Block access list changes - BAL construction, execution and validation #32263

jwasinger · 2025-07-23T10:22:21Z

WIP. currently passes blockchain spec tests (tests that make use of balances >16 bytes are excluded).

Change summary:

when --experimentalbal is enabled:
- insertion of post-Cancun blocks which don't contain access lists will cause them to be created during block execution and embedded into the block body.
- Insertion of post-cancun blocks that contain access lists will perform transaction execution and post-state root calculation in parallel using the state diffs provided in the access list. The state diffs produced by execution are validated against the entries in the BAL.
Introduced new modified blockchain suite test runner which first imports the test chain (generating BALs), and then re-inserts the access-list-containing blocks.

Deviations from EIP-7928:

Use RLP for the encoding format instead of SSZ.
Modify BAL format to accomodate pre/post-tx execution state changes:
- entries with txindex=0 correspond to state reads/changes which occur from system contract execution before transactions.
- entries with txindx=1..len(block.transactions) correspond to state reads/changes occurring for each transaction.
- entries with txindex=len(block.transactions)+1 correspond to the post-block system contracts and EIP-4895 withdrawals.

TODO:

validation of BAL account/storage reads (it's somewhat likely that these will be removed from the spec, so I'm holding off for now).

jwasinger · 2025-07-23T10:28:16Z

A lot of the comments in the code are straight-up wrong/misleading. There's a lot of notes/reminders I made as I was implementing this, and not all of them have been removed/corrected at this point.

jwasinger · 2025-07-29T13:43:23Z

I've pushed parallel execution changes here.

Still failing 2 tests (other than modexp repricing ones which will be fixed with a rebase on master):

--- FAIL: TestExecutionSpecBlocktestsBAL/prague/eip7251_consolidations/consolidations_during_fork/consolidation_requests_during_fork.json (0.03s)
        block_test.go:233: test with config {snapshotter:false, scheme:path} failed: mismatch between BAl value and computed value
    --- FAIL: TestExecutionSpecBlocktestsBAL/prague/eip7002_el_triggerable_withdrawals/withdrawal_requests_during_fork/withdrawal_requests_during_fork.json (0.02s)
        block_test.go:233: test with config {snapshotter:false, scheme:path} failed: mismatch between BAl value and computed value

I've been trying to debug these but it's proving to be exceedingly difficult with the parallel execution enabled. The tests seem to relate to behavior of some system contracts on the fork boundaries, so I will just proceed with gathering numbers on mainnet performance for the meantime.

core/types/bal/bal.go

jwasinger · 2025-08-04T13:25:30Z

INFO [08-04|13:21:15.227] Imported new chain segment number=23,051,616 hash=228379..13abd2 blocks=0 txs=10783 mgas=1137.280 elapsed=8.072s mgasps=140.878 age=2d6h46m triediffs=271.84MiB triedirty=112.48MiB

Broke the block count on the insertion log statement here. Will try to fix tomorrow.

jwasinger · 2025-08-13T12:02:49Z

Getting some empty accounts in the BAL. example:

 {
      address: "0xff00000000000000000000000000000000008453"
  }

…hen enabled, post-Cancun blocks which lack access lists will have them constructed on execution during import. When importing blocks which contain access lists, transaction execution and state root calculation is performed in parallel.

…ved from BALs, there's not much gain from having a BAL state prefetcher

…ulation in statedb across multiple calls to Finalise. instead, Finalise now returns the diff that occurred from that call

…r of CPU cores

…ges in tx execution.

…t' into HEAD

lightclient

Looking good so far, just a few comments.

lightclient · 2025-08-21T20:07:02Z

core/blockchain.go

+		var resCh chan *ProcessResultWithMetrics
+		resCh, err = bc.processor.ProcessWithAccessList(block, statedb, bc.cfg.VmConfig)
+		if err != nil {
+			// TODO: okay to pass nil here as execution result?


Should be fine, we just use it to get out the receipts (if it is non nil).

lightclient · 2025-08-21T20:18:40Z

core/blockchain.go

+		// Process block using the parent state as reference point
+		pstart := time.Now()
+		var resCh chan *ProcessResultWithMetrics
+		resCh, err = bc.processor.ProcessWithAccessList(block, statedb, bc.cfg.VmConfig)


Why does this need to return a channel? Seems like it could be a blocking operation. Also I would probably do the branching for access list vs. not in the Process function instead of here since it is really more related to the processing of the block than the broader chain. It should also simplify the changes a bit since both branches of this if are quite similar, especially if you then roll the checks from ValidateProcessResult into ValidateState.

lightclient · 2025-08-21T20:24:03Z

core/state/state_object.go

 	return prev
 }

 func (s *stateObject) setCode(codeHash common.Hash, code []byte) {
 	s.code = code
 	s.data.CodeHash = codeHash[:]
+}
+
+// setCode sets the code and hash and dirty markers.


Suggested change

// setCode sets the code and hash and dirty markers.

// setCodeModified sets the code and hash and dirty markers.

lightclient · 2025-08-21T20:52:26Z

core/state_processor.go

+	// performs post-tx state transition (system contracts and withdrawals)
+	// and calculates the ProcessResult, returning it to be sent on resCh
+	// by resultHandler
+	prepareExecResult := func(postTxState *state.StateDB, receipts types.Receipts) *ProcessResult {


It's fairly hard to follow the logic with these larger function variables. I think it's reasonable to separate this logic into separate methods or create a new object the focuses solely on validating blocks with access lists.

lightclient · 2025-08-21T20:55:51Z

params/config.go

+	CancunTime      *uint64 `json:"cancunTime,omitempty"`      // Cancun switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on cancun)
+	PragueTime      *uint64 `json:"pragueTime,omitempty"`      // Prague switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on prague)
+	OsakaTime       *uint64 `json:"osakaTime,omitempty"`       // Osaka switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on osaka)
+	GlamsterdamTime *uint64 `json:"glamsterdamTime,omitempty"` // Glamsterdam switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on glamsterdam)


Suggested change

GlamsterdamTime *uint64 `json:"glamsterdamTime,omitempty"` // Glamsterdam switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on glamsterdam)

AmsterdamTime *uint64 `json:"amsterdamTime,omitempty"` // Aamsterdam switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on Amsterdam)

jwasinger mentioned this pull request Jul 23, 2025

core/state: implement optional BAL construction in statedb #31959

Closed

jwasinger commented Aug 3, 2025

View reviewed changes

core/types/bal/bal.go Outdated Show resolved Hide resolved

jwasinger force-pushed the bal-execution branch 2 times, most recently from ab1c562 to 8f200db Compare August 4, 2025 08:51

jwasinger marked this pull request as ready for review August 4, 2025 10:13

jwasinger requested review from fjl, gballet, rjl493456442, zsfelfoldi, s1na, lightclient and MariusVanDerWijden as code owners August 4, 2025 10:13

rjl493456442 and others added 14 commits August 15, 2025 11:40

trie: introduce UpdateBatch

cd191ed

integrate trie batch update into statedb intermediate root calculation

0dcd0e2

more cleanups

038f038

fix lint

10dbc70

update metrics for BAL

5ad76d3

try fix

206b22b

fix

e615211

remove accidental line deletion

7b40a5b

add debug_getEncodedBlockAccesslist

c223cec

remove BAL prefetcher: with account/storage reads planning to be remo…

1c60b1a

…ved from BALs, there's not much gain from having a BAL state prefetcher

fix method name

2322ff9

rework of state diff calculation to be much faster. remove diff accum…

6d26f07

…ulation in statedb across multiple calls to Finalise. instead, Finalise now returns the diff that occurred from that call

add test data

43d6f2a

jwasinger added 5 commits August 19, 2025 16:40

experimental: test gating the tx execution concurrency based on numbe…

58cad97

…r of CPU cores

instantiate live state object set from reader upfront. Apply BAL chan…

fb98718

…ges in tx execution.

fix tests

39abcf1

cleanups and documentation

faad758

add timer for block preprocess state loading

e14a463

jwasinger force-pushed the bal-execution branch from 869b300 to e14a463 Compare August 19, 2025 07:40

jwasinger added 10 commits August 19, 2025 16:45

Merge remote-tracking branch 'jwasinger/batch-update-intermediate-roo…

fb50477

…t' into HEAD

fix build

fdb7123

optimize tx execution prestate instantiation

83ad18c

moar

9bb4956

fix state diff storage instantation

3f1e343

fix remaining tests

fe78a5e

less statedb copies up-front before beginning tx execution

d735907

add metric for BAL->diff creation

c0b1fb9

wip: don't build state-diffs from BAL up-front

88bcc7e

fixes

45d8208

lightclient reviewed Aug 21, 2025

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Block access list changes - BAL construction, execution and validation #32263

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	// setCode sets the code and hash and dirty markers.
	// setCodeModified sets the code and hash and dirty markers.

	GlamsterdamTime *uint64 `json:"glamsterdamTime,omitempty"` // Glamsterdam switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on glamsterdam)
	AmsterdamTime *uint64 `json:"amsterdamTime,omitempty"` // Aamsterdam switch time (nil = no fork, 0 = already on Amsterdam)

Block access list changes - BAL construction, execution and validation #32263

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