Update 6th March, 2025

Development Updates
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Consider this the official start of the Great Autonomi Upgrade Campaign. To properly test changes to the way relay nodes work, we need at least 50% of nodes to be on the latest version (run antnode –version or check the Launchpad. It should say Autonomi Node v0.3.7) If not, please update your nodes to the latest version and restart them.
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Currently, only about 45% of antnodes are version 0.3.7 or above, which is not enough for us to test the connectivity and rewarding of relay nodes. The latest version of the client, ant version 0.3.8 also corrects some upload failures, so it’s worth updating that too. If you have antup run antup update from the CLI.

Sorting out uploads is currently the main focus of the team. We’re also looking at how we can ensure smooth backward compatibility so that we are not so dependent on folks upgrading.

There’s a hotfix on the way too, which contains improvements to the Launchpad UPnP, client operations and the Python API. So make sure you upgrade to that one once it’s ready, too.

Fist bumps :right_facing_fist: :left_facing_fist: to @Traktion for his invaluable feedback on the archive/file API, and to @riddim for pointing out errors with the Python interface. Nice work guys.

General progress

Along with @mick.vandijke, @anselme has been digging into the relay rewards, where we are planning to reward relay nodes to recognise the greater burden they carry. He also worked with @bzee and Victor on Python bindings. The aim is to have the Python help(AnyTypeFromOurAPI) working for all our API types.

@mick.vandijke added a GetRewardsAddress query to the node that returns its reward address as a signed response. This is part of the optimisation steps to rewarding a relay node with a portion of the rewards received by its client.

@bzee added some missing class exports to the Python bindings in the API to fix an issue raised by @riddim.

@chriso has been working on a hotfix release to address a Launchpad UPnP connection mode error, an issue with payee notification, unnecessary client dialling tasks, the missing Python bindings, and a problem with the routing table that was hindering discovery.

Chris has also been keeping an eye, along with @qi_ma and @shu, on the node upgrade statistics. So far fewer than half the nodes on the network are on the latest version, which will have been the cause of a few problems. In addition, he set up a test environment with libp2p trace logging enabled for the team to investigate the upload issues.

@dirvine updated the document scratchpad behaviour in the Python bindings.

Ermine is working on stability issues with the network spawner. When we perform churn operations with multiple node restarts, we see problems. Ermine is currently checking whether the churned nodes actually release the memory and smoothly exit :white_check_mark:, or simply run forever in background :cross_mark:.

Meanwhile, Lajos implemented changes to the payment vault smart contract and started rewriting unit tests for the payment vault, as there have been many recent changes to that. He also worked on improvements to the NFT claims contract, and communicated those to the auditors.

@qi_ma has been roadtesting the latest hotfix RC and looking at occasional chunk poof verification failures. Internal testing suggests things are much improved, but we need to test it at scale, and that means getting people to upgrade to the latest version in sufficient numbers (in case we haven’t mentioned it before :wink:). He wrote a proposal for rewarding relay servers and nodes upgraded to the latest version with extra emissions. This is to encourage folks to run reliable nodes. Qi also raised a PR for an initial POC of a smart_equation, demonstrating the potential to have a non-block-chain-based smart contract.

@roland has been working on network upgradability, ensuring changes are backward compatible. Now that we’re live, we can’t just make changes and hope they work. We have to keep things stable and run backwards compatibility. Upcoming versions of Launchpad will include more information about packaged versions.

@rusty.spork has been testing out the Launchpad as well as badgering people to upgrade their nodes (Perhaps we mentioned that we really need you to upgrade? :thinking:).

@shu was on maintenance tasks for the influx db/dashboard components in our current infrastructure, and reviewing the monitoring infrastructure.

And Victor worked on the Python Client. The good news is Python now covers 90% of the Rust client, but testing tools are still lacking.

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First! xxxxxxx

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And it’s a great update! Clearly a lot going on.

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i read python a couple of times - seems like the ants are coming via snake taxi =)

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The smart contract / equation just blows my mind. That’s massive, I can’t wait to put my hands on it! :slight_smile:

What’s about the NFTs? Where are they used in the network? Are they a part of the quoting mechanism?

Lovely work everyone! :smiling_face_with_hearts:

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That would add additional purpose to emissions so it seems good. What are the downsides, if any, to focusing emissions on nodes running the latest software?

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cant you just take the network down and restart from fresh? If people don’t want to upgrade, kick the lot off and start again.

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I presume that would hinder their ability to develop

which will become important once data permanence is guaranteed, but happy to be corrected.

It might also miss a marketing opportunity in that if the network ends up remaining online and providing data permanence from day 1, that would carry weight.

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Thanks so much to the entire Autonomi team for all of your hard work! :flexed_biceps:

And good luck with our new upgrade! :four_leaf_clover:

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im with @Lisa_Brown on that one if people are not upgrading pull the plug on them :slight_smile:

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Thank you for a refreshing bullshit-free update with lots of juicy tech news.
The focus on sorting the uploads is obviously welcomed.
The notion that part of the problem at least is due to people not upgrading to the latest version makes a lot of sense. The nodewhales (if I can call them that) are hoovering up the emisions and have little incentive to upgrade. In fact it may be in their interest to keep things as they are, their(our) money flows in, we have difficulty doing uploads and filling the network so the whales have no need to put their (lack of actual) storage where there mouth is.

TBH if YOU were running a few million nodes right now, would you upgrade and put your emissions rewards at risk? I wouldn’t and my Director of Finance wouldn’t let me either.

So maybe time to temporarily tweak the emissions and sod the white Paper for a wee while?

Having said, despite my very vocal moaning yesterday as the evening wore on, I could see the upload situation just maybe getting a little better and I was able at last to get some more content up. Why not try some uploads yourselves? If they succeed then add to the wiki at Community Public File Directory and do YOUR bit by adding your succesful uploads AND downloading as many of these files as you can please.

This got me excited, Really love to see where this leads.

So thanks as always to everyone for their efforts and its great to see our concerns being addressed.

Autonomi - a team and a project like no other

Avanti!!!

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Cut all rewards for ppl who are not on the latest version. Sounds draconian but really, what’s anyone’s excuse for not updating?

Cheers. Good update.

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Or stop their payments :thinking:

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The network is autonomous, so we can’t just reboot it! :sweat_smile:

Ofc maidsafe do control the smart contract and can adjust payouts for the health of the network though.

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Or replace their receiving address with the one from the maidsafe charity =D

If that’s easier to implement in the emission algorithm…

At the beginning with a chance 1:10 then after 12 hours with 2:10… And after 5 days 10:10

Would be a pretty simple inline replacement already at receiving address collection :upside_down_face: no need for fancy degrading algorithm

Edit:
(alternatively in a fund for code bounty or hackathons)

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Not at all… I upgraded my infrastructure when I was on holiday via ssh from my mobile phone … There’s no excuse not to upgrade your infrastructure in time…

Every runner with reasonable node count has automation and upgrades are just a matter of firing the right couple of commands…

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The emissions are a kind of payment for a service. Of course the payer can define what are the requirements for the service. Just stop paying for the nodes which does not fullfill the requirements.
I mean it’s just ok not to pay emissions for old versions.

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Here is the question. Those of us with port-forwarding, do we now encourage everyone else to use relay so we earn more?

:laughing: :rolling_on_the_floor_laughing:

Great update and good to see things progress continually.

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Thx 4 the update Maidsafe devs

Nice update super ants

@Traktion @riddim :clap: :clap:

:exploding_head:

Keep hacking super ants

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