Split-Markets

❗

The Legacy Lotus/Lotus-Miner Markets sub-system reached EOL at the end of the 31st January 2023. We recommend our users to use the Boost markets sub-system

Concepts

Lotus performs mining operations, such as sealing files into sectors, calculating proofs over those files and submitting the proofs on chain. Lotus also performs markets operations, providing storage and serving retrievals to clients.

It is now possible to run mining and markets subsystems in separate processes. Service providers can accept storage and retrieval deals without impacting ongoing mining operations. The markets process communicates with the mining process over JSON-RPC.

It is highly recommended to run the mining and markets processes on separate physical or virtual machines so that:

the machine hardware can be targeted according to the typical workload of the process
only the machine running the markets process exposes public ports

However it is still advantageous to run the processes separately on the same machine to isolate them - for example the storage service provider can stop and restart the markets process without affecting an ongoing Winning PoSt Window PoSt on the storage provider.

The steps below will guide you through the procedure to backup your mining node, create an initial configuration for your brand new markets node, disable markets functionality on the mining node, and bring both the mining and markets nodes online.

Architecture

The following diagram summarizes the architecture of a split miner/markets deployment:

As you can see, only the markets and the fullnode/daemon run a libp2p host and expose public ports to the Internet. The mining/sealing/storage node stays entirely private. This confers protection and reduces operational risk.

The markets node speaks to the mining/sealing/storage node through the sealing and storage APIs, mainly to hand off pieces for sealing coming from storage deals, as well as to fetch pieces to serve retrievals.

Both the markets and the mining/sealing/storage nodes need access to the JSON-RPC endpoint of the daemon in order to query the chain and the state tree, as well as to push messages to the network via the mpool.

As you will see below, the lotus and lotus-miner CLI commands need access to all JSON-RPC endpoints. Remember that JSON-RPC endpoints are private and are not exposed publicly (unless you operate a public fullnode or a gateway node!)

Another aspect worth mentioning is that both the markets and the mining/sealing/storage nodes can be configured to share the storage system (disk array, or filesystem), either locally when they’re running on the same machine, or as network mounts when running on separate machines. This setup enables more efficient access and reduces network IO loads.

Splitting the `lotus-miner` monolith into subsystems

💡

This feature is available in lotus v1.11.1 and up.

This document explains how to split an existing monolith lotus-miner node into multiple processes to take advantage of this new architecture.

Configuration

Lotus v1.11.1 introduced the notion of subsystems in the lotus-miner process. Currently there are 4 subsystems that can be enabled or disabled in the config.toml file:

[Subsystems]
#  EnableMining = true
#  EnableSealing = true
#  EnableSectorStorage = true
#  EnableMarkets = true

These options are set to true by default and you are running a lotus-miner monolith under this setting. Until now, the monolith lotus-miner process has been responsible for all functionality.

subsystems can be enabled and disabled individually per process within each node’s own config file. There are only two combinations that are supported right now:

The markets node - a lotus-miner process responsible for handling the storage market subsystem, and all functionality related to serve storage and retrieval deals;
```
[Subsystems]
  EnableMining = false
  EnableSealing = false
  EnableSectorStorage = false
  EnableMarkets = true
```
The mining/sealing/proving node - a lotus-miner process responsible for Filecoin mining, sector storage, sealing and proving;
```
[Subsystems]
  EnableMining = true
  EnableSealing = true
  EnableSectorStorage = true
  EnableMarkets = false
```

When a lotus-miner instance is configured as a markets node, it exposes a libp2p interface. The libp2p ports should be publically available so that the node can be dialed by clients that wish to make storage and retrieval deals.

This guide won’t go into details on how to make the endpoint connectable, as this ultimately depends on your network infrastructure and equipment, refer to the lotus-miner connectivity guide for more details. Generally speaking, configuring static port mappings on your external-facing router, and ensuring your markets node has an internal static IP address and port should be sufficient, in addition to adjusting any firewalls that may be present.

💡

When a lotus-miner instance is configured as a mining/sealing/proving node, it does not receive requests and should not be publicly exposed on the Internet. The markets node communicates with the mining/sealing/proving node via its JSON RPC interface. Just to reiterate, the mining/sealing/proving no longer runs a libp2p interface, and the markets and mining/sealing/proving do not communicate over libp2p, but through HTTP and/or Websockets (JSON-RPC interface).

Split the Market Process

Preparation and Backup

Before splitting the markets service process from the monolith storage provider process, we need to backup the storage provider’s metadata repository. Stop the lotus daemon and lotus-miner, then restart both of them with the LOTUS_BACKUP_BASE_PATH environment variable:

💡

In this guide, we are replacing the the backup file in the /tmp folder as it is a temporary file that is just used to initialize the markets node, it’s not used afterwards.

in the machine running the full node:

lotus daemon stop
export LOTUS_BACKUP_BASE_PATH=/tmp

in the machine running the storage provider node:

lotus-miner stop
export LOTUS_BACKUP_BASE_PATH=/tmp

Restart both daemon and lotus-miner
Create the backup on the machine running the storage provider node
```
lotus-miner backup /tmp/backup.cbor
```

Split the Market Subsystem

Step 1. Create a seed config.toml for the markets service

To initialize the markets service we need to create a seed config.toml for the markets node. Note: It is a temporary file and only used for initialize the market node, full configuration file will be loaded automatically upon initialization without overiding the sections set in this step.

First create a config.toml file in a location of your choice(your market node needs to have access to read it), in this tutorial we will place it in the /tmp directory on your market machine as it is a temporary file)

Enable the market subsystem and add the sessions that are related to the market process in lotus storage provider configuration in to the /tmp/config.toml.

If you intend to run the mining/sealing/proving node on the same machine as the markets node, make sure that their [API] listener addresses** do not clash**. By default the lotus-miner API server listens to port 2345, so in the example configuration above for the markets process, we change the configuration for the markets node API server to listen to 127.0.0.1:8787.

Make sure you adjust the [Libp2p] section on the markets node accordingly - it needs to be publicly accessible so that clients can make storage and retrieval deals with your system.

💡

If you were previously running a lotus storage provider monolith process, copy over the Dealmaking and Fees section from ~/.lotusminer/config.toml to preserve your configuration! If you want to initialize the market nodes with the default dealmaking configuration, you can skip this section.

[Subsystems]
  EnableMining = false
  EnableSealing = false
  EnableSectorStorage = false
  EnableMarkets = true

[API]
  # Endpoint where the markets process will serve JSON-RPC requests
  ListenAddress = "/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/8787/http"
  RemoteListenAddress = "127.0.0.1:8787"

[Libp2p]
  # Endpoint for libp2p requests (public)
  ListenAddresses = ["/ip4/0.0.0.0/tcp/24001", "/ip6/::/tcp/24001"]
  AnnounceAddresses = ["/ip4/12.34.56.78/tcp/24001"]

[Dealmaking]
  # When enabled, the miner can accept online deals
  ConsiderOnlineStorageDeals = true
  # When enabled, the miner can accept offline deals
  ConsiderOfflineStorageDeals = true
  # When enabled, the miner can accept retrieval deals
  ConsiderOnlineRetrievalDeals = true
  # When enabled, the miner can accept offline retrieval deals
  ConsiderOfflineRetrievalDeals = true
  # When enabled, the miner can accept verified deals
  ConsiderVerifiedStorageDeals = true
  # When enabled, the miner can accept unverified deals
  ConsiderUnverifiedStorageDeals = true
  # A list made of Data CIDs to reject when making deals
  PieceCidBlocklist = []
  # Maximum expected amount of time getting the deal into a sealed sector will take
  # This includes the time the deal will need to get transferred and published
  # before being assigned to a sector
  # for more info, see below.
  ExpectedSealDuration = "24h0m0s"
  # When a deal is ready to publish, the amount of time to wait for more
  # deals to be ready to publish before publishing them all as a batch
  PublishMsgPeriod = "1h0m0s"
  # The maximum number of deals to include in a single publish deals message
  MaxDealsPerPublishMsg = 8
  # A command used for fine-grained evaluation of storage deals (see below)
  Filter = "/absolute/path/to/storage_filter_program"
  # A command used for fine-grained evaluation of retrieval deals (see below)
  RetrievalFilter = "/absolute/path/to/retrieval_filter_program"

[Fees]
   MaxPreCommitGasFee = "0.025 FIL"
   MaxCommitGasFee = "0.05 FIL"
   MaxTerminateGasFee = "0.5 FIL"
   MaxWindowPoStGasFee = "5 FIL"
   MaxPublishDealsFee = "0.05 FIL"
   MaxMarketBalanceAddFee = "0.007 FIL"
# Fees needs to be present, or it will operate with the default values.

👉

The [Libp2p] section of the config.toml on the mining/sealing/proving node can be removed because it will no longer be running a Libp2p node, as we explained above.

Step 2. Disable the Market Subsystem on the `mining/sealing/proving` storage provider process

On your mining/sealing/proving machine, update your ~/.lotusminer/config.toml to set the EnableMarkets option to false.

[Subsystems]
  EnableMining = true
  EnableSealing = true
  EnableSectorStorage = true
  EnableMarkets = false

Step 3. Initialize a `markets` service repository

Create authentication tokens for the markets nodes and they will be used by the markets node to make JSON-RPC calls to the mining/sealing/proving node.

export APISEALER=`lotus-miner auth api-info --perm=admin`
export APISECTORINDEX=`lotus-miner auth api-info --perm=admin`

Initialize the markets node. This performs a one-time setup of the markets node. Part of that setup includes updating the peer id in the storage provider actor by submitting a message on chain. This is necessary so that storage and retrieval clients know that this storage provider’s deal-making endpoint is now publicly dialable/reachable on a new address (the new markets node).

❗

Make sure your main mining process is running before you run the following step.

For this tutorial, we will us ~/.lotusmarkets` as the markets repository paths. You do not need to manually create the folder in advance.

lotus-miner --markets-repo=~/.lotusmarkets init service --type=markets \
                                                        --api-sealer=$APISEALER \
                                                        --api-sector-index=$APISECTORINDEX \
                                                        --config=/tmp/config.toml \
                                                        /tmp/backup.cbor

If during this procedure, you ended up changing the multiaddr of your markets process to a different host and/or port, you must update storage provider’s multiaddr on-chain. Otherwise, clients wishing to make deals with you will no longer be able to connect to your node.

💡

multiaddr onchain should be the same as the ListenAddresses you set in the Libp2p section of the config.toml on your market node.

lotus-miner actor set-addrs <NEW_MULTIADDR>

After you have finished initializing the markets node repository, you must restart the mining/sealing/proving node for the configuration changes to take effect.

Step 4. Consider configuring storage.json on the markets node

If you had customized storage locations for your monolith storage provider, consider either:

copying the ~/.lotusminer/storage.json file to the ~/.lotusmarket directory, if both storage provider and markets are running on the same machine and have access to the same paths.
adjusting ~/.lotusmarket/storage.json to point to network mounts shared with the storage provider, if both processes are running on separate machines.

This will enable the markets process to access unsealed pieces directly from those locations, instead of streaming them to/through the storage provider node over the network, thus reducing network IO loads.

Step 5. Optional: Move the DAG store directory to the markets node repository

If you have initialized the dagstore, you can optionally move the DAG store directory to the lotus markets repository, to carry over the indices you have already built up.

💡

Dagstore has not been introduced in v1.11.1 yet, we will update the docs once its available in Lotus.

mv ~/.lotusminer/dagstore ~/.lotusmarkets/

Step 6. Start the `markets` storage provider process with the markets subsystem

Start the markets node with the environment variable LOTUS_MINER_PATH pointing to the markets node repo.

Note that lotus-miner run interacts with either the the markets or mining/sealing/proving repository depending on the LOTUS_MINER_PATH environment variable!

LOTUS_MINER_PATH=~/.lotusmarkets lotus-miner run

And that’s it, you have successfully set up your market subsystem!

Calling commands

The lotus-miner CLI commands have been refactored to target the correct subsystem node, depending on issued command. For example:

If you call lotus-miner storage-deals list, lotus-miner knows to target the markets process.
If you call lotus-miner sectors list, lotus-miner knows to target the mining/sealing/proving process.

Environment Variables

In addition to the existing environment variables for lotus-miner, MARKETS_API_INFO and LOTUS_MARKETS_PATH were introduced for the market subsystem:

LOTUS_MARKETS_PATH is the location of your market repository.
MARKETS_API_INFO is the location of the market node.

💡

You can learn how to use a different lotus node here.

When splitting storage provider and markets subsystems, we recommend adding .bashrc (or equivalent) with the API address / path for your markets node. You can mix and match, for example, the configuration inside the machine running the markets node:

FULLNODE_API_INFO=...
MINER_API_INFO=...
LOTUS_MARKETS_PATH=...

A client configuration inside the machine running the mining/sealing/proving or lotus-worker node that wants to interact with the market node and the full node:

FULLNODE_API_INFO=...
MINER_API_INFO=...
MARKETS_API_INFO=...
LOTUS_MINER_PATH=...
LOTUS_MARKETS_PATH=...

A client configuration that speaks to all nodes remotely:

FULLNODE_API_INFO=...
MINER_API_INFO=...
MARKETS_API_INFO=...

Interact with the Market Node from Other Process

For commands that are present in all lotus-miner processes, by default the CLI targets the mining/sealing/proving process, but you can explicitly target the markets process with the --call-on-markets flag. This is the case for log and auth commands, for example.

In order to take advantage of this functionality, you should configure the following environment variable for both mining/sealing/proving storage provider (or lotus-worker) and the markets storage provider, in your run-commands file (.bashrc, .zshrc, etc.):

export LOTUS_MARKETS_PATH=~/.lotusmarkets
export LOTUS_MINER_PATH=~/.lotusminer

If one of these nodes is on a remote machine, you should set the relevant API_INFO environment variables like below:

# <market_api_token> is located in $LOTUS_MINER_PATH/token
export MARKETS_API_INFO=<market_api_token>/ip4/<lotus_miner_market_node_ip>/tcp/<lotus_miner_market_node_port>/http

# <miner_api_token> is located in $LOTUS_MINER_PATH/token
export MINER_API_INFO=<miner_api_token>:/ip4/<lotus_miner_node_ip>/tcp/<lotus_miner_node_port>/http

Now that you have both a markets storage provider process and a mining/sealing/proving storage provider process running, you can confirm that you can interact with each respective process with the following:

Get storage provider info
```
lotus-miner info
```
Get the peer identity of the markets storage provider process
```
lotus-miner --call-on-markets net id
```
Get a list of storage deals from the markets storage provider process
```
lotus-miner storage-deals list
```
Get a list of sectors from the mining/sealing/proving storage provider process
```
lotus-miner sectors list
```

Rollback to `lotus-miner` monolith process

If you want to revert the changes listed above and go back to running lotus-miner as a single process, run the following:

Shut both mining/sealing/proving and markets node down.
Make sure that the mining/sealing/proving node is publicly exposed, as we will be enabling the markets subsystem on it. Set up the addresses in the Libp2p section of the ~/$LOTUS_MINER_PATH/config.toml

In the mining/sealing/proving repository, update the config.toml and set EnableMarkets option to true

[Subsystems]
  EnableMining = true
  EnableSealing = true
  EnableSectorStorage = true
  EnableMarkets = true

Optional: Move back the DAG store directory to the monolith storage provider node repository if you have initialized dagstore before:
```
mv ~/.lotusmarkets/dagStore ~/$LOTUS_MINER_PATH/
```
Backup and restore the metadata related to storage deals from the markets instance back to the monolith storage provider instance. Given that storage deals metadata would have changed on the markets instance in case you accepted storage deals while running multi-services architecture, we have to copy it back to the monolith storage provider instance:
a. Build the lotus-shed binary if you haven’t done that before:
```
 ```shell
 make lotus-shed
 ```
```
b. Run:
```
 ```shell
 lotus-shed market export-datastore --repo ~/.lotusmarkets --backup-dir /tmp/deals-backup

 lotus-shed market import-datastore --repo ~/$LOTUS_MINER_PATH --backup-path /tmp/deals-backup/markets.datastore.backup
 ```
```
Restart the mining/sealing/proving node (with the default LOTUS_MINER_PATH, which should point to your mining/sealing/proving node repo). Note that lotus-miner interacts with a given repository depending on the LOTUS_MINER_PATH environment variable!
```
lotus-miner run
```
Fetch the node identity. This is necessary as you have to update your storage provider’s peer identity on-chain, as it was changed to the identity of the markets node during the initialising of the markets service repository.
```
lotus-miner net id
```
Update the storage provider’s peer id and multiaddr on-chain with the result from the previous step.
```
lotus-miner actor set-peer-id 12D3XXXXX
```

As soon as the message is confirmed, clients will know to look for the node identity of your mining/sealing/proving node, which now also runs the markets subsystem, i.e. currently all Lotus subsystems.

multiaddr onchain should be the same as the ListenAddresses you set in the Libp2p section of the config.toml on your mining/sealing/proving node now. If it’s changed, update it by running:

```shell
lotus-miner actor set-addrs <NEW_MULTIADDR>
```

Update the Addresses and the Fees section of the markets config.toml to be the same as same the mining/sealing/proving node.

[Fees]
    MaxPreCommitGasFee = "0.025 FIL"
    MaxCommitGasFee = "0.05 FIL"
    MaxTerminateGasFee = "0.5 FIL"
    MaxWindowPoStGasFee = "5 FIL"
    MaxPublishDealsFee = "0.05 FIL"
    MaxMarketBalanceAddFee = "0.007 FIL"

[Addresses]
    PreCommitControl = ["f3uqltf1"]
    CommitControl = ["f3uqltf2"]
    TerminateControl = ["f3uqltf3"]
    DealPublishControl = ["f3uqltf4"]
    DisableOwnerFallback = false
    DisableWorkerFallback = false

Typically, if you initialize the markets node from the config.toml used in the mining/sealing/proving node, the settings in this section will be the same as in the mining/sealing/proving node. If you are already running a subsystem and have changed the configuration in this area, copy the changes to the markets node. If you do not copy the changes, the DealPublishControl configuration will not affect, and DealPublish costs will be deducted from the worker wallet.

Split-Markets

Concepts ##

Architecture ##

Splitting the lotus-miner monolith into subsystems ##

Configuration ##

Split the Market Process ##

Preparation and Backup ##

Split the Market Subsystem ##

Step 1. Create a seed config.toml for the markets service ##

Step 2. Disable the Market Subsystem on the mining/sealing/proving storage provider process ##

Step 3. Initialize a markets service repository ##

Step 4. Consider configuring storage.json on the markets node ##

Step 5. Optional: Move the DAG store directory to the markets node repository ##

Step 6. Start the markets storage provider process with the markets subsystem ##

Calling commands ##

Environment Variables ##

Interact with the Market Node from Other Process ##

Rollback to lotus-miner monolith process ##