Tla+/Pluscal Modeling Of Synchronized Circular Consensus Algorithm: Solution

The other solar daytime I posed the synchronized circular consensus question.

Here is the solution on GitHub, together with unopen to brief explanation of the relevant role below.

Single circular consensus algorithm


The code inwards a higher house is pretty straightforward. The piece loop betwixt lines 36-42 models how a node sends its vote to other nodes i past times one. The sender node tin neglect inwards this piece loop later unopen to of the nodes received the vote. So if nosotros model depository fiscal establishment tally alongside FAILNUM=1, the understanding invariant is violated inwards this unmarried circular algorithm equally seen inwards the error line below.

The bluish highlighted line, dry reason 15, is the in conclusion line inwards the error trace, together with the value of the dry reason variables are listed inwards the window below. If y'all inspect "up" y'all tin run across node 1 is down. Checking "mb" y'all tin run across node 2 received node 1's vote, but node three did non have node 1's node. As a result, the determination "d" for node 2 is "1", whereas node three decides "2", together with both decisions are finalized. So the invariant "Agreement" is violated.


(Note that fifty-fifty if nosotros had 10 nodes, together with FAILNUM=8, nosotros could have got extended this scenario past times failing e'er the smallest id upwards node inwards each circular later it delivers the message to the adjacent node inwards the sequence keeping the "1" vote move but hidden.)

Another interesting role inwards the code occurs at lines 43 together with 44.
After sending its vote to the other nodes, the node increments its circular number, pt, past times 1. But together with then it "awaits" other nodes to catchup, together with goes to the adjacent circular alone later this synchronization await at line 44. Note that the node awaits alone for the nodes that are "up". If it waits for a downwardly node to growth its pt+1, it would have got to hold off forever.

This await at line 44 cuts corners: it assumes shared retentiveness instead of message passing. One means to implement this unrealistic "await" is to utilization physical time, but fifty-fifty that is a brittle method. In reality it is difficult to implement perfectly synchronized rounds. Physical clock synchronization is hard, together with since the OS is non a real-time OS, timing assumptions tin move violated, tell due to garbage collection kicking in, or due to VM/container getting slow, or network contention.

When the circular synchronization supposition is broken, this algorithm fails. Trust me, y'all don't desire your consensus algorithm, that the residuum of your coordination infrastructure depends on, to fail. That is why consensus algorithms adopted inwards practice, such equally Paxos, Raft, Zab, Viewstamped Replication, produce non rely on synchronized rounds, together with tin tolerate (in the feel that understanding is non violated) extreme asynchrony inwards the system. When the timing assumptions normalize a bit, those algorithms together with then accomplish progress together with solve consensus.

Crash tolerant synchronized circular consensus algorithm

To tolerate crash faults, it is clear that the algorithm needs to move extended to delay determination to hereafter rounds where each node tin ensure that all the nodes have got the same laid upwards of values from which to decide.

To this end, Line 32 introduces a top-level piece loop to the original model iterate through multiple rounds.


The of import inquiry hither is to determine which circular is prophylactic to decide.

The piddling means to produce this is to e'er iterate FAILNUM+1 rounds earlier deciding, but that is a wasteful solution. FAILNUM is the maximum publish of faults that tin occur, together with the algorithm should move able to determine inwards less publish of rounds inwards the mutual instance when faults produce non occur. But how produce y'all tell that asymmetrically, alone using the node's ain perception of the system, which is past times Definition partial together with e'er slightly stale.

One means to produce this is to expect at the stability of the laid upwards of proposed votes together with compare mb, the mailbox contents for this round, alongside pmb, the mailbox contents inwards the previous round. If in that place is a potential for fault, it follows that the algorithm should e'er become to circular 2, to confirm alongside others. The delaying of the determination should proceed until the proposed votes converge to a unmarried value for 2 consecutive rounds together with the cardinality of the mailbox is equally good of import because it witnesses to the fact that in that place are no faults thus the inwards a higher house pathological crash sequence of vote hiding is avoided.

Observations

I had written a faulty version of the multi-round algorithm inwards my get-go try. I had non taken the cardinality of the laid upwards into line of piece of job organisation human relationship together with went alongside straightforward laid upwards union. It didn't give whatever violations of the invariant for N=5 together with FAILNUM=3, but the progress role was taking to a greater extent than than an lx minutes on my laptop together with I stopped running it. Turns out that version was susceptible to the pathological crash sequence together with vote hiding equally above. All the nodes determine alongside "2" but in that place is this node who but received a "1" vote which was nonetheless move but hidden. So this node goes to adjacent round, but since others have got decided, this node volition await forever. This is a wacky season of consensus, which tin nonetheless move acceptable mayhap if this minority study node kills itself alongside up:=FALSE. This led me to amend the line 44 condition. Another põrnikas was close a node inwards a higher circular sending messages which gets consumed past times a node inwards a lower round, which leads to nodes getting stuck. To solve this, I had to amend the status at line 37.

I flora out these mistakes when I started writing this spider web log post. So writing together with explaining is an indispensable role of the pattern process. If TLA+ model checking was to a greater extent than performant, I wouldn't surrender prematurely, together with I would nonetheless know close the solution. If model checking is taking long, it may move best to produce it on the cloud, tell on an AWS, Azure, or GCE. But the dry reason infinite explosion is an inherent together with unsafe nemesis for model-checking together with it volition bite. The best precaution is to maintain things simple/minimal inwards the modeling. But that is non e'er easy.

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