Module III

Consensus algorithms, Crash fault-tolerance (CFT) algorithms - Paxos, raft.

Byzantine fault-tolerance (BFT) algorithms - Practical Byzantine Fault tolerance
(PBFT), Proof of Work (PoW), Proof of stake (PoS), Types of PoS.

Bitcoin - Definition, Cryptographic keys - Private keys, Public keys, addresses.

Transactions- Lifecycle, coinbase transactions, transaction validation. Blockchain -
The genesis block. Mining - Tasks of miners, mining algorithm, hash rate. Wallets -
Types of wallets.
Crash Fault

Nodes or replicas may experience downtime at any time, stop running for a
short time and recover later.

The network may be interrupted at any time.

A sent message may be lost during delivery and cannot be received.

A sent message may be delayed and received after a long time.

Messages may experience the out-of-order problem during the delivery

process.

The network may be divided into sub networks.

The Byzantine Fault

Malicious nodes in networks may change and forge data at any time.

These troublemaking problems that may change and forge data or response
information are called Byzantine faults.

Nodes misbehave - Send different information to different peers.

Byzantine Generals Problem
By analogy, some number of generals plan an attack on a castle together and
each general can choose to start the attack or retreat.
However, to successfully take the castle, all the generals must act synchronously.
Next, given that the generals are too far from each other to use direct
communication, messengers are used to carry messages.
However, messages are not reliable. They may successfully delivery messages
after a very long time, fail to deliver messages or even change with messages.
The generals may not be reliable, either, for example, one of them may be a traitor
who does not act in accordance with the plan.
The messengers in this story represent communication channels in distributed
networks and the generals represent nodes.
Four Byzantine Generals Problem: Commander Faulty

In this case, there are four Byzantine Generals, out of which three are non-faulty
Lieutenants and a faulty Commander.

They communicate with each other using the message passing technique.

The Commander sends the differing messages to Lieutenants, and the

Lieutenants exchange the received message.

When all the correct Lieutenants follow the majority voting principle, although
Commander is a Byzantine node, Lieutenant (1), Lieutenant (2) & Lieutenant (3)
can correctly decode the message.

In the Byzantine Generals Model, If there are F faulty nodes (crash fault), we need
at least 2F+1 nodes to reach consensus.
Consensus based
on majority voting

Lieutenant (1) =
{Retreat, Attack,
Retreat) = Retreat

Lieutenant (2) =
{Retreat, Attack,
Retreat} = Retreat

Lieutenant (3) =
{Attack, Retreat,
Retreat) = Retreat
Fault Tolerance

Algorithms used to solve crash faults are called Crash Fault Tolerance (CFT)
algorithms or non-Byzantine fault tolerance algorithms.

If a system is in a reliable internal network, we only need to consider the issue of

crash fault tolerance (CFT).

Byzantine faults may cause unauthorized changes, have higher complexity and
are more difficult to solve.

Algorithms for solving these problems are called Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT)
algorithms.
CFT Consensus

Paxos (Proposed by Lamport, the most fundamental CFT)

RAFT (Much simpler than Paxos)

Paxos
Paxos is an algorithm that is used to achieve consensus among a distributed set
of computers that communicate via an asynchronous network.
One or more clients proposes a value to Paxos and we have consensus when a
majority of systems running Paxos agrees on one of the proposed values.
Nodes can take the roles of,
Proposers, who receive requests (values) from clients and try to convince
acceptors to accept the value they propose. Leader is a distinguished proposer
Acceptors, who accept certain proposed values from proposers and let proposers
know whether a different value was accepted.
A response from an acceptor represents a vote for a particular proposal. There
should be a Quorum of acceptors to complete a round.
Learners, who announce the outcome to all participating nodes.
Phase 1: PREPARE-PROMISE
A proposer receives a consensus request for a VALUE from a client.
It creates a unique proposal number, ID, and sends a PREPARE(ID) message to
at least a majority of acceptors.
Each acceptor that receives the PREPARE message looks at the ID in the
message and decides:
is this ID bigger than any round I have previously received?
If yes
store the ID number, max_id = ID
respond with a PROMISE message
If no
do not respond (or respond with a "fail" message)
If the proposer receives a PROMISE response from a majority of acceptors, it now
knows that a majority of them are willing to participate in this proposal.

The proposer can now proceed with getting consensus.

Each of these acceptors made a promise that no other proposal with a smaller
number can make it to consensus.
Phase 2: ACCEPT-REQUEST – ACCEPT

If a proposer received a PROMISE message from the majority of acceptors, it now

has to tell the acceptors to accept that proposal. If not, it has to start over with
another round of Paxos.

In this phase of the protocol, the proposer tells all the acceptors (that are live)
what value to accept. It sends:

ACCEPT-REQUEST(ID, VALUE)

to a majority or all of the acceptors. Each acceptor now decides whether to accept
the proposal. It accepts the accept request if the ID number of the accept-request
is still the largest one that it has seen. Recall that an acceptor promised not to
accept proposals from PREPARE messages with smaller numbers but can and
will accept proposals with higher numbers. The logic the acceptor uses is:
is the ID the largest I have seen so far, max_id == N?

if yes

reply with an ACCEPT message & send ACCEPT(ID, VALUE) to all learners

if no

do not respond (or respond with a "fail" message)

The ACCEPT message can be sent back to the proposer as well as to the learners
so they can propagate the value to wherever its action is needed (e.g., append to
a log, modify a replicated database, …).

When the proposer or learner receives a majority of accept messages then it

knows that consensus has been reached on the value.
Paxos does not work with Byzantine faults.

So it is a CFT (Crash Fault Tolerant ) algorithm.

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor

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 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor

Proposer wants to propose its choice (values):

• Sends PREPARE IDp to a majority (or all) of the acceptors

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor

Proposer wants to propose its choice (values):

• Sends PREPARE IDp to a majority (or all) of the acceptors

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

PREPARE ID100
IDp must be unique across proposers
for each PREPARE message
Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor

Proposer wants to propose its choice (values):

• Sends PREPARE IDp to a majority (or all) of the acceptors

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor

Acceptor received a PREPARE message with IDp:

• Did it promised to ignore requests with this IDp?
• YES: Ignore
• NO: Will promise to ignore any request lower than IDp
• (?) Reply with PROMISE IDp

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
PROMISE ID100

Acceptor received a PREPARE message with IDp:

• Did it promised to ignore requests with this IDp?
• YES: Ignore
• NO: Will promise to ignore any request lower than IDp
• (?) Reply with PROMISE IDp

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

PREPARE ID100 If majority of acceptors

promise, no ID < IDp can
Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
pass the protocol
PROMISE ID100
The acceptors agree on
Acceptor received a PREPARE message with IDp: State 100
• Did it promised to ignore requests with this IDp?
• YES: Ignore
• NO: Will promise to ignore any request lower than IDp
• (?) Reply with PROMISE IDp

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm

Proposer

PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
PROMISE ID100

Proposer gets majority of PROMISE messages for a specific IDp:

• Sends ACCEPT-REQUEST IDp, VALUE to a majority (or all) of Acceptors
• (?) It picks any value of its choice

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm
ACCEPT-REQUEST ID100, "Go for Dinner"
Proposer

PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
PROMISE ID100

Proposer gets majority of PROMISE messages for a specific IDp:

• Sends ACCEPT-REQUEST IDp, VALUE to a majority (or all) of Acceptors
• (?) It picks any value of its choice

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm
ACCEPT-REQUEST ID100, "Go for Dinner"
Proposer

PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
PROMISE ID100

Acceptor receives an ACCEPT-REQUEST IDp, VALUE :

• Did it promised to ignore request with this IDp?
• YES: Ignore
• NO: Reply with ACCEPT IDp, VALUE; Also send it to all learners

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm
ACCEPT-REQUEST ID100, "Go for Dinner"
Proposer
Learner
PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
PROMISE ID100 ACCEPT ID100, "Go for Dinner"

Acceptor receives an ACCEPT-REQUEST IDp, VALUE :

• Did it promised to ignore request with this IDp?
• YES: Ignore
• NO: Reply with ACCEPT IDp, VALUE; Also send it to all learners

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm
ACCEPT-REQUEST ID100, "Go for Dinner"
Proposer
Learner
PREPARE ID100
If majority of acceptors
Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
accept IDp, VALUE,
consensus
PROMISEis reached
ID100 ACCEPT ID100, "Go for Dinner"

Acceptor receives an ACCEPT-REQUEST IDp,

Consensus is VALUE
reached on :
• Did it promised to ignorethe value, with
request not onthis
IDpIDp?
• YES: Ignore
• NO: Reply with ACCEPT IDp, VALUE; Also send it to all learners

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

 Paxos Algorithm
ACCEPT-REQUEST ID100, "Go for Dinner"
Proposer
Learner
PREPARE ID100

Acceptor
Acceptor
Acceptor
PROMISE ID100 ACCEPT ID100, "Go for Dinner"

Proposer or Learner gets ACCEPT message with IDp, VALUE:

• If a proposer/learner gets majority of accept for a specific IDp, they know
that consensus is reached for the value (not IDp).

Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur

Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT)

Used to provide consensus in the presence of Byzantine faults.

Considers an asynchronous environment.

Utilize digital signature to to validate the identity of the senders.

Low overhead.

Comprises three sub-protocols called normal operation, view change, and

checkpointing.

● Normal operation is executed when everything is running normally and no

errors are in the system.
● View change is runs when a faulty leader node is detected in the system.
● Checkpointing is used to discard the old data from the system.
Comprises three phases - pre-prepare, prepare, and commit.
The protocol runs in rounds.
In each round, an elected leader node, called the primary node, handles the
communication with the client.
The protocol progresses through all the three phases.
Participants in the PBFT protocol are called replicas
One of the replicas becomes primary as a leader in each round, and the rest of the
nodes acts as backups.
in order to tolerate Byzantine faults, the minimum number of nodes required is N =
3F + 1, where N is the number of nodes and F is the number of faulty nodes
PBFT ensures Byzantine fault tolerance as long as the number of nodes in a
system stays N >= 3F + 1
Eg: If your blockchain network has 4 Byzantine nodes, what is the minimum
number of nodes that are required to ensure Byzantine fault tolerance using PBFT
protocol?
in order to tolerate Byzantine faults, the minimum number of nodes
required is N = 3F + 1, where N is the number of nodes and F is the
number of faulty nodes

Here, F = 4

Number of nodes required for Byzantine fault tolerance, N = 3F+1

N = 3*4+1 = 13.

So, if the network has at least 13 nodes, then it can tolerate Byzantine faults
(misbehavior) of 4 nodes.
Advantages

● Provides immediate and deterministic transaction finality.

● Energy efficient as compared to PoW

Disadvantages

● Not very scalable - more suitable for consortium networks, instead of public
blockchains.
● Faster than PoW protocols.
● Sybil attacks can be carried out
Proof of Stake (PoS)

Energy-efficient alternative to the PoW.

It was first proposed in Peercoin in August 2012.

'Stake' represents the number of coins (money) in the consensus protocol staked
by a blockchain participant.

The chance of proposing the next block is directly proportional to the value staked
by the participant.

Key idea is that if someone has a stake in the system, then they will not try to
sabotage the system.

In PoS, miner is called either a validator, minter, or stakeholder

Proposers are rewarded either with transaction fees.

A hacker would need to own 51% of all the coins in the network, which is
practically impossible.