Parity-ethereum: Custom dev chain spec is not creating the expected accounts

[kaladinlight]

_Before filing a new issue, please provide the following information._

I'm running:

• Which Parity version?: 1.8.7
• Which operating system?: Ubuntu 16.04
• How installed?: binaries
• Are you fully synchronized?: no
• Which network are you connected to?: dev
• Did you try to restart the node?: yes

My goal is to use the parity dev chain for testing my solidity contracts. I have gotten this working, but some of the contracts being deployed require a gas limit that is higher than the default provided by the "dev" chain.

After doing some research, it appears that the only location in which the gasLimit can be specified is in the chain spec json file. This sounds simple enough. I copied the parity/ethcore/res/instant_seal.json spec which unless I am mistaken, is the spec used for the "dev" chain option and changed the gasLimit.

In the config.toml file, I point the chain key to the path of my modified instant_seal.json chain spec.

actual
The account(s) specified in the chain spec are never created. I have been able to verify other portions of the chain spec are interpreted, but it looks like the accounts section is not honored or used, or at least the primary funded account isn't. I can't say for sure about the genesis accounts.

expected
I would assume that I would be able to run parity and it would be configured and set up exactly like the "dev" chain save for the different gasLimit.

steps to reproduce
Point your chain in config.toml to a local copy of the dev spec. The test account is not created.

There are multiple versions of the dev chain spec that I have seen online, so the safest bet was to use the instant_seal.json in the parity repo.

[kaladinlight]

Contents of my modified chain spec:

{
    "name": "DevelopmentChain",
    "engine": {
        "instantSeal": null
    },
    "params": {
        "gasLimitBoundDivisor": "0x0400",
        "accountStartNonce": "0x0",
        "maximumExtraDataSize": "0x20",
        "minGasLimit": "0x1388",
        "networkID" : "0x11",
        "registrar" : "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000001337",
        "eip140Transition": "0x0",
        "eip211Transition": "0x0",
        "eip214Transition": "0x0",
        "eip658Transition": "0x0"
    },
    "genesis": {
        "seal": {
            "generic": "0x0"
        },
        "difficulty": "0x20000",
        "author": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
        "timestamp": "0x00",
        "parentHash": "0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000",
        "extraData": "0x",
        "gasLimit": "0x663BE0"
    },
    "accounts": {
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000001": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ecrecover", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 3000, "word": 0 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000002": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "sha256", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 60, "word": 12 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000003": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ripemd160", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 600, "word": 120 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000004": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "identity", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 15, "word": 3 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000005": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "modexp", "activate_at": 0, "pricing": { "modexp": { "divisor": 20 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000006": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "alt_bn128_add", "activate_at": 0, "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 500, "word": 0 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000007": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "alt_bn128_mul", "activate_at": 0, "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 40000, "word": 0 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000008": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "alt_bn128_pairing", "activate_at": 0, "pricing": { "alt_bn128_pairing": { "base": 100000, "pair": 80000 } } } },
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000001337": { "balance": "1", "constructor": 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},
        "00a329c0648769a73afac7f9381e08fb43dbea72": { "balance": "1606938044258990275541962092341162602522202993782792835301376" }
    }
}

This chain spec is slightly different than the dev chain spec on the docs page. I have tried them both with the same results.

[kaladinlight]

Furthermore, I have modified the gasLimit in the actual instant_seal.json file source code and built from source. By using chain="dev" which points to the instant_seal chain spec, I was able to get a dev chain running, with the default account created and the gasLimit set to the desired value. At this point, I attempted to add extra accounts and rebuild from source, but the extra accounts added to the chain spec were not created. This leads me to believe that there is some hard coded logic in place that is causing this behavior?

[AyushyaChitransh]

Genesis file is not responsible for _creating_ accounts. It is responsible for _allocating_ balance to accounts.

How to add balance to your account

You can add your account to the genesis file and the when you open the UI, you can _restore_ your account using any of the options like the seed phrase, or private key, or import account using json file.

[kaladinlight]

@AyushyaChitransh

If the accounts specified in the chain spec are not created and only balances are allocated, who exactly is creating the dev account 00a329c0648769a73afac7f9381e08fb43dbea72 by default?

This was described in the chain sepc docs:

"accounts" contains optional contents of the genesis block, such as simple accounts with balances or contracts. Parity does not include the standard Ethereum builtin contracts by default. These are necessary when writing new contracts in Solidity, since compiled Solidity often refers to them. To make the chain behave like the public Ethereum chain the 4 contracts need to be included in the spec file, as shown in the example below:

"accounts": {
"0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000001": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ecrecover", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 3000, "word": 0 } } } },
"0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000002": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "sha256", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 60, "word": 12 } } } },
"0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000003": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "ripemd160", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 600, "word": 120 } } } },
"0x0000000000000000000000000000000000000004": { "balance": "1", "builtin": { "name": "identity", "pricing": { "linear": { "base": 15, "word": 3 } } } }
}
Other types of accounts that can be specified:

simple accounts with some balance "0x...": { "balance": "100000000000" }
full account state "0x...": { "balance": "100000000000", "nonce": "0", "code": "0x...", "storage": { "0": "0x...", ... } }
contract constructor, similar to sending a transaction with bytecode "0x...": { "balance": "100000000000", "constructor": "0x..." }

That led me to believe that you are able to create other accounts which seemed like functionality you would want to have so that you don't have to manually add accounts and fund them every time you run your dev chain. By allowing for this, you would be able to have several funded dev accounts created automatically and these could be unlocked right off the bat from the config.toml file.

[5chdn]

Exactly, you use an account you know the private key or the recovery phrase for.

The linked tutorial explains that 00a329c0648769a73afac7f9381e08fb43dbea72 is recoverable with an empty phrase.

[kaladinlight]

@5chdn
This doesn't really answer my question though... I understand how the default dev account can be unlocked. The issue I am dealing with is the fact that the chain spec accounts field doesn't work for custom chain spec files.

As mentioned above:

actual
The account(s) specified in the chain spec are never created. I have been able to verify other portions of the chain spec are interpreted, but it looks like the accounts section is not honored or used, or at least the primary funded account isn't. I can't say for sure about the genesis accounts.
expected
I would assume that I would be able to run parity and it would be configured and set up exactly like the "dev" chain save for the different gasLimit.
steps to reproduce
Point your chain in config.toml to a local copy of the dev spec. The test account is not created.
There are multiple versions of the dev chain spec that I have seen online, so the safest bet was to use the instant_seal.json in the parity repo.

I can literally copy the exact contents of the instant_seal.json file that is used for the dev chain. And point the chain at that file and it won't even create the default dev account, not to mention any other accounts one would wish to create.

[AyushyaChitransh]

@kaladinlight Your problem would be solved by following steps described in Demo PoA tutorial

1. Create a chain-spec file and allocate balance to this address 0x00bd138abd70e2f00903268f3db08f2d25677c9e
2. After starting parity, go and restore account and restore the account using phrase node0

Step 1 will allocate balance to an address.
Step 2 will create that address in your parity.

Your expectation is incorrect. When you write something in chain-spec file, it will not allow you to create an account. Account creation system is different from the chain specification system.