ArweaveTeam/arweave N.1.8.2.0

Release N.1.8.2.0

on GitHub

The release contains three improvements.

1. RandomX tuning

Three RandomX parameters (used to be always off) can be now enabled or disabled via the command line:

• JIT

  Switched on by default on Linux. Can be disabled via disable randomx_jit.

  The performance boost can be ~ 5x.

• Hardware AES

  Switched on by default. Can be disabled via disable randomx_hardware_aes.

  The performance improvement is about 30%.

• Large pages

  Switched off by default. The OS needs to be configured before it can be used.

  On Ubuntu, to see the current values, execute cat /proc/meminfo | grep HugePages.
  To set a value, sudo sysctl -w vm.nr_hugepages=2000. 2000 * 2 MB = 4GB. Consider
  increasing the value if you have more memory. 400 multiplied by the number of logical cores
  you are mining on might work best in case you have so much RAM. Check the RandomX
  repository for more details - https://github.com/tevador/RandomX.

  Should give the performance improvement around 2x.

1. Fewer forks

The issue was addressed when nodes would reject a height + 1 block from an alternative
chain to incur additional cost for the potential minority to store content, which is
considered illicit by the majority. Nodes now make an explicit content scan and only
wait for yet another block if the scan fails.

1. Pessimistic pricing

The /price endpoint was made more pessimistic, to ensure almost every accepted transaction
is not invalidated before being included into a block when the network difficulty decreases.

Upgrade instructions:

1. Shut down arweave-server. To make sure the shutdown was successful, run ps aux | grep beam | grep -v grep. The output should be empty.
2. Run git fetch --all --tags && git checkout N.1.8.2.0 && git reset --hard N.1.8.2.0
3. Start arweave-server again with the same arguments as before.

For more details on how to run the node, please see our mining guide - https://docs.arweave.org/info/mining/mining-guide. If you have any issues upgrading or would like to know more about the release, feel free to reach out to us in the #mining channel on Discord Arweave Dev Talk server or email us on team@arweave.org.