Cosmos-sdk: Remove REST Service from CLI

[alexanderbez]

Summary

The aim of the CLI is interact and act as a proxy and command utility with a connected Cosmos-SDK based node running on Tendermint. From the CLI you can primarily create unsigned transactions, query the ledger state, and sign transactions.

There is the ad-hoc ability to also start a REST service (what was once known as the LCD). This is completely misplaced. Arguably, the CLI should not be responsible for this functionality.

Proposal

The REST service should be started with the binary (e.g. gaiad) on a separate port (could still be 1317). One this semantically makes more sense. Two, you may leverage certain functionality by belonging as part of the same process.

We may keep the wiring available for the REST service to be started via the CLI for a release to allow people to migrate or switch over.

/cc @aaronc @marbar3778 @jackzampolin

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[marbar3778]

How does this play into gRPC? I thought gRPC or REST would start with binary by default and the other you would need to manually enable.

[alexanderbez]

Nothing changes on that front. All that is happening is the service is now started automatically in-process with the binary, instead of manually and separately.

gRPC or REST would start with binary by default

Exactly, gRPC and the API both start in-process.

and the other you would need to manually enable.

What is the other?

[jgimeno]

I totally support this, it is the natural way. I remember me searching in the past the flag to execute the REST service in gaiad to realize it was in the CLI.

Good one!

[fedekunze]

I fully support this as well. This was one of the main questions of a colleague of Chainsafe on why did we require to run the REST server as a separate process instead of the same one with the node.

[marbar3778]

Exactly, gRPC and the API both start in-process.

Ah okay I thought this was a given.

What is the other?

meant that if the gRPC process starts automatically then the REST would be optional. This may not be a worry but it may be beneficial to test the load of running both processes on the node.

[alexanderbez]

@jgimeno if you have the bandwidth, this would be a fun issue to pick up! Let me know. If you don't, I take it on. Shouldn't be too hard. We can sync on it.

[jgimeno]

I assign it to me also. :D

[aaronc]

I would even go as far as to question why we have two binaries at all. All the cmd's could live in a single binary and it wouldn't be a problem. Currently 42mb for simcli and 50mb for simd, when the 50mb in simd has everything simcli has. Obviously beyond the scope of this issue, just making an observation...

Also another thing I'd eventually like to see is a bundled https://github.com/caddyserver/caddy server running in the same process for TLS/CORS. Again, just making a note.

[alexanderbez]

Totally agree. Moving CLI over would be something I'd slate for 0.40. Doing the API service should be trivial, so we can do it for 0.39.

[marbar3778]

I would even go as far as to question why we have two binaries at all. All the cmd's could live in a single binary and it wouldn't be a problem. Currently 42mb for simcli and 50mb for simd, when the 50mb in simd has everything simcli has. Obviously beyond the scope of this issue, just making an observation...

[aaronc]

I'll add issues for 0.40