HeadSync kept reqFinalityEpoch entries for servers after receiving
EvUnregistered, while other per-server maps were cleared. This left
stale request.Server keys reachable from HeadSync, which can lead to a
slow memory leak in setups that dynamically register and unregister
servers.
The fix adds deletion of the reqFinalityEpoch entry in the
EvUnregistered handler. This aligns HeadSync with the cleanup pattern
used by other sync modules and keeps the finality request bookkeeping
strictly limited to currently registered servers.
This PR adds an extra mechanism to sync.HeadSync that tries to retrieve the latest finality update from every server each time it sends an optimistic update in a new epoch (unless we already have a validated finality update attested in the same epoch).
Note that this is not necessary and does not happen if the new finality update is delivered before the optimistic update. The spec only mandates light_client_finality_update events when a new epoch is finalized. If the chain does not finalize for a while then we might need an explicit request that returns a finality proof that proves the same finality epoch from the latest attested epoch.
Here we add a beacon chain light client for use by geth.
Geth can now be configured to run against a beacon chain API endpoint,
without pointing a CL to it. To set this up, use the `--beacon.api` flag. Information
provided by the beacon chain is verified, i.e. geth does not blindly trust the beacon
API endpoint in this mode. The root of trust are the beacon chain 'sync committees'.
The configured beacon API endpoint must provide light client data. At this time, only
Lodestar and Nimbus provide the necessary APIs.
There is also a standalone tool, cmd/blsync, which uses the beacon chain light client
to drive any EL implementation via its engine API.
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Co-authored-by: Felix Lange <fjl@twurst.com>
