Simplify DHT key

Changes

1 changed files (+1/-1)

• README.md
  • @@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ ### Name resolution service
    In Kela, each user has an ID, which is a public key. Each user is associated with one or more Kela servers, which store that user's data. To find out which servers a user is associated with, you can query the name resolution system. All Kela servers participate in the name resolution system and act as DHT nodes. Each server stores a complete list of all DHT nodes. When a new server joins the DHT, it tries to peer with an existing server in the DHT. Say server `example.com` would like to peer with `test.net`. `example.com` first sends a GET request to `test.net/peer?peer=example.com`. `test.net` replies with its list of DHT nodes. Once `example.com` receives this reply, it adds `test.net` to its list of DHT nodes and attempts to peer with all servers in the reply that it hasn't peered with yet. `test.net` now also tries to peer with the server that just contacted it, in this case `example.com`. Servers periodically go through their list of DHT nodes and remove nodes that are no longer online. - The DHT stores key-value pairs. The key consists of a user's public key and timestamp (the SHA-256 hash of the public key modulo 600 plus the current Unix time in seconds all divided by 600, rounded down). The value consists of a timestamp (the current Unix time in seconds), a list of servers that the user is associated with, where the first server is their primary server, and a signature. A key-value pair is assigned to the 5 servers with smallest SHA-256 hashes of their domain name greater than the SHA-256 hash of the key. The purpose of the elaborate timestamp in the key is to ensure that the set of servers assigned to a key-value pair rotates every 600 seconds so an attacker must control a very large portion of the DHT to do a denial-of-service attack against a specific key-value pair. When servers join and leave the DHT, the servers that a user is associated with will ensure that that user's key-value pair is assigned to a new server if necessary to ensure that 5 servers store that key-value pair. The DHT supports two operations, get and put. For put operations, the server checks the signature to ensure the validity of the request. When a server receives either of these two operations, it computes the SHA-256 hash of the key and checks if it is supposed to store that key-value pair or not. If it is supposed to store that key-value pair, it performs the operation on that pair. Otherwise, the server will contact in parallel the 5 servers that store this key-value pair. If the operation is a get, the server will look at the 5 replies and return the value with the most recent timestamp. If the operation is a put, and one of the 5 parallel requests fails, the server will remove that offline server from its DHT node list and assign a new server to this key-value pair to replace the offline one. Each server periodically goes through its stored key-value pairs and deletes old ones. + The DHT stores key-value pairs. The key consists of a user's public key and timestamp (the current Unix time in seconds divided by 600, rounded down). The value consists of a timestamp (the current Unix time in seconds), a list of servers that the user is associated with, where the first server is their primary server, and a signature. A key-value pair is assigned to the 5 servers with smallest SHA-256 hashes of their domain name greater than the SHA-256 hash of the key. The purpose of the elaborate timestamp in the key is to ensure that the set of servers assigned to a key-value pair rotates every 600 seconds so an attacker must control a very large portion of the DHT to do a denial-of-service attack against a specific key-value pair. When servers join and leave the DHT, the servers that a user is associated with will ensure that that user's key-value pair is assigned to a new server if necessary to ensure that 5 servers store that key-value pair. The DHT supports two operations, get and put. For put operations, the server checks the signature to ensure the validity of the request. When a server receives either of these two operations, it computes the SHA-256 hash of the key and checks if it is supposed to store that key-value pair or not. If it is supposed to store that key-value pair, it performs the operation on that pair. Otherwise, the server will contact in parallel the 5 servers that store this key-value pair. If the operation is a get, the server will look at the 5 replies and return the value with the most recent timestamp. If the operation is a put, and one of the 5 parallel requests fails, the server will remove that offline server from its DHT node list and assign a new server to this key-value pair to replace the offline one. Each server periodically goes through its stored key-value pairs and deletes old ones. ### Storage service