This commit adds robust input validation to the SetGasPrice method and
implements comprehensive table-driven tests to ensure correct behavior.
Changes in core/txpool/txpool.go:
- Add nil gas price validation with graceful error handling
- Add validation to reject negative gas prices
- Add validation to reject gas prices exceeding 1000 GWei maximum
- Return detailed error messages for each validation failure
- Log warnings when invalid gas prices are rejected
Changes in eth/api_miner.go:
- Update MinerAPI.SetGasPrice to check error return from txPool.SetGasPrice
- Return false when validation fails (when SetGasPrice returns error)
- Return true when validation succeeds (when SetGasPrice returns nil)
New tests in core/txpool/txpool_test.go:
- Implement TestSetGasPrice using table-driven test pattern
- Test 4 invalid cases: nil, negative, exceed max+1, exceed 10000 GWei
- Test 7 valid cases: 0, 1 wei, 1 GWei, 100 GWei, 500 GWei, max-1, max
- Each test case includes expected error value for precise validation
- All 11 test cases verify both error returns and gas price state
- Tests use isolated pool instances to ensure independence
Since commit 845d3d49e (July 2023), MinGasPrice validation (250000000 wei /
0.25 Gwei) has been enforced for all non-special transactions in validateTx().
Later, commit 141cb75c (Dec 2025) refactored this validation logic into the
standalone ValidateTransactionWithState() function for code reusability.
However, the transaction pool test suite was never updated to comply with the
MinGasPrice requirement and continued using extremely low gas prices (1-6 wei),
causing test failures when run independently.
The root cause of this issue was that testQueueTimeLimiting() set the global
variable 'common.MinGasPrice = big.NewInt(0)' without restoring it. This global
variable modification created severe testing problems:
1. Intermittent, non-deterministic failures: The same test would randomly pass
or fail without any code changes, depending on whether testQueueTimeLimiting
had executed and set MinGasPrice=0 before other tests checked it
2. Race conditions in concurrent execution: Since tests use t.Parallel(), multiple
tests could simultaneously access the shared global MinGasPrice variable,
creating unpredictable timing-dependent behavior
3. Test order dependency: When running 'make test', if testQueueTimeLimiting
executed early and set MinGasPrice=0, other tests with low gas prices would
pass. Running the same tests individually or in a different order would fail
with 'under min gas price' errors
4. Global state pollution: The MinGasPrice modification affected ALL concurrently
running tests in the suite, violating test isolation principles and making
debugging extremely difficult
5. Masked real validation issues: The global override hid the fact that test
transactions violated MinGasPrice requirements that would be enforced in
production, reducing test effectiveness
6. No cleanup mechanism: The changed value was never restored, permanently
affecting subsequent tests and creating cascading failures
This intermittent behavior made CI/CD pipelines unreliable - tests could pass
locally but fail in CI, or pass on retry without changes, wasting developer time
investigating 'phantom' failures.
This commit systematically updates all affected test cases to use gas prices
that satisfy the MinGasPrice requirement:
- Replace transaction() helper calls with pricedTransaction() using gas prices
>= 250000000 wei (MinGasPrice)
- Update dynamicFeeTx() calls to use gasFeeCap and gasTipCap >= 250000000 wei
- Scale account balances proportionally to cover the higher transaction costs
- Maintain test logic and relative price relationships between transactions
Tests fixed (36 total):
- TestStateChangeDuringReset
- TestInvalidTransactions
- TestChainFork
- TestDoubleNonce
- TestMissingNonce
- TestNonceRecovery
- TestPostponing
- TestGapFilling
- TestQueueAccountLimiting
- TestQueueGlobalLimiting
- TestQueueGlobalLimitingNoLocals
- TestQueueTimeLimiting
- TestQueueTimeLimitingNoLocals
- TestPendingLimiting
- TestPendingGlobalLimiting
- TestAllowedTxSize
- TestCapClearsFromAll
- TestPendingMinimumAllowance
- TestRepricing
- TestRepricingDynamicFee
- TestRepricingKeepsLocals
- TestPoolUnderpricing
- TestPoolStableUnderpricing
- TestUnderpricingDynamicFee
- TestDualHeapEviction
- TestDeduplication
- TestReplacement
- TestReplacementDynamicFee
- TestJournaling
- TestJournalingNoLocals
- TestStatusCheck
- TestDropping
- TestQueue
- TestQueue2
- TestNegativeValue
- TestSlotCount
All tests now pass consistently when run with: go test ./core/txpool -count=1
Here we add a Go API for running tracing plugins within the main block import process.
As an advanced user of geth, you can now create a Go file in eth/tracers/live/, and within
that file register your custom tracer implementation. Then recompile geth and select your tracer
on the command line. Hooks defined in the tracer will run whenever a block is processed.
The hook system is defined in package core/tracing. It uses a struct with callbacks, instead of
requiring an interface, for several reasons:
- We plan to keep this API stable long-term. The core/tracing hook API does not depend on
on deep geth internals.
- There are a lot of hooks, and tracers will only need some of them. Using a struct allows you
to implement only the hooks you want to actually use.
All existing tracers in eth/tracers/native have been rewritten to use the new hook system.
This change breaks compatibility with the vm.EVMLogger interface that we used to have.
If you are a user of vm.EVMLogger, please migrate to core/tracing, and sorry for breaking
your stuff. But we just couldn't have both the old and new tracing APIs coexist in the EVM.
---------
Co-authored-by: Sina M <1591639+s1na@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Matthieu Vachon <matthieu.o.vachon@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Delweng <delweng@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Martin HS <martin@swende.se>
