Provider Features 🧰

This page details the various features available to providers in the Lava network, along with instructions on how to operate them:

• ⚡ Caching
• 🔌 Addons and Extensions
• 🧊 Freeze and Unfreeze
• 🔐 Advanced Auth Configuration
• ⏩ ip-forwarding Configuration
• ⌛ node-timeout Configuration
• ⚖️ Load Balancer Configuration
• 📈 Prometheus Metrics Configuration

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⚡ Caching

Lava's caching service is used to cut costs and improve the overall performance of the network. Both provider and consumer processes benefit from the caching service. Providers who enable caching may be able to return responses faster than providers who do not have caching enabled.

In order to use the caching service, run the following process:

ListenAddress="127.0.0.1:7777"
ListenMetricsAddress="127.0.0.1:5747"
lavap cache $ListenAddress --metrics_address $ListenMetricsAddress --log_level debug

The cache service will run in the background. Plug in the caching service with the consumer or provider process as applicable:

rpcprovider

lavap rpcprovider <your-regular-cli-options> --cache-be $ListenAddress

rpcconsumer

lavap rpcconsumer <your-regular-cli-options> --cache-be $ListenAddress

🔌 Addons and Extensions

Addons and Extensions are services that can be offered in addition to the basic spec on a provider service. Addons are APIs exposed in addition to existing APIs, while Extensions are changes to existing API responses.

A few examples:

• "archive" - an extension providing valid responses for older blocks than the current pruning definition in the basic spec
• "debug" - an addon that offers debug apis in addition to basic rpc calls

Why Addons and Extensions ❔

Servicing Addons and Extensions can be a good way to generate additional traffic to your endpoints and higher rewards.

⛗ Additional Traffic

Consumers can easily use addons and extensions without any client configuration. They're included in the consumer subscription. The Lava Protocol automatically routes requests to providers that support desired services, which may result in increased traffic for those providers supporting specific addons, while providers without support won't receive such requests.

💱 Higher Rewards

Extensions can also provide a CU boost on the regular API, meaning modified calls may be more highly rewarded. "archive" calls, for example, will have a big multiplier on CU for each API request. Only API requests to the "archive" endpoint will award these additional CUs, and Lava knows which calls are "archive" or not according to the pruning of the regular spec defined by governance.

Set up Addons and Extensions ⚙️

Addons and Extensions are configured both in the provider service config, and then staked for on chain. 💡 For simplicity's sake, both Addons and Extensions are defined using the addons: field. For a reference, please see this example provider config file.

🗒️ Addon (Config File)

In order to add an addon to the service the yaml must be configured with the addon command:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address:
        address: "127.0.0.1:2224"
      node-urls:
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-debug/ws
          addons:
            - debug

🗒️ Extension (Config File)

Since extensions must offer consumers the regular spec function and the possibility of extended functionality, both must be present.

Therefore, extensions unlike addons, must be configured in a new url entry:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address:
        address: "127.0.0.1:2224"
      node-urls:
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth/ws/
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-archive/ws
          addons:
            - archive

Although this configuration offers you the chance to load balance different extension calls, if you run only a single archive node and do not want to automatically load balance archive calls to a pruned node, you can set both urls to point to the the archive node:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address:
        address: "127.0.0.1:2224"
      node-urls:
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-archive/ws
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-archive/ws
          addons:
            - archive

🗒️ Multiple Extensions (Config File)

Additional extensions must be defined with all possible combinations, for example compliance + archive will look like this:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address:
        address: "127.0.0.1:2224"
      node-urls:
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth/ws/
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-archive/ws
          addons:
            - archive
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-compliance/ws
          addons:
            - complience
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-compliance-and-archive/ws
          addons:
            - complience
            - archive

🗒️ Combination (Config File)

A combination of an extension and addons will look like this:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address:
        address: "127.0.0.1:2224"
      node-urls:
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth/ws/archive
          addons:
            - archive
        - url: my-eth-node.com/eth-with-debug/ws
          addons:
            - debug

⛏️ Staking

Before staking, make sure your process works correctly. If addons or extensions fail to verify, the entire service for that spec and api interface will fail. Please use the lavap test rpcprovider command to verify that your setup is correct.

Staking with an addon or an extensions is very similar to the normal staking command. Simply modify it by adding the list of addons and extensions separated by comma:

Staking Example: stake-provider ⌨️

Ethereum Mainnet in US with archive and debug

lavap tx pairing stake-provider "ETH1" \
    "50000000000ulava" \
    "provider-host.com:443,USC,archive,debug" USC \
    --from "my_account_name" \
    --provider-moniker "your-moniker" \
    --keyring-backend "test" \
    --chain-id "lava-testnet-2" \
    --gas="auto" \
    --gas-adjustment "1.5" \
    --node "https://public-rpc-testnet2.lavanet.xyz:443/rpc/"

Do note the required addition of ,archive,debug in each of the endpoints that support it if several exist. Setting these in a transaction replaces any existing endpoints, so make sure to give the full list of endpoints.

Staking Example: modify-provider ⌨️

It is also possible to add these to an existing entry with the modify-provider command:

lavap tx pairing modify-provider "ETH1" --endpoints "provider-host.com:443,USC,archive,debug" --geolocation "USC" ...

🧊 Freeze and Unfreeze

The freeze command allows a provider to freeze its service, effective next epoch. This enables providers to pause their services without the impact of a bad QoS rating. While frozen, the provider won't be paired with consumers. To unfreeze, the provider must use the unfreeze transaction, effective next epoch. This feature can be useful in cases like a provider needing to halt its services during maintenance.

Usage 🔨

❄️ Freeze:

# required flags: --from alice. optional flags: --reason
lavap tx pairing freeze [chain-ids] --from <provider_address>
lavap tx pairing freeze [chain-ids] --from <provider_address> --reason <freeze_reason>
lavap tx pairing freeze ETH1,COS3 --from alice --reason "maintenance"

The freeze command requires the --from flag to specify the provider address. Optionally, you can provide a --reason flag to give a reason for the freeze.

🌡️ Unfreeze:

# required flags: --from alice
lavap tx pairing unfreeze [chain-ids] --from <provider_address>
lavap tx pairing unfreeze ETH1,COS3 --from alice

The unfreeze command also requires the --from flag to specify the provider address.

🔐 Advanced Auth Configuration

In this example, COS3 tendermint URLs are using client authentication, assuming the node URL is capable of processing this authentication.

Auth using HTTP headers 🔑

The following RPCProvider Config Example demonstrated authentication using the "auth-headers" option:

endpoints:
  - api-interface: tendermintrpc
    chain-id: COS3
    network-address: 
     address: 127.0.0.1:2221
    node-urls:
      - url: ws://127.0.0.1:26657/websocket
        auth-config:
          auth-headers:
            WANTED_HEADER_NAME_1: xyz
      - url: http://127.0.0.1:26657
        auth-config:
          auth-headers:strings.Join(goodChains, "; ")
            Authorization: 'Bearer xxyyzz'

Auth using Query Params󠁛 🔑

The following RPCProvider Config Example demonstrated authentication using the "auth-query" option:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: tendermintrpc
      chain-id: COS3
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls:
        - url: ws://127.0.0.1:26657/websocket
          auth-config:
            auth-query: auth=xxyyzz
        - url: http://127.0.0.1:26657
          auth-config:
            auth-query: auth=xyz

gRPC TLS configuration 🔑

If you want to add TLS authentication to your gRPC endpoint you have 3 options:

1. Dynamic certificate

endpoints:
    - api-interface: grpc
      chain-id: LAV1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls:
        - url: 127.0.0.1:9090
          auth-config:
            use-tls: true 

2. Provide a certificate and a key:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: grpc
      chain-id: LAV1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls:
        - url: 127.0.0.1:9090
          auth-config:
            use-tls: true
            key-pem: /home/user/key.pem
            cert-pem: /home/user/cert.pem

3. Provide a root certificate:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: grpc
      chain-id: LAV1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls:
        - url: 127.0.0.1:9090
          auth-config:
            use-tls: true
            cacert-pem: /home/user/cert.pem 

⏩ ip-forwarding Configuration

If you want to IP load balance / throttle this is also supported by adding ip-forwarding: true.
The IP will be added to the following header: X-Forwarded-For

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls: 
        - url: ws://your_node_url/
          ip-forwarding: true

⌛ node-timeout Configuration

caution

Overwriting the timeout time can result in inferior QoS for consumers.

If your node is too far from the rpcprovider or responds too slowly, and you still want your provider process to start without troubleshooting, you can overwrite the timeouts with custom values using a flag in the node-urls configuration:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls: 
        - url: ws://your_node_url/
          timeout: 1s

⚖️ Load Balancer Configuration

Running multiple nodes with a load balancer can have multiple setups:

1. Run a Provider on each node - provider processes can coexist, if you loadbalance grpc before the process of the provider and run a provider service on each node machine (close proximity)
2. Run one Provider service and Loadbalance the nodes - in this case all the nodes are used by one provider service, this setup is more likely to trigger consistency issues between the provider service and the nodes

Setting up Stickyness support for Loadbalanced nodes 🍯

If you've set up the second option, meaning one provider service per multiple nodes, it is required to provide stickyness across the nodes by a header. The reason for this being the cryptographic proofs a provider signs, must be consistent and can't have the blocks progress backwards

In order to support stickyness headers lava adds by default a header called X-Node-Sticky, this header adds a consumer token consisting of several factors and are unique per consumer usage

Changing the Stickyness Header 🔀

In order to support existing load balancer configs, it is possible to change the header name with a configuration in the config:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls: 
        - url: ws://your_node_url/
sticky-header: <your-sticky-header-name>

📈 Prometheus Metrics Configuration

Adding support for prometheus is a simple change. Set the metrics-listening-address: below. Please note that all Lava analytics start with lava_. Change the config below:

endpoints:
    - api-interface: jsonrpc
      chain-id: ETH1
      network-address: 
        address: 127.0.0.1:2221
      node-urls: 
        - url: ws://your_node_url/
metrics-listen-address: ":7780"