This commit introduces a network simulation framework which
can be used to run simulated networks of devp2p nodes. The
intention is to use this for testing protocols, performing
benchmarks and visualising emergent network behaviour.
There is no need to depend on the old context package now that the
minimum Go version is 1.7. The move to "context" eliminates our weird
vendoring setup. Some vendored code still uses golang.org/x/net/context
and it is now vendored in the normal way.
This change triggered new vet checks around context.WithTimeout which
didn't fire with golang.org/x/net/context.
I initially made the client block if the 100-element buffer was
exceeded. It turns out that this is inconvenient for simple uses of the
client which subscribe and perform calls on the same goroutine, e.g.
client, _ := rpc.Dial(...)
ch := make(chan int) // note: no buffer
sub, _ := client.EthSubscribe(ch, "something")
for event := range ch {
client.Call(...)
}
This innocent looking code will lock up if the server suddenly decides
to send 2000 notifications. In this case, the client's main loop won't
accept the call because it is trying to deliver a notification to ch.
The issue is kind of hard to explain in the docs and few people will
actually read them. Buffering is the simple option and works with close
to no overhead for subscribers that always listen.
Lewis Marshall
Bas van Kervel
Felix Lange
Péter Szilágyi