much each operation must contribute to this overhead
ALLOW_LOSSES true Even if each user bundle pays the required fee, the aggregate bundle may not be profitable if it is too small. Setting this to true makes the aggregator submit these bundles anyway
FEE_TYPE ether OR token:0xabcd...1234 The fee type the aggregator will accept. Either ether for ETH/chains native currency or token:0xabcd...1234 (token contract address) for an ERC20 token
AUTO_CREATE_INTERNAL_BLS_WALLET false An internal BLS wallet is used to calculate bundle overheads. Setting this to true allows creating this wallet on startup, but might be undesirable in production (see programs/createInternalBlsWallet.ts for manual creation)
PRIORITY_FEE_PER_GAS 0 The priority fee used when submitting bundles (and passed on as a requirement for user bundles)
PREVIOUS_BASE_FEE_PERCENT_INCREASE 2 Used to determine the max basefee attached to aggregator transaction (and passed on as a requirement for user bundles)s
BUNDLE_CHECKING_CONCURRENCY 8 The maximum number of bundles that are checked concurrently (getting gas usage, detecting fees, etc)

Running

Can be run locally or hosted.

./programs/aggregator.ts
# Or if you have a named environment (see configuration section):
# ./programs/aggregator.ts --env <name>

Note: It's also possible to run the aggregator directly from github:

deno run \
  --allow-net \
  --allow-env \
  --allow-read=. \
  --allow-write=. \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/web3well/bls-wallet/main/aggregator/programs/aggregator.ts

(This can be done without a clone of the repository, but you'll still need to set up .env and your network config.)

Testing

  • launch optimism
  • deploy contract script
  • run tests

NB each test must use unique address(es). (+ init code)

Fees

User Guide

User bundles must pay fees to compensate the aggregator (except in testing situations where the aggregator may be configured to accept bundles which don't pay fees (see REQUIRE_FEES)). The aggregator simply detects fees have been paid by observing the effect of a user bundle on its balance. This allows bundles to pay the aggregator using any mechanism of their choosing, and is why bundles do not have fields for paying fees explicitly.

The simplest way to do this is to include an extra action to pay tx.origin.

Use the POST /estimateFee API to determine the fee required for a bundle. The body of this request is the bundle. Response:

{
  "feeType": "(See FEE_TYPE enviroment variable)",
  "feeDetected": "(The fee that has been detected for the provided bundle)",
  "feeRequired": "(Required fee)",
  "successes": [
    /* Array of bools indicating success of each action */
  ]
}

Note that if you want to pay the aggregator using an additional action, you should include this additional action with a payment of zero when estimating, otherwise the additional action will increase the fee that needs to be paid. You can also use the aggregator-proxy package as a proxy in place of an aggregator. This is useful to run more advanced logic such as inspecting bundles and potentially paying for them, before the proxy aggregator then sends the bundles to an underlying aggregator.

Also, feeRequired is the absolute minimum necessary fee to process the bundle at the time of estimation, so paying extra is advisable to increase the chance that the fee is sufficient during submission.

In the case of a malicious aggregator, or if the chosen aggregator service goes down, an end user can always execute actions themselves, by submitting a bundle on chain via VerificationGatewaty.processBundle.

Technical Detail

The fees required by the aggregator are designed to prevent it from losing money. There are two main ways that losses can still happen:

  1. Bundles that don't simulate accurately
  2. Bundles that make losses are allowed in config (ALLOW_LOSSES)

When calculating the required fee, the aggregator needs to account for two things:

  1. The marginal cost of including the user bundle
  2. A contribution to the overhead of submitting the aggregate bundle

Remember that the whole point of aggregation is to save on fees using a single aggregate signature. This means that measuring the fee required to process the user bundle in isolation won't reflect that saving.

Instead, we measure the overhead using hypothetical operations that contain zero actions. We make a bundle with one of these, and another with two of these, and extrapolate backwards to a bundle containing zero operations (see measureBundleOverheadGas).

We can then subtract that overhead from the user's bundle to obtain its marginal cost.

The user's share of the overhead is then added by multiplying it by operationCount / BREAKEVEN_OPERATION_COUNT. User bundles usually have an operationCount of 1, so if BREAKEVEN_OPERATION_COUNT is 4.5, then the bundle will be required to pay 22% of the overhead.

From the aggregator's perspective, aggregate bundles with fewer operations than BREAKEVEN_OPERATION_COUNT should make a loss, and larger bundles should make a profit. If ALLOW_LOSSES is false, bundles which are predicted to make a loss will not be submitted.

Development

Environment

This project is written in TypeScript targeting Deno. To get your tools to interpret the code correctly you'll need deno-specific tooling - if you're using VS Code then you should get the Deno Extension.

Programs

The main entry point is located at ./programs/aggregator.ts, but there are other useful utilities in there that call into src, such as ./programs/showTables.ts. Everything in src is library-style code - it provides functions, classes, constants etc, but doesn't do anything on its own if you run it directly.

Testing

Tests are defined in test. Running them directly is a bit verbose because of the deno flags you need:

deno test --allow-net --allow-env --allow-read

Instead, ./programs/premerge.ts may be more useful for you. It'll make sure all TypeScript compiles correctly before running anything (in deno it's easy to have broken TypeScript lying around because it only compiles the sources that are actually imported whenever you run something). There's also a bunch of other checking going on. As the name suggests, it's a good idea to make sure this script completes successfully before merging into main.

Troubleshooting

TS "Duplicate identifier" error

If you see TypeScript errors like below when attempting to run a script/command from Deno such as ./programs/aggregator.ts:

TS2300 [ERROR]: Duplicate identifier 'TypedArray'.
    type TypedArray =
         ~~~~~~~~~~
    at https://cdn.esm.sh/v59/node.ns.d.ts:508:10

    'TypedArray' was also declared here.
        type TypedArray =
             ~~~~~~~~~~
        at https://cdn.esm.sh/v62/node.ns.d.ts:508:10

You need to reload modules (-r):

deno run -r --allow-net --allow-env --allow-read ./programs/aggregator.ts

Transaction reverted: function call to a non-contract account

  • Is ./contracts/contracts/lib/hubble-contracts/contracts/libs/BLS.sol's COST_ESTIMATOR_ADDRESS set to the right precompile cost estimator's contract address?
  • Are the BLS Wallet contracts deployed on the correct network?
  • Is NETWORK_CONFIG_PATH in .env set to the right config?

Deno version

Make sure your Deno version is up to date.

Notable Components

  • src/chain: Should contain all of the contract interactions, exposing more suitable abstractions to the rest of the code. There's still some contract interaction in EthereumService and in tests though.
  • BlsWallet: Models a BLS smart contract wallet (see BLSWallet.sol).
  • app.ts: Runs the app (the aggregator), requiring only a definition of what to do with the events (invoked with console.log by programs/aggregator.ts).
  • EthereumService: Responsible for submitting aggregations once they have been formed. This was where all the contract interaction was before src/chain. Might need some rethinking.
  • BundleService: Keeps track of all stored transactions, as well as accepting (or rejecting) them and submitting aggregated bundles to EthereumService.
  • BundleTable: Abstraction layer over sqlite bundle tables, exposing typed functions instead of queries. Handles conversions to and from the field types supported by sqlite so that other code can has a uniform js-friendly interface (TransactionData).
  • Client: Provides an abstraction over the external HTTP interface so that programs talking to the aggregator can do so via regular js functions with types instead of dealing with raw HTTP. (This should maybe find its way into a separate library - at the moment bls-wallet-extension uses this via ad hoc copy+paste.)

System Diagram

System Diagram

Hosting Guide

  1. Configure your server to allow TCP on ports 80 and 443
  2. Install docker and nginx: sudo apt update && sudo apt install docker.io nginx
  3. Configure log rotation in docker by setting /etc/docker/daemon.json to
{
  "log-driver": "json-file",
  "log-opts": {
    "max-size": "100m",
    "max-file": "3"
  }
}

and restart docker sudo systemctl restart docker

  1. Follow the Docker Usage instructions (just use port 3000, external requests are handled by nginx)
  2. Create /etc/nginx/sites-available/aggregator
server {
  server_name your-domain.org;

  root /home/aggregator/static-content;
  index index.html;

  location / {
    try_files $uri $uri/ @aggregator;
  }

  location @aggregator {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
  }
}

This allows you to add some static content at /home/aggregator/static-content. Adding static content is optional; requests that don't match static content will be passed to the aggregator.

  1. Create a symlink in sites-enabled
ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/aggregator /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/aggregator

Reload nginx for config to take effect: sudo nginx -s reload

  1. Set up https for your domain by following the instructions at https://certbot.eff.org/lets-encrypt/ubuntufocal-nginx.