As the next step towards their plan to further improve the network, Horizen launches its latest update for the Node Tracking System. The update was carried out during the weekend of September 21st and 22nd. No action is required form the node operators as there will be no need for manual updates or expected earnings impact. All node holders are advised to just monitor and report any issues.
Changes and Enhancements
Most of the changes that will be covered in this section are fixes of existing bugs and UI elements that have been waiting for a repair. There are also a lot of “quality of life” improvements along with fixes to the administration and optimization aspects of the network.
Main Fixes
Some challenge Exceptions could not be closed if more than one existing was let opened due to timing issues, thus now this issue is rectified. Also, mistakes with credit paid to the proper staking address have been fixed, as well as the memory leak caused by a burst of DNS errors from misconfigured nodes. There were cases, where due to overlapping downtimes, some nodes will have extra uptime calculated, which is now fixed as well.
New Features
- The minimum threshold for Cert Exceptions has now been updated to 3 minutes before starting to count against earnings. Short duration Exceptions will now be flagged with an “x” status if it is under the new threshold in order to assist with troubleshooting. An email alert will be sent if it is over 3 minutes.
- There is an enhanced node connection checking tool now, counteracting dishonest node operators.
- Cross-system checks comparing IP and Stake address across both Securenodes and Supernodes can be made. Exceptions can be created when duplicates are found and if it is an IP address check, Exceptions are created for both systems.
- API Subkeys now allow hosting providers to generate unique API keys for each individual customer. These keys operate the same as a parent key, but with a few data restrictions.
- Old IP addresses will be reused. Dead nodes will no longer go through a check when a new node is registered. This will apply to IP4, IP6, node t-address, stake address, and FQDN. Now there will be a period of 30 days for a node to be considered as dead, in which time it can be revived. First 5 days it will be considered as down, then next 5 days it will be set as inactive and last 20 days as a “zombie” node. This will help to free up a lot of IP4 addresses that are issued by the hosting providers for re-use.
- The “Exception” status will be created when a node misses multiple consecutive checks. In that case, the tracking server will disconnect the node and try to re-connect.
- New API call for Payment Masters containing data of the summary of an earning period.
- Monthly Earnings will be displayed on the My Earnings page and a corresponding API call.
- Now you will be able to open and close a new Exception of the same type if details change in order to help with troubleshooting.
- Updated validation of data from nodes.
- Instead of a Not Found page, it will be a JSON object when there is a bad API path in the URL.
- Invalid API calls will now show an http status and message containing details of the issue.
- Estimated start of next earning period can now be displayed on the tracking server homepage.
Changes to Administration and Optimizations
- Now nodes will have a “Service Mode” during system-wide updates on the server. This means that nodes can be “parked” during the maintenance. They will be connected but not managed and won’t failover to other servers.
- In order to optimize the database and server load, some query optimizations regarding single queries up to bulk queries have been made.
- In order to reduce the memory footprint, an update to node.js version 12 and to current node modules will be made.
- Various administrative features added in order to help with the managing of the nodes and identification of potential exploits.
Final Thoughts
This new update is a major one for Horizen. It is one of the best privacy platforms built on zero-knowledge technology with the help of a decentralized architecture of secure nodes. The encryption featured on the network is applied on the node level, making the network even more secure. If the Horizen development team continues in the same direction with their updates, it will not be long before they become an industry leader in its sector.