[Lightning-dev] Lightning Network Protocol Suite Diagram - Request for feedback

Elliot Heitman elliotheitman at gmail.com
Tue Apr 6 22:09:59 UTC 2021


Hi,

It's great to have someone working on such an important project for
adoption. Great work. I haven't spent much time on lightning so you can
temper my suggestions down with my lack of experience.

The diagram is interesting as a specification to layer mapping. My
understanding is that BOLTs are specifications in neat categories but they
don't articulate the full protocol scope. So it's interesting to have the
mapping but there are categories on the diagram that aren't sitting within
a BOLT. So the question is, can these categories fit within a BOLT (e.g.
via adding scope to a BOLT) or is there a better categorisation for
protocol for the diagram (noting that this could also have a BOLT mapping
for completeness)? My suggestions for other categorisations would be
functional, similar to the intro into lightning (the spark) where it almost
articulates the functional components.

It's not an easy task. But, it will be very valuable once complete.

Regards,

Elliot

On Wed, 7 Apr 2021, 03:23 René Pickhardt via Lightning-dev, <
lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org> wrote:

> Dear fellow Lightning Developers,
>
> as you all probably know Andreas, Roasbeef and I are working on writing
> the book "Mastering the Lightning Network" and I am happy to say that there
> has been quite some progress over the last 18 months. In Particular it lead
> to a diagram of the Lightning Network Protocol Suite which is the reason I
> am sending this email. We would love to have your feedback and criticism
> (not on my little design skills but on the content!). You can find the
> diagram at:
>
>
> https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lightning_Network_Protocol_Suite.png
>
> As a Wikipedia Contributor I shared the current Version on Wikimedia
> commons where the Diagram can easily be updated but the link will stay the
> same as they also allow version control of files. Eventually I am happy to
> open a PR and add this to BOLT 0 or the Readme of the lightning-rfc. But
> first we would welcome and encourage your feedback and discussion.
> Especially the naming of some layers are somewhat novel but also the
> labels for the boxes and the geometry and semantics of the boxes
> themselves.
>
> To give you some context: As you know the BOLTs are somewhat linked and
> intermixed. For example BOLT2 describes the channel state machine with the
> HTLCs which is mainly needed for routing, BOLT 07 is named gossip routing
> though the main onion routing is happening in BOLT 04, ... I am not saying
> that such things would be wrong. However I made the experience that those
> iterdependencies can sometimes be a bit confusing when introducing the
> protocol to new people.
>
> Consequently this lead to plenty of internal discussions which we
> concluded by deciding that we need an architecture diagram for the
> Lightning Network. After a couple internal iterations we believe it is time
> to present our current diagram to the community and hope to get even more
> feedback before we `fix` it and use it also as a guide for some of the
> chapters in the book. You can see a part of our discussions and previous
> versions on github https://github.com/lnbook/lnbook/issues/342
>
> Also please note that BOLT 03 and BOLT 5 which is the Bitcoin stuff is
> currently not part of the diagram at all.
>
> with kind Regards Rene
>
>
>
> --
> https://www.rene-pickhardt.de
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Lightning-dev at lists.linuxfoundation.org
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>
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