Progress on IBC rate limit spec (#3190)

* Progress on IBC rate limit spec

* Fix CI

* Fix lints

* More updates

* fix mdlinter

* More notes

* one more todo

* More README update

* Update x/ibc-rate-limit/README.md

Co-authored-by: Adam Tucker <adam@osmosis.team>

Co-authored-by: Adam Tucker <adam@osmosis.team>

.github/workflows/contracts.yml

@@ -12,11 +12,11 @@ on:
 
 jobs:
   test:
-    name: Test Suite
+    name: Test Cosmwasm Contracts
     runs-on: ubuntu-latest
     strategy:
       matrix:
-        contract: [{workdir: ./x/ibc-rate-limit/, output: testdata/rate_limiter.wasm, build: artifacts/rate_limiter-x86_64.wasm, name: rate_limiter}]
+        contract: [{workdir: ./x/ibc-rate-limit/, output: bytecode/rate_limiter.wasm, build: artifacts/rate_limiter-x86_64.wasm, name: rate_limiter}]
 
     steps:
       - name: Checkout sources

.github/workflows/lint.yml

@@ -54,9 +54,4 @@ jobs:
           # within `super-linter`.
           fetch-depth: 0
       - name: Run documentation linter
-        uses: github/super-linter@v4
+        run: make mdlint
-        env:
-          VALIDATE_ALL_CODEBASE: false
-          VALIDATE_MARKDOWN: true
-          DEFAULT_BRANCH: main
-          GITHUB_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.GITHUB_TOKEN }}

.markdownlint.yml

@@ -12,8 +12,6 @@ MD042: true
 MD048: true
 MD051: true
 # MD004: false
-# # Can't disable MD007 :/
-# MD007: false
 # MD009: false
 # MD010:
 #   code_blocks: false

tests/e2e/e2e_test.go

@@ -162,7 +162,7 @@ func (s *IntegrationTestSuite) TestIBCTokenTransferRateLimiting() {
 	// co up two levels
 	projectDir := filepath.Dir(filepath.Dir(wd))
 	fmt.Println(wd, projectDir)
-	err = copyFile(projectDir+"/x/ibc-rate-limit/testdata/rate_limiter.wasm", wd+"/scripts/rate_limiter.wasm")
+	err = copyFile(projectDir+"/x/ibc-rate-limit/bytecode/rate_limiter.wasm", wd+"/scripts/rate_limiter.wasm")
 	s.NoError(err)
 	node.StoreWasmCode("rate_limiter.wasm", initialization.ValidatorWalletName)
 	chainA.LatestCodeId += 1

x/ibc-rate-limit/README.md

@@ -1,26 +1,119 @@
-# # IBC Rate Limit
+# IBC Rate Limit
 
-The ``IBC Rate Limit`` middleware implements an [IBC Middleware](https://github.com/cosmos/ibc-go/blob/f57170b1d4dd202a3c6c1c61dcf302b6a9546405/docs/ibc/middleware/develop.md) 
+The IBC Rate Limit module is responsible for adding a governance-configurable rate limit to IBC transfers.
-that wraps a [transfer](https://ibc.cosmos.network/main/apps/transfer/overview.html) app to regulate how much value can
+This is a safety control, intended to protect assets on osmosis in event of:
-flow in and out of the chain for a specific denom and channel.
 
-## Contents
+* a bug/hack on osmosis
+* a bug/hack on the counter-party chain
+* a bug/hack in IBC itself
 
-1. **[Concepts](#concepts)**
+This is done in exchange for a potential (one-way) bridge liveness tradeoff, in periods of high deposits or withdrawals.
-2. **[Parameters](#parameters)**
-3. **[Contract](#contract)**
-4. **[Integration](#integration)**
 
-## Concepts
+The architecture of this package is a minimal go package which implements an [IBC Middleware](https://github.com/cosmos/ibc-go/blob/f57170b1d4dd202a3c6c1c61dcf302b6a9546405/docs/ibc/middleware/develop.md) that wraps the [ICS20 transfer](https://ibc.cosmos.network/main/apps/transfer/overview.html) app, and calls into a cosmwasm contract.
+The cosmwasm contract then has all of the actual IBC rate limiting logic.
+The Cosmwasm code can be found in the [`contracts`](./contracts/) package, with bytecode findable in the [`bytecode`](./bytecode/) folder. The cosmwasm VM usage allows Osmosis chain governance to choose to change this safety control with no hard forks, via a parameter change proposal, a great mitigation for faster threat adaptavity.
 
-### Overview
+The status of the module is being in a state suitable for some initial governance settable rate limits for high value bridged assets.
+Its not in its long term / end state for all channels by any means, but does act as a strong protection we
+can instantiate today for high value IBC connections.
 
-The `x/ibc-rate-limit` module implements an IBC middleware and a transfer app wrapper. The middleware checks if the 
+## Motivation
-amount of value of a specific denom transferred through a channel has exceeded a quota defined by governance for 
-that channel/denom. These checks are handled through a CosmWasm contract. The contract to be used for this is 
-configured via a parameter.
 
-### Middleware
+The motivation of IBC-rate-limit comes from the empirical observations of blockchain bridge hacks that a rate limit would have massively reduced the stolen amount of assets in:
+
+- [Polynetwork Bridge Hack ($611 million)](https://rekt.news/polynetwork-rekt/)
+- [BNB Bridge Hack ($586 million)](https://rekt.news/bnb-bridge-rekt/)
+- [Wormhole Bridge Hack ($326 million)](https://rekt.news/wormhole-rekt/)
+- [Nomad Bridge Hack ($190 million)](https://rekt.news/nomad-rekt/)
+- [Harmony Bridge Hack ($100 million)](https://rekt.news/harmony-rekt/) - (Would require rate limit + monitoring)
+- [Dragonberry IBC bug](https://forum.cosmos.network/t/ibc-security-advisory-dragonberry/7702) (can't yet disclose amount at risk, but was saved due to being found first by altruistic Osmosis core developers)
+
+In the presence of a software bug on Osmosis, IBC itself, or on a counterparty chain, we would like to prevent the bridge from being fully depegged.
+This stems from the idea that a 30% asset depeg is ~infinitely better than a 100% depeg.
+Its _crazy_ that today these complex bridged assets can instantly go to 0 in event of bug.
+The goal of a rate limit is to raise an alert that something has potentially gone wrong, allowing validators and developers to have time to analyze, react, and protect larger portions of user funds.
+
+The thesis of this is that, it is worthwile to sacrifice liveness in the case of legitimate demand to send extreme amounts of funds, to prevent the terrible long-tail full fund risks.
+Rate limits aren't the end-all of safety controls, they're merely the simplest automated one. More should be explored and added onto IBC!
+
+## Rate limit types
+
+We express rate limits in time-based periods.
+This means, we set rate limits for (say) 6-hour, daily, and weekly intervals.
+The rate limit for a given time period stores the relevant amount of assets at the start of the rate limit.
+Rate limits are then defined on percentage terms of the asset.
+The time windows for rate limits are currently _not_ rolling, they have discrete start/end times.
+
+We allow setting separate rate limits for the inflow and outflow of assets.
+We do all of our rate limits based on the _net flow_ of assets on a channel pair. This prevents DOS issues, of someone repeatedly sending assets back and forth, to trigger rate limits and break liveness.
+
+We currently envision creating two kinds of rate limits:
+
+* Per denomination rate limits
+   - allows safety statements like "Only 30% of Stars on Osmosis can flow out in one day" or "The amount of Atom on Osmosis can at most double per day".
+* Per channel rate limits
+   - Limit the total inflow and outflow on a given IBC channel, based on "USDC" equivalent, using Osmosis as the price oracle.
+
+We currently only implement per denomination rate limits for non-native assets. We do not yet implement channel based rate limits.
+
+Currently these rate limits automatically "expire" at the end of the quota duration. TODO: Think of better designs here. E.g. can we have a constant number of subsequent quotas start filled? Or perhaps harmonically decreasing amounts of next few quotas pre-filled? Halted until DAO override seems not-great.
+
+## Instantiating rate limits
+
+Today all rate limit quotas must be set manually by governance.
+In the future, we should design towards some conservative rate limit to add as a safety-backstop automatically for channels.
+Ideas for how this could look:
+
+* One month after a channel has been created, automatically add in some USDC-based rate limit
+* One month after governance incentivizes an asset, add on a per-denomination rate limit.
+
+Definitely needs far more ideation and iteration!
+
+## Parameterizing the rate limit
+
+One element is we don't want any rate limit timespan thats too short, e.g. not enough time for humans to react to. So we wouldn't want a 1 hour rate limit, unless we think that if its hit, it could be assessed within an hour.
+
+### Handling rate limit boundaries
+
+We want to be safe against the case where say we have a daily rate limit ending at a given time, and an adversary attempts to attack near the boundary window.
+We would not like them to be able to "double extract funds" by timing their extraction near a window boundary.
+
+Admittedly, not a lot of thought has been put into how to deal with this well.
+Right now we envision simply handling this by saying if you want a quota of duration D, instead include two quotas of duration D, but offset by `D/2` from each other.
+
+Ideally we can change windows to be more 'rolling' in the future, to avoid this overhead and more cleanly handle the problem. (Perhaps rolling ~1 hour at a time)
+
+### Inflow parameterization
+
+The "Inflow" side of a rate limit is essentially protection against unforeseen bug on a counterparty chain.
+This can be quite conservative (e.g. bridged amount doubling in one week). This covers a few cases:
+
+* Counter-party chain B having a token theft attack
+   - TODO: description of how this looks
+* Counter-party chain B runaway mint
+   - TODO: description of how this looks
+* IBC theft
+   - TODO: description of how this looks
+
+It does get more complex when the counterparty chain is itself a DEX, but this is still much more protection than nothing.
+
+### Outflow parameterization
+
+The "Outflow" side of a rate limit is protection against a bug on Osmosis OR IBC.
+This has potential for much more user-frustrating issues, if set too low.
+E.g. if theres some event that causes many people to suddenly withdraw many STARS or many USDC.
+
+So this parameterization has to contend with being a tradeoff of withdrawal liveness in high volatility periods vs being a crucial safety rail, in event of on-Osmosis bug.
+
+TODO: Better fill out
+
+### Example suggested parameterization
+
+## Code structure
+
+As mentioned at the beginning of the README, the go code is a relatively minimal ICS 20 wrapper, that dispatches relevant calls to a cosmwasm contract that implements the rate limiting functionality.
+
+### Go Middleware
 
 To achieve this, the middleware  needs to implement  the `porttypes.Middleware` interface and the
 `porttypes.ICS4Wrapper` interface. This allows the middleware to send and receive IBC messages by wrapping 
@@ -28,23 +121,14 @@ any IBC module, and be used as an ICS4 wrapper by a transfer module (for sending
 
 Of those interfaces, just the following methods have custom logic:
 
-* `ICS4Wrapper.SendPacket` adds tracking of value sent via an ibc channel 
+* `ICS4Wrapper.SendPacket` forwards to contract, with intent of tracking of value sent via an ibc channel 
-* `Middleware.OnRecvPacket` adds tracking of value received via an ibc channel 
+* `Middleware.OnRecvPacket` forwards to contract, with intent of tracking of value received via an ibc channel 
-* `Middleware.OnAcknowledgementPacket` undos the tracking of a sent packet if the acknowledgment is not a success
+* `Middleware.OnAcknowledgementPacket` forwards to contract, with intent of undoing the tracking of a sent packet if the acknowledgment is not a success
-* `OnTimeoutPacket` undos the tracking of a sent packet if the packet times out (is not relayed)
+* `OnTimeoutPacket` forwards to contract, with intent of undoing the tracking of a sent packet if the packet times out (is not relayed)
 
 All other methods from those interfaces are passthroughs to the underlying implementations.
 
-### Contract Concepts
+#### Parameters
-
-The tracking contract uses the following concepts
-
-1. **RateLimit** - tracks the value flow transferred and the quota for a path.
-2. **Path** - is a (denom, channel) pair.
-3. **Flow** - tracks the value that has moved through a path during the current time window.
-4. **Quota** - is the percentage of the denom's total value that can be transferred through the path in a given period of time (duration)
-
-## Parameters
 
 The middleware uses the following parameters:
 
@@ -55,23 +139,45 @@ The middleware uses the following parameters:
 1. **ContractAddress** -
    The contract address is the address of an instantiated version of the contract provided under `./contracts/`
 
-## Contract
+### Cosmwasm Contract Concepts
 
-### Messages
+Something to keep in mind with all of the code, is that we have to reason separately about every item in the following matrix:
+
+|     Native Token     |     Non-Native Token     |
+|----------------------|--------------------------|
+| Send Native Token    | Send Non-Native Token    |
+| Receive Native Token | Receive Non-Native Token |
+| Timeout Native Send  | Timeout Non-native Send  |
+
+(Error ACK can reuse the same code as timeout)
+
+TODO: Spend more time on sudo messages in the following description. We need to better describe how we map the quota concepts onto the code.
+Need to describe how we get the quota beginning balance, and that its different for sends and receives.
+Explain intracacies of tracking that a timeout and/or ErrorAck must appear from the same quota, else we ignore its update to the quotas.
+
+
+The tracking contract uses the following concepts
+
+1. **RateLimit** - tracks the value flow transferred and the quota for a path.
+2. **Path** - is a (denom, channel) pair.
+3. **Flow** - tracks the value that has moved through a path during the current time window.
+4. **Quota** - is the percentage of the denom's total value that can be transferred through the path in a given period of time (duration)
+
+#### Messages
 
 The contract specifies the following messages:
 
-#### Query
+##### Query
 
 * GetQuotas - Returns the quotas for a path
 
-#### Exec
+##### Exec
 
 * AddPath - Adds a list of quotas for a path
 * RemovePath - Removes a path
 * ResetPathQuota - If a rate limit has been reached, the contract's governance address can reset the quota so that transfers are allowed again
 
-#### Sudo
+##### Sudo
 
 Sudo messages can only be executed by the chain.
 
@@ -79,7 +185,7 @@ Sudo messages can only be executed by the chain.
 * RecvPacket - Increments the amount used out of the receive quota and checks that the receive is allowed. If it isn't, it will return a RateLimitExceeded error
 * UndoSend - If a send has failed, the undo message is used to remove its cost from the send quota
 
-## Integration
+### Integration
 
 The rate limit middleware wraps the `transferIBCModule` and is added as the entry route for IBC transfers.
 
@@ -87,3 +193,30 @@ The module is also provided to the underlying `transferIBCModule` as its `ICS4Wr
 pointed to a channel, which also implements the `ICS4Wrapper` interface.
 
 This integration can be seen in [osmosis/app/keepers/keepers.go](https://github.com/osmosis-labs/osmosis/blob/main/app/keepers/keepers.go)
+
+## Testing strategy
+
+TODO: Fill this out
+
+## Known Future work
+
+Items that've been highlighted above:
+
+* Making automated rate limits get added for channels, instead of manual configuration only
+* Improving parameterization strategies / data analysis
+* Adding the USDC based rate limits
+* We need better strategies for how rate limits "expire".
+
+Not yet highlighted
+
+* Making monitoring tooling to know when approaching rate limiting and when they're hit
+* Making tooling to easily give us summaries we can use, to reason about "bug or not bug" in event of rate limit being hit
+* Enabling ways to pre-declare large transfers so as to not hit rate limits.
+   * Perhaps you can on-chain declare intent to send these assets with a large delay, that raises monitoring but bypasses rate limits?
+   * Maybe contract-based tooling to split up the transfer suffices?
+* Strategies to account for high volatility periods without hitting rate limits
+   * Can imagine "Hop network" style markets emerging
+   * Could imagine tieng it into looking at AMM volatility, or off-chain oracles
+      * but these are both things we should be wary of security bugs in.
+      * Maybe [constraint based programming with tracking of provenance](https://youtu.be/HB5TrK7A4pI?t=2852) as a solution
+* Analyze changing denom-based rate limits, to just overall withdrawal amount for Osmosis

x/ibc-rate-limit/testutil/wasm.go

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ func (chain *TestChain) StoreContractCode(suite *suite.Suite) {
 	osmosisApp := chain.GetOsmosisApp()
 
 	govKeeper := osmosisApp.GovKeeper
-	wasmCode, err := ioutil.ReadFile("./testdata/rate_limiter.wasm")
+	wasmCode, err := ioutil.ReadFile("./bytecode/rate_limiter.wasm")
 	suite.Require().NoError(err)
 
 	addr := osmosisApp.AccountKeeper.GetModuleAddress(govtypes.ModuleName)