In the previous example of key generation and signing, the subset of MPC nodes simply consisted of integers identifying each MPC node, like this:

// Include MPC nodes with player index 0, 2, and 3 in the MPC session.
players := []int{0,2,3}

This is possible because we assume that the MPC nodes are all pre-configured with information about how to communicate with these nodes. In particular, that the public keys used to secure the communication with these MPC nodes can be read from the configuration file.

This makes sense if the TSM consists of a number of static MPC nodes. We say that a remote MPC node is statically configured by a node, if the node only obtains the remote node’s player index, and looks up the actual information, such as URL and public key, from its configuration.

Sometimes, however, we wish to run an MPC session in a more dynamic way, where the public key of a remote node is not statically configured, but instead provided on-the-fly, when the MPC session is requested.

We can modify the example above, to let Node 2 be dynamically configured, by providing the public key for Node 2 in the SessionConfig object used for the MPC session:

context := context.Background()
players := []int{1,2}
player2PublicKey := []byte{0x00, 0x00, ...}
dynamicPublicKeys := map[int][]byte{
  2: player2PublicKey,
}
sessionConfig := tsm.NewSessionConfig(sessionID, players, dynamicPublicKeys)
curveName := ec.Secp256k1.Name()
keyID, err := client.ECDSA().GenerateKey(context, sessionConfig, threshold, curveName, "")

The provided public key, player2PublicKey in this example, must match the private key in the configuration file of MPC Node 2.

The MPC nodes do not have to agree on whether a certain node is statically or dynamically configured. Some nodes may refer to the remote node by a player index, and keep its public key in the configuration, while other nodes provide the same key dynamically. The MPC session will start, as long as all SDKs agree on the provided public keys of each player, whether these were statically or dynamically configured.

📘
Note
If an MPC node has the public key for another MPC node configured statically in its configuration file, and it receives a request for an MPC session in which the same node is also dynamically configured, the MPC node will choose the public key from its static configuration and ignore the dynamic public key.

Use Case: MPC Node Multi-Tenancy

Dynamic node configuration is useful for implementing MPC node multi-tenancy. Consider, for example, a a wallet provider that hosts one MPC node as a server. The wallet provider has a number of wallet users, and each user’s key should be secret shared between the user’s mobile device and the wallet provider, in order to obtain “split” custody.

This can be achieved with the TSM, with dynamic node configuration, as in the following picture:

The setup consists of a single TSM with two MPC nodes, Node 1 and Node 2. Node 2 runs on a server hosted by the wallet provider. There are multiple instances of Node 1, each instance runs embedded in a library, together with the TSM SDK, on one of the user’s mobile devices. Each MPC node instance is connected to its own database, and controlled by its own SDK. In the picture above, there are two keys: Key A, secret shared using key shares A1 and A2; and Key B secret shared as B1, B2. Note that Node 2 holds one share of each key in its database (A2 and B2), while each instance of Node 1 only holds a share of the key belonging to the user.

To generate a signature using the key of User A, the wallet provider and User A’s mobile device first need to agree on the message to sign, and a session ID. To generate the signature, the wallet provider also needs to fetch the public key used for communicating securely with the instance of Node 1 that is running on User A’s mobile device. Then, to start the MPC signing session, Sign must be called on both the SDK on the Node 1 instance on User A’s mobile, and the SDK of Node 2. When calling Sign on the SDK controlling Node 2, the public key of User A must be dynamically provided.

The number of mobile devices running an instance of Node 1 can be scaled up and down, dynamically, depending on the number of users. The wallet provider just needs to maintain a mapping of users to the public keys used for communicating with the MPC node instance running on the user’s device. When running an MPC session with a particular user, the wallet provider must dynamically provide this key to the SDK.

The MPC node multi-tenancy described here should not be confused with the kind of multi-tenancy that can be obtained by having different users log into the TSM with different API keys.

📘
Dynamic Nodes and TLS Communication
If the MPC nodes are configured to communicate using a message broker (AMQP) then any node, or even all of the nodes, in an MPC session can be dynamically configured.
But if nodes communicate with each other using direct TLS, then it is only the MPC node with the smallest player index, that can have it’s public key dynamically provided for each MPC operation. A single dynamic node is enough for the wallet provider use case above.
You can read more about the different ways to set up communication between the MPC nodes, e.g., broker based or TLS-based communication, in this section.

Code Example

The following is a full example with three MPC nodes, that you can run locally using Docker or Kubernetes.

See more in our Local Deployment tutorial about how to run a Builder Vault instance with the MPC nodes running in Docker containers on your local machine.

The two nodes Node 1 and Node 2 are statically configured, while Node 0 is dynamically configured. The configuration files only contain public keys for the two static nodes:

[Player]
	Index = 0
	PrivateKey = "MHcCAQEEICgtHkgYOBW0cKUWaJxXN5fQeOUcJOPSzdan0GBHJcAloAoGCCqGSM49AwEHoUQDQgAE0OqvUD8ezIIHktmgrDIRh7bwQ3k9G8HZochWXovvQjCm4wQiJBHunl82I9pbeVLD9fa/40Fv8/NRcYiGh/cyUw=="

[Players.1]
	Address = "tsm-node1:9001?connectionPoolSize=6&connectionLifetime=5m"
	PublicKey = "MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEzsWqmbQ6uG/G7iqAZQXxoReQk0WE6hGw+I8UMyB3Y6jnoEcyefzKklCCEupMWrsV1l79XBRQrvJTxlqMOQ5ahQ=="

[Players.2]
	Address = "tsm-node2:9002?connectionPoolSize=6&connectionLifetime=5m"
	PublicKey = "MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAE/t4PfL0KQQAWpZ1q6CikFXw0GeY3lgTUDt8HPT0Bw3kCJ44jIp8QUYZNCNIO/ofZPNwkKi8i1hffK5wheWbJWA=="
  
[Database]
	DriverName = "sqlite3"
	DataSourceName = "/tmp/tsm_node_0.sqlite"
	EncryptorMasterPassword = "Q3DTN6BVn2OBhmdzG9KXOci5OIgTQObZh23e3D044f6IN2StBDgBP49jJ0X8NPGN"

[SDKServer]
  Port = 8000

[[Authentication.APIKeys]]
  APIKey = "IntV2sEZRwwd2F+UkDLC7zmFhwvpxAwb0eQKwdEnSZU="  # apikey0
  ApplicationID = "demoapp"

[DKLS19]

[Player]
  Index = 1
  PrivateKey = "MHcCAQEEIKDf8q1LEUHKADBmq4mTxo7t3gLvgfE6gd26g5qO2cProAoGCCqGSM49AwEHoUQDQgAEzsWqmbQ6uG/G7iqAZQXxoReQk0WE6hGw+I8UMyB3Y6jnoEcyefzKklCCEupMWrsV1l79XBRQrvJTxlqMOQ5ahQ=="

[Players.2]
  Address = "tsm-node2:9002?connectionPoolSize=6&connectionLifetime=5m"
  PublicKey = "MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAE/t4PfL0KQQAWpZ1q6CikFXw0GeY3lgTUDt8HPT0Bw3kCJ44jIp8QUYZNCNIO/ofZPNwkKi8i1hffK5wheWbJWA=="

[Database]
    DriverName = "sqlite3"
    DataSourceName = "/tmp/tsm_node_1.sqlite"
    EncryptorMasterPassword = "encryptorMasterPassword1"

[MPCTCPServer]
  Port = 9001

[SDKServer]
  Port = 8001

[[Authentication.APIKeys]]
  APIKey = "1PebMT+BBvWvEIrZb/UWIi2/1aCrUvQwjksa0ddA3mA=" # apikey1
  ApplicationID = "demoapp"

[DKLS19]

[Player]
  Index = 2
  PrivateKey = "MHcCAQEEIHEzQUbLNHT3dKMG1KGfEvmhXdRflS/awKMy0jlZ2I01oAoGCCqGSM49AwEHoUQDQgAE/t4PfL0KQQAWpZ1q6CikFXw0GeY3lgTUDt8HPT0Bw3kCJ44jIp8QUYZNCNIO/ofZPNwkKi8i1hffK5wheWbJWA=="

[Players.1]
  Address = "tsm-node1:9001?connectionPoolSize=6&connectionLifetime=5m"
  PublicKey = "MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAEzsWqmbQ6uG/G7iqAZQXxoReQk0WE6hGw+I8UMyB3Y6jnoEcyefzKklCCEupMWrsV1l79XBRQrvJTxlqMOQ5ahQ=="

[Database]
    DriverName = "sqlite3"
    DataSourceName = "/tmp/tsm_node_2.sqlite"
    EncryptorMasterPassword = "encryptorMasterPassword2"

[MPCTCPServer]
  Port = 9002

[SDKServer]
  Port = 8002

[[Authentication.APIKeys]]
  APIKey = "FfrI+hyZAiVosAi53wewS0U1SsXKR0AEHZBM088rOeM="  # apikey2
  ApplicationID = "demoapp"

[DKLS19]

The node containers can be run using this:

version: "3.7"

services:

  tsm-node0:
    container_name: tsm-node0
    image: nexus.sepior.net:19001/tsm-node:latest
    networks:
      - tsm
    ports:
      - "8500:8000"
      - "9000:9000"
    environment:
      - CONFIG_FILE=/config/config.toml
    volumes:
      - ./config0.toml:/config/config.toml

  tsm-node1:
    container_name: tsm-node1
    image: nexus.sepior.net:19001/tsm-node:latest
    networks:
      - tsm
    ports:
      - "8501:8001"
      - "9001:9001"
    environment:
      - CONFIG_FILE=/config/config.toml
    volumes:
      - ./config1.toml:/config/config.toml

  tsm-node2:
    container_name: tsm-node2
    image: nexus.sepior.net:19001/tsm-node:latest
    networks:
      - tsm
    ports:
      - "8502:8002"
      - "9002:9002"
    environment:
      - CONFIG_FILE=/config/config.toml
    volumes:
      - ./config2.toml:/config/config.toml

networks:
  tsm:

When running an MPC session, the players then provide the public key for Node 0 as part of the session configuration:

package main

import (
	"context"
	"encoding/base64"
	"fmt"
	"gitlab.com/sepior/go-tsm-sdkv2/ec"
	"gitlab.com/sepior/go-tsm-sdkv2/tsm"
	"golang.org/x/sync/errgroup"
)

func main() {

	// Create clients for each of the nodes

	configs := []*tsm.Configuration{
		tsm.Configuration{URL: "http://localhost:8500"}.WithAPIKeyAuthentication("apikey0"),
		tsm.Configuration{URL: "http://localhost:8501"}.WithAPIKeyAuthentication("apikey1"),
		tsm.Configuration{URL: "http://localhost:8502"}.WithAPIKeyAuthentication("apikey2"),
	}

	clients := make([]*tsm.Client, len(configs))
	for i, config := range configs {
		var err error
		if clients[i], err = tsm.NewClient(config); err != nil {
			panic(err)
		}
	}

	// Generate a key, with MPC Node 0 dynamically configured

	threshold := 1            // The security threshold of the key
	players := []int{0, 1, 2} // The players (nodes) that should generate a sharing of the key
	curveName := ec.Secp256k1.Name()

	// Provide Node 0 public key dynamically
	player0PublicTenantKey, err := base64.StdEncoding.DecodeString("MFkwEwYHKoZIzj0CAQYIKoZIzj0DAQcDQgAE0OqvUD8ezIIHktmgrDIRh7bwQ3k9G8HZochWXovvQjCm4wQiJBHunl82I9pbeVLD9fa/40Fv8/NRcYiGh/cyUw==")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	dynamicPublicKeys := map[int][]byte{
		0: player0PublicTenantKey,
	}

	sessionID := tsm.GenerateSessionID()
	sessionConfig := tsm.NewSessionConfig(sessionID, players, dynamicPublicKeys)
	ctx := context.Background()

	keyIDs := make([]string, len(clients))
	var eg errgroup.Group
	for i, client := range clients {
		client, i := client, i
		eg.Go(func() error {
			var err error
			keyIDs[i], err = client.ECDSA().GenerateKey(ctx, sessionConfig, threshold, curveName, "")
			return err
		})
	}
	if err := eg.Wait(); err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}

	fmt.Println("Generated key with ID:", keyIDs[0])

}

In this example, all three nodes run in docker containers. But it is also possible to run the dynamic (“multi-tenant”) node on a mobile device, as described in the next section.

Dynamic Node Configuration

📘
Note

Use Case: MPC Node Multi-Tenancy

📘
Dynamic Nodes and TLS Communication

Code Example

📘Note

Use Case: MPC Node Multi-Tenancy

📘Dynamic Nodes and TLS Communication

Code Example

📘
Note

📘
Dynamic Nodes and TLS Communication