kounkou
commented
3 weeks ago Connector implementation
Status : draft
Reviewers : cammellos@ MishkaRogachev@
Context
Status is building a Browser plugin that serves as a cryptocurrency wallet and gateway to blockchain applications. It primarily interacts with the Ethereum blockchain but supports other networks as well. To achieve the creation of the Browser plugin, Desktop core team will be involved in creating a Connector that will connect Status-go and the Browser plugin by exposing the Wallet API’s. Here are proposals for implementing the solution.
Requirements
- Being able to respond to API call from the browser plugin
- Being able to send events to the browser plugin without prior API call
Proposal
Sequence Diagram for the interactions
sequenceDiagram
participant User
participant BrowserPlugin
participant Connector
participant StatusApp
User->>BrowserPlugin: Connect Wallet to dApp
BrowserPlugin->>Connector: Send RPC request
alt Connector crash
BrowserPlugin->>Connector: Retry Policy Send RPC request + publicKey
end
Connector->>StatusApp: Trigger user authentication popup
StatusApp->>User: Show authentication popup
User->>StatusApp: Authenticate
alt Connector crash
BrowserPlugin->>Connector: Retry Policy Establish WebSocket connection with token
end
BrowserPlugin->>Connector: Establish WebSocket connection
BrowserPlugin->>Connector: Send API calls over WebSocket
Connector->>StatusApp: forward API calls to StatusApp
alt Connector crash
BrowserPlugin->>Connector: Retry Policy Establish WebSocket connection with token
end
StatusApp->>StatusApp: Lost network connection
StatusApp->>Connector: Status App offline
Connector->>BrowserPlugin: Status App offline1. Websock handover
In this proposal the flow looks like the following
- when launching Status app, we launch the connector and RPC server
- user clicks on Connect Wallet to dApp in the browser plugin
- Browser plugin will send a request to Connector
- if the Status app is running, this will trigger a popup to authenticate the user (Here a request was sent through RPC, I mean the curl command sent by Browser plugin).
- the status desktop will answer with success or failure
- If success, Browser plugin will then establish WS connection to allow for sending signals without prior api call from the browser plugin but also other API calls.
From there :
- API Calls are TLS encrypted over the WS
- If Success, Actions are Authorized
pros:
- Proposal look easy to implement, not overly complex
- Makes use of the RPC server as is for authenticating and getting Websocket endpoint
- Doesn't require updates of the code before using RPC server
cons:
- Initial calls are not secure communications. It should be since we will be sharing keys
- Current proposal relies on TLS. For more robustness, we should use other encryption schemes like Diffie-Hellman for instance
- This proposal doesn't account for multiple browsers identification, using Public Keys for instance would be more secure in that case.
2. Plan
Obsolete tracker
Other proposals
-
Using IPC instead of websocket This was a proposal from Browser plugin team, however, this solution is considered low level and avoided as of now since it requires some analysis for different platforms. Using IPC sholdn't be a problem for Status desktop app, but rather Browser plugin
-
Using websocket without Goeth This was discussed with Andrea during the meeting. Current it's better to use go etherium enabled Websocket since there is no additional development needed.
3. Questions
- [x] Statusd is a standalone, can it be launched along with the rest of the status desktop?
- [x] How does Statusd integrate with Status-go ? (It's standalone, but can it be run as a child process of status-go similar to mediaserver or it has to be launched as standalone only?)
- [x] What is a flow of events towards status-go including RPC server
- [x] How flexible is it to add Websocket for instance for clients to access Status desktop statuses?
MishkaRogachev
Description
Spike to investigate the different ways that we can connect the Status app and a browser plugin.
Acceptance Criteria