identify: implement signedPeerRecord

[Marcel-G]

Description

As part of the identify protocol signedPeerRecord contains a serialized SignedEnvelope containing a PeerRecord,
signed by the sending node. It contains the same addresses as the listenAddrs field, but in a form that lets us share authenticated addrs with other peers.

Currently the rust-libp2p identify protocol does not implement signedPeerRecord
https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p/blob/master/protocols/identify/src/generated/structs.proto#L5

For reference go-libp2p does:
https://github.com/libp2p/go-libp2p/blob/master/p2p/protocol/identify/pb/identify.proto#L35

Is there a plan to implement this in the near future, is there something blocking it?

Motivation

There was an change in js-libp2p v0.45.0 which makes it no longer work the same for identify records where signedPeerRecord is omitted libp2p/js-libp2p#1789. This results in there being a requirement for signedPeerRecord in order for peer identify records to be consumed in v0.45.0.

This appears to be a bug on the js-libp2p side, however leaving this issue open to track progress of signedPeerRecord in the identify protocol.

Are you planning to do it yourself in a pull request?

I have implemented something locally and can verify it can work as expected with js-libp2p v0.45.0. However, I'm not sure I have enough context to contribute to this at this stage.

[thomaseizinger]

I'd love to see what you built locally and have it land here eventually.

I'd be happy to iterate with you on it in a PR :)

[maschad]

Thanks for taking the time to implement a solution, it would be cool to see what you did.

You should still be able to use rust as a relay server over webRTCDirect as it's not dependent on SignedPeerRecords since they are not rolled out across many libp2p protocols.

I would be interested to see what your configuration is, but as a reference you could take a look at our unviersal connectivity example chat app, where establish a webRTCDirect connection on with rust server from a browser (js) node to then dial another browser node over webRTC

[Marcel-G]

Thanks for your support on this!

look at our unviersal connectivity example chat app, where establish a webRTCDirect connection on with rust server from a browser (js) node to then dial another browser node over webRTC

Actually this is the project is where my investigations began. You're absolutely right that the relay connection via webrtc-direct does work (regardless of the SignedPeerRecords). That reminds me (which I forgot about while creating the issue) is that the problem I'm trying to solve here is not about connection but rather about peer discovery (hence identify protocol)

In my configuration I was trying out pubsub peer discovery, rather than manual dialing.
I found was that js-libp2p ignores the relay address (for any transports) advertised by the rust-libp2p nodes. Or, at least it's not added automatically to the peer-store. As far as I can tell this was related to it missing SignedPeerRecords. I would say now that this problem is completely unrelated to webrtc.
This is all pretty new so I may be going in the wrong direction though, what do you think?

[maschad]

I would say that there a variety of peer discovery mechanisms which may be applicable to your use case. In the case of universal connectivity we use kademlia DHTs for discovery. Those resources should point you in the right direction.

[Marcel-G]

Update:

1. Dial the rust-libp2p relay node address with js-libp2p
2. Relay node uses the identify protocol to advertise that it supports circuit relay, kademlia etc.
3. js-libp2p client consumes this info into the peerStore
4. From there js-libp2p starts the relay dance, etc

This is currently working correctly in the universal-connectivity project, however the behavior has changed between js-libp2p v0.44.0 and v0.45.0.

More precisely the "legacy" identify path has been removed. This results in there being a requirement for signedPeerRecord in order for peer identify records to be consumed in v0.45.0. This seems like a breaking change, which isn't mentioned. So I'm thinking this is more of a bug on the js-libp2p side.

If you think thats accurate I can close this issue and create an issue there.

[thomaseizinger]

Even if it is a confirmed bug, it would still be great to implement signed peer records in identify in rust-libp2p!

So I'd like to keep this open to track the effort.

[maschad]

More precisely the "legacy" identify path has been removed. This results in there being a requirement for signedPeerRecord in order for peer identify records to be consumed in v0.45.0. This seems like a breaking change, which isn't mentioned. So I'm thinking this is more of a bug on the js-libp2p side.

Thanks for finding this @Marcel-G but I am not sure this is accurate because the peer:identify event would just have an undefined SignedPeerRecord if none was exchanged whilst consuming the identify message.

I am actually in the process of upgrading universal connectivity to use 0.45.x which should help me to recreate these scenarios, but it may be more fruitful for you to open an issue on the js-libp2p issue using our issue template so that we can rightly diagnose.

Since rust-libp2p should support SignedPeerRecord as @thomaseizinger mentioned I think we should leave this ticket open.