<!DOCTYPE HTML> <html lang="en" class="sidebar-visible no-js light"> <head> <!-- Book generated using mdBook --> <meta charset="UTF-8"> <title>The Auth Chain Difference Algorithm - Synapse</title> <!-- Custom HTML head --> <meta content="text/html; charset=utf-8" http-equiv="Content-Type"> <meta name="description" content=""> <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> <meta name="theme-color" content="#ffffff" /> <link rel="icon" href="favicon.svg"> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="favicon.png"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/variables.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/general.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/chrome.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/print.css" media="print"> <!-- Fonts --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="FontAwesome/css/font-awesome.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="fonts/fonts.css"> <!-- Highlight.js Stylesheets --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="highlight.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="tomorrow-night.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="ayu-highlight.css"> <!-- Custom theme stylesheets --> <link rel="stylesheet" href="docs/website_files/table-of-contents.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="docs/website_files/remove-nav-buttons.css"> <link rel="stylesheet" href="docs/website_files/indent-section-headers.css"> </head> <body> <!-- Provide site root to javascript --> <script type="text/javascript"> var path_to_root = ""; var default_theme = window.matchMedia("(prefers-color-scheme: dark)").matches ? "navy" : "light"; </script> <!-- Work around some values being stored in localStorage wrapped in quotes --> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var theme = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-theme'); var sidebar = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-sidebar'); if (theme.startsWith('"') && theme.endsWith('"')) { localStorage.setItem('mdbook-theme', theme.slice(1, theme.length - 1)); } if (sidebar.startsWith('"') && sidebar.endsWith('"')) { localStorage.setItem('mdbook-sidebar', sidebar.slice(1, sidebar.length - 1)); } } catch (e) { } </script> <!-- Set the theme before any content is loaded, prevents flash --> <script type="text/javascript"> var theme; try { theme = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-theme'); } catch(e) { } if (theme === null || theme === undefined) { theme = default_theme; } var html = document.querySelector('html'); html.classList.remove('no-js') html.classList.remove('light') html.classList.add(theme); html.classList.add('js'); </script> <!-- Hide / unhide sidebar before it is displayed --> <script type="text/javascript"> var html = document.querySelector('html'); var sidebar = 'hidden'; if (document.body.clientWidth >= 1080) { try { sidebar = localStorage.getItem('mdbook-sidebar'); } catch(e) { } sidebar = sidebar || 'visible'; } html.classList.remove('sidebar-visible'); html.classList.add("sidebar-" + sidebar); </script> <nav id="sidebar" class="sidebar" aria-label="Table of contents"> <div class="sidebar-scrollbox"> <ol class="chapter"><li class="chapter-item expanded affix "><li class="part-title">Introduction</li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="welcome_and_overview.html">Welcome and Overview</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded affix "><li class="part-title">Setup</li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="setup/installation.html">Installation</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="postgres.html">Using Postgres</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="reverse_proxy.html">Configuring a Reverse Proxy</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="setup/forward_proxy.html">Configuring a Forward/Outbound Proxy</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="turn-howto.html">Configuring a Turn Server</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="delegate.html">Delegation</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded affix "><li class="part-title">Upgrading</li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="upgrade.html">Upgrading between Synapse Versions</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="MSC1711_certificates_FAQ.html">Upgrading from pre-Synapse 1.0</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded affix "><li class="part-title">Usage</li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="federate.html">Federation</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/index.html">Configuration</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/homeserver_sample_config.html">Homeserver Sample Config File</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/logging_sample_config.html">Logging Sample Config File</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="structured_logging.html">Structured Logging</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="templates.html">Templates</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/user_authentication/index.html">User Authentication</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/user_authentication/single_sign_on/index.html">Single-Sign On</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="openid.html">OpenID Connect</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/user_authentication/single_sign_on/saml.html">SAML</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/user_authentication/single_sign_on/cas.html">CAS</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="sso_mapping_providers.html">SSO Mapping Providers</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="password_auth_providers.html">Password Auth Providers</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="jwt.html">JSON Web Tokens</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/configuration/user_authentication/refresh_tokens.html">Refresh Tokens</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="CAPTCHA_SETUP.html">Registration Captcha</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="application_services.html">Application Services</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="server_notices.html">Server Notices</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="consent_tracking.html">Consent Tracking</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/url_previews.html">URL Previews</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="user_directory.html">User Directory</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="message_retention_policies.html">Message Retention Policies</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/index.html">Pluggable Modules</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/writing_a_module.html">Writing a module</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/spam_checker_callbacks.html">Spam checker callbacks</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/third_party_rules_callbacks.html">Third-party rules callbacks</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/presence_router_callbacks.html">Presence router callbacks</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/account_validity_callbacks.html">Account validity callbacks</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/password_auth_provider_callbacks.html">Password auth provider callbacks</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/background_update_controller_callbacks.html">Background update controller callbacks</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="modules/porting_legacy_module.html">Porting a legacy module to the new interface</a></li></ol></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="workers.html">Workers</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="synctl_workers.html">Using synctl with Workers</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="systemd-with-workers/index.html">Systemd</a></li></ol></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/index.html">Administration</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/admin_api/index.html">Admin API</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/account_validity.html">Account Validity</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/admin_api/background_updates.html">Background Updates</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/delete_group.html">Delete Group</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/event_reports.html">Event Reports</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/media_admin_api.html">Media</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/purge_history_api.html">Purge History</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/register_api.html">Register Users</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/admin_api/registration_tokens.html">Registration Tokens</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/room_membership.html">Manipulate Room Membership</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/rooms.html">Rooms</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/server_notices.html">Server Notices</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/statistics.html">Statistics</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/user_admin_api.html">Users</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="admin_api/version_api.html">Server Version</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/admin_api/federation.html">Federation</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="manhole.html">Manhole</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="metrics-howto.html">Monitoring</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/understanding_synapse_through_grafana_graphs.html">Understanding Synapse Through Grafana Graphs</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/useful_sql_for_admins.html">Useful SQL for Admins</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/database_maintenance_tools.html">Database Maintenance Tools</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/state_groups.html">State Groups</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/request_log.html">Request log format</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="usage/administration/admin_faq.html">Admin FAQ</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><div>Scripts</div></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><li class="part-title">Development</li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/contributing_guide.html">Contributing Guide</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="code_style.html">Code Style</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/git.html">Git Usage</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><div>Testing</div></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="opentracing.html">OpenTracing</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/database_schema.html">Database Schemas</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/experimental_features.html">Experimental features</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><div>Synapse Architecture</div></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="log_contexts.html">Log Contexts</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="replication.html">Replication</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="tcp_replication.html">TCP Replication</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/internal_documentation/index.html">Internal Documentation</a></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><div>Single Sign-On</div></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/saml.html">SAML</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/cas.html">CAS</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="development/room-dag-concepts.html">Room DAG concepts</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><div>State Resolution</div></li><li><ol class="section"><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="auth_chain_difference_algorithm.html" class="active">The Auth Chain Difference Algorithm</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="media_repository.html">Media Repository</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="room_and_user_statistics.html">Room and User Statistics</a></li></ol></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><div>Scripts</div></li><li class="chapter-item expanded affix "><li class="part-title">Other</li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="deprecation_policy.html">Dependency Deprecation Policy</a></li><li class="chapter-item expanded "><a href="other/running_synapse_on_single_board_computers.html">Running Synapse on a Single-Board Computer</a></li></ol> </div> <div id="sidebar-resize-handle" class="sidebar-resize-handle"></div> </nav> <div id="page-wrapper" class="page-wrapper"> <div class="page"> <div id="menu-bar-hover-placeholder"></div> <div id="menu-bar" class="menu-bar sticky bordered"> <div class="left-buttons"> <button id="sidebar-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Toggle Table of Contents" aria-label="Toggle Table of Contents" aria-controls="sidebar"> <i class="fa fa-bars"></i> </button> <button id="theme-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Change theme" aria-label="Change theme" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="theme-list"> <i class="fa fa-paint-brush"></i> </button> <ul id="theme-list" class="theme-popup" aria-label="Themes" role="menu"> <li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="light">Light (default)</button></li> <li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="rust">Rust</button></li> <li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="coal">Coal</button></li> <li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="navy">Navy</button></li> <li role="none"><button role="menuitem" class="theme" id="ayu">Ayu</button></li> </ul> <button id="search-toggle" class="icon-button" type="button" title="Search. (Shortkey: s)" aria-label="Toggle Searchbar" aria-expanded="false" aria-keyshortcuts="S" aria-controls="searchbar"> <i class="fa fa-search"></i> </button> </div> <h1 class="menu-title">Synapse</h1> <div class="right-buttons"> <a href="print.html" title="Print this book" aria-label="Print this book"> <i id="print-button" class="fa fa-print"></i> </a> <a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse" title="Git repository" aria-label="Git repository"> <i id="git-repository-button" class="fa fa-github"></i> </a> <a href="https://github.com/matrix-org/synapse/edit/develop/docs/auth_chain_difference_algorithm.md" title="Suggest an edit" aria-label="Suggest an edit"> <i id="git-edit-button" class="fa fa-edit"></i> </a> </div> </div> <div id="search-wrapper" class="hidden"> <form id="searchbar-outer" class="searchbar-outer"> <input type="search" id="searchbar" name="searchbar" placeholder="Search this book ..." aria-controls="searchresults-outer" aria-describedby="searchresults-header"> </form> <div id="searchresults-outer" class="searchresults-outer hidden"> <div id="searchresults-header" class="searchresults-header"></div> <ul id="searchresults"> </ul> </div> </div> <!-- Apply ARIA attributes after the sidebar and the sidebar toggle button are added to the DOM --> <script type="text/javascript"> document.getElementById('sidebar-toggle').setAttribute('aria-expanded', sidebar === 'visible'); document.getElementById('sidebar').setAttribute('aria-hidden', sidebar !== 'visible'); Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('#sidebar a')).forEach(function(link) { link.setAttribute('tabIndex', sidebar === 'visible' ? 0 : -1); }); </script> <div id="content" class="content"> <main> <!-- Page table of contents --> <div class="sidetoc"> <nav class="pagetoc"></nav> </div> <h1 id="auth-chain-difference-algorithm"><a class="header" href="#auth-chain-difference-algorithm">Auth Chain Difference Algorithm</a></h1> <p>The auth chain difference algorithm is used by V2 state resolution, where a naive implementation can be a significant source of CPU and DB usage.</p> <h3 id="definitions"><a class="header" href="#definitions">Definitions</a></h3> <p>A <em>state set</em> is a set of state events; e.g. the input of a state resolution algorithm is a collection of state sets.</p> <p>The <em>auth chain</em> of a set of events are all the events' auth events and <em>their</em> auth events, recursively (i.e. the events reachable by walking the graph induced by an event's auth events links).</p> <p>The <em>auth chain difference</em> of a collection of state sets is the union minus the intersection of the sets of auth chains corresponding to the state sets, i.e an event is in the auth chain difference if it is reachable by walking the auth event graph from at least one of the state sets but not from <em>all</em> of the state sets.</p> <h2 id="breadth-first-walk-algorithm"><a class="header" href="#breadth-first-walk-algorithm">Breadth First Walk Algorithm</a></h2> <p>A way of calculating the auth chain difference without calculating the full auth chains for each state set is to do a parallel breadth first walk (ordered by depth) of each state set's auth chain. By tracking which events are reachable from each state set we can finish early if every pending event is reachable from every state set.</p> <p>This can work well for state sets that have a small auth chain difference, but can be very inefficient for larger differences. However, this algorithm is still used if we don't have a chain cover index for the room (e.g. because we're in the process of indexing it).</p> <h2 id="chain-cover-index"><a class="header" href="#chain-cover-index">Chain Cover Index</a></h2> <p>Synapse computes auth chain differences by pre-computing a "chain cover" index for the auth chain in a room, allowing efficient reachability queries like "is event A in the auth chain of event B". This is done by assigning every event a <em>chain ID</em> and <em>sequence number</em> (e.g. <code>(5,3)</code>), and having a map of <em>links</em> between chains (e.g. <code>(5,3) -> (2,4)</code>) such that A is reachable by B (i.e. <code>A</code> is in the auth chain of <code>B</code>) if and only if either:</p> <ol> <li>A and B have the same chain ID and <code>A</code>'s sequence number is less than <code>B</code>'s sequence number; or</li> <li>there is a link <code>L</code> between <code>B</code>'s chain ID and <code>A</code>'s chain ID such that <code>L.start_seq_no</code> <= <code>B.seq_no</code> and <code>A.seq_no</code> <= <code>L.end_seq_no</code>.</li> </ol> <p>There are actually two potential implementations, one where we store links from each chain to every other reachable chain (the transitive closure of the links graph), and one where we remove redundant links (the transitive reduction of the links graph) e.g. if we have chains <code>C3 -> C2 -> C1</code> then the link <code>C3 -> C1</code> would not be stored. Synapse uses the former implementations so that it doesn't need to recurse to test reachability between chains.</p> <h3 id="example"><a class="header" href="#example">Example</a></h3> <p>An example auth graph would look like the following, where chains have been formed based on type/state_key and are denoted by colour and are labelled with <code>(chain ID, sequence number)</code>. Links are denoted by the arrows (links in grey are those that would be remove in the second implementation described above).</p> <p><img src="auth_chain_diff.dot.png" alt="Example" /></p> <p>Note that we don't include all links between events and their auth events, as most of those links would be redundant. For example, all events point to the create event, but each chain only needs the one link from it's base to the create event.</p> <h2 id="using-the-index"><a class="header" href="#using-the-index">Using the Index</a></h2> <p>This index can be used to calculate the auth chain difference of the state sets by looking at the chain ID and sequence numbers reachable from each state set:</p> <ol> <li>For every state set lookup the chain ID/sequence numbers of each state event</li> <li>Use the index to find all chains and the maximum sequence number reachable from each state set.</li> <li>The auth chain difference is then all events in each chain that have sequence numbers between the maximum sequence number reachable from <em>any</em> state set and the minimum reachable by <em>all</em> state sets (if any).</li> </ol> <p>Note that steps 2 is effectively calculating the auth chain for each state set (in terms of chain IDs and sequence numbers), and step 3 is calculating the difference between the union and intersection of the auth chains.</p> <h3 id="worked-example"><a class="header" href="#worked-example">Worked Example</a></h3> <p>For example, given the above graph, we can calculate the difference between state sets consisting of:</p> <ol> <li><code>S1</code>: Alice's invite <code>(4,1)</code> and Bob's second join <code>(2,2)</code>; and</li> <li><code>S2</code>: Alice's second join <code>(4,3)</code> and Bob's first join <code>(2,1)</code>.</li> </ol> <p>Using the index we see that the following auth chains are reachable from each state set:</p> <ol> <li><code>S1</code>: <code>(1,1)</code>, <code>(2,2)</code>, <code>(3,1)</code> & <code>(4,1)</code></li> <li><code>S2</code>: <code>(1,1)</code>, <code>(2,1)</code>, <code>(3,2)</code> & <code>(4,3)</code></li> </ol> <p>And so, for each the ranges that are in the auth chain difference:</p> <ol> <li>Chain 1: None, (since everything can reach the create event).</li> <li>Chain 2: The range <code>(1, 2]</code> (i.e. just <code>2</code>), as <code>1</code> is reachable by all state sets and the maximum reachable is <code>2</code> (corresponding to Bob's second join).</li> <li>Chain 3: Similarly the range <code>(1, 2]</code> (corresponding to the second power level).</li> <li>Chain 4: The range <code>(1, 3]</code> (corresponding to both of Alice's joins).</li> </ol> <p>So the final result is: Bob's second join <code>(2,2)</code>, the second power level <code>(3,2)</code> and both of Alice's joins <code>(4,2)</code> & <code>(4,3)</code>.</p> </main> <nav class="nav-wrapper" aria-label="Page navigation"> <!-- Mobile navigation buttons --> <a rel="prev" href="development/room-dag-concepts.html" class="mobile-nav-chapters previous" title="Previous chapter" aria-label="Previous chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Left"> <i class="fa fa-angle-left"></i> </a> <a rel="next" href="media_repository.html" class="mobile-nav-chapters next" title="Next chapter" aria-label="Next chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Right"> <i class="fa fa-angle-right"></i> </a> <div style="clear: both"></div> </nav> </div> </div> <nav class="nav-wide-wrapper" aria-label="Page navigation"> <a rel="prev" href="development/room-dag-concepts.html" class="nav-chapters previous" title="Previous chapter" aria-label="Previous chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Left"> <i class="fa fa-angle-left"></i> </a> <a rel="next" href="media_repository.html" class="nav-chapters next" title="Next chapter" aria-label="Next chapter" aria-keyshortcuts="Right"> <i class="fa fa-angle-right"></i> </a> </nav> </div> <script type="text/javascript"> window.playground_copyable = true; </script> <script src="elasticlunr.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="mark.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="searcher.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="clipboard.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="highlight.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <script src="book.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script> <!-- Custom JS scripts --> <script type="text/javascript" src="docs/website_files/table-of-contents.js"></script> </body> </html>