2022-11-08 Indy Contributors Call

Zoom Link: https://zoom.us/j/99220079317?pwd=OHk0U05ITnBkSmZ0aXlIQzFDYWg3UT09

Summary

• Update on Sovrin Node pipeline
• Help needed on getting Indy Node to past "RC" status
• Update on indy-vdr issue with Genesis File/Node mismatch issue + plus tests
• Updates on the AnonCreds work that impact Indy
• Eliminate the indy-sdk initiative
• Q&A

Recording of Call: 

Welcome and Introductions

Attendees

Wade Barnes (Neoteric Technologies Inc.) <wade@neoterictech.ca>

Stephen Curran (BC Gov / Cloud Compass Computing Inc.) <swcurran@cloudcompass.ca>

Related Calls and Announcements

• IIW Next Week – any sessions planned?

Release Status and Work Updates

• Indy Node
• Indy SDK
• Indy Monitoring - https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node-monitor
• Indy Node Container - https://github.com/hyperledger/indy-node-container
• Indy/Aries Shared Libraries - Hyperledger (indy-vdr, indy-shared-rs, aries-askar)
• Ursa
• Indy DID Method – https://hyperledger.github.io/indy-did-method/
• AnonCreds Specification: https://anoncreds-wg.github.io/anoncreds-spec/

Meeting Topics 

• Sovrin Node build
• Help on the transition of indy-node from RC to final:
  • A review of the differences between the indy-node and indy-plenum "main" and "stable" branches
    • Where there are things needed items in main that are not in stable, determine if they need to be added to the "ubuntu-20.04-upgrade" branch
    • This is the result of the "two branch" strategy for the repos, followed by a period without maintainers watching the branches.
    • Once we have the "ubuntu-20.04" branch complete, it will be become main, and we'll ignore the other branches.
  • Other issues found by Christian Bormann
    • Audit ledger is supposed to create an entry every 5 minutes, but is actually creating 3 every 5 minutes (one per ledger instead of one across ledgers). Issue – not fixed.
    • Issue with the timestamp recording for the domain ledger during catchup. Could cause a corruption, but unlikely. Fix has been added. Need to get to 1.13 to properly fix this.
• Update on indy-vdr issue with Genesis File/Node mismatch issue (indy-vdr#106)
• Question from Christian today – using indy-node-container for the indy-vdr tests
• Updates on the AnonCreds work that impact Indy
• Eliminate the indy-sdk initiative:
  • Enable shared components in all Aries Framework – notable AFJ and Aries VCX
  • indy-vdr with did:indy support – how do we get that released?
  • Create a migration tool to export indy-wallet contents and load into aries-askar
  • Create a "shared components" version of the Indy CLI
• Other Topics

Future Calls

• GDPR and the right to be forgotten – mitigations and approaches.
• The Indy "Corporate Firewall Problem" and the idea of a Proxy Server on Nodes? Kim Ebert
  • Core issue: A mobile wallet user using a Corporate WiFi may find that they can't get to an Indy ledger because all but 80/443 ports and HTTP/S protocols are blocked
  • Discussion/Options paper: https://hackmd.io/@n5FW6jwuRfCgchBDNWR3VQ/H1kNlKpmo
  • Question: Is it viable to have each Indy Node also listen on port 80/443 for HTTP/S requests and arrange to have them processed?
    • Option: Receive on HTTP(S) and send on to local ZMQ instance as if coming from outside.
  • Answer: We think it is probably not viable, as mobile agents require HTTPS. As such, each Steward would have to get a IP-based SSL Certificate. Technically doable, but getting everyone through that is really not practical. The cost of the certificates and maintaining them would be ugly.
    
    • Option: Add a DIDComm agent to every node, and use DIDComm to send the messages
    • Similar to using HTTP(S), but use a DIDComm message. Since Mobile Agents would be using a mediator, the DIDComm message would flow through that, and the HTTPS issue would not matter.  This is almost easy, but... There is no encryption public key in the genesis file, so that needs to be retrieved from somewhere else...

• Status of Indy-SDK
  • Statement on the future of the Indy SDK: PR 2329
  • Plans for future of Indy CLI (move to Indy VDR?)
  • Indy SDK in test for Indy Node (move to Indy VDR?)
  • Status of GitHub Actions for the Indy-SDK
• Indy bugs
  • Using GitHub tags "Good First Issue" and "Help Wanted" 
  • Node 1490: problems with large catch-up
  • Plenum 1506: view change message consensus calculation error

Action items