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Clarify data column sidecar validation rules#4880

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jtraglia merged 3 commits intoethereum:masterfrom
raulk:epbs/column-validation-master
Jan 30, 2026
Merged

Clarify data column sidecar validation rules#4880
jtraglia merged 3 commits intoethereum:masterfrom
raulk:epbs/column-validation-master

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@raulk raulk commented Jan 29, 2026

Ideally this would be merged on top of #4875.

Given that columns are no longer self-sufficient for the purposes of validation and they now depend on the current block containing the bid, it's appropriate to raise this MAY to a MUST to properly deal with race conditions.

Concretely, if we receive columns before the block, clients not implementing the MAY would discard and mark them as seen, therefore preventing later copies from being reconsidered, even if the block was made available in the interim.

Note: this was probably inherited from the previous spec, which only triggered this condition if the parent of the inlined beacon block header was unknown (i.e. not in intra-slot races).

Additionally, we add the requirement to unwind and retroactively downscore forwarding peers when the column turned out to be invalid, if we had to defer its validation. Gossipsub implementations currently have no mechanism for this, but it should be farily simple to implement.

Similarly, we add the requirement that clients re-broadcast columns after passing deferred validation, thus resuming the propagation that would've taken place originally. In the current gossipsub, it's possible our peers could've sent IDONTWANTs and IHAVEs in the meantime, and implementations should already be equipped to suppress the sends in those scenarios.

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raulk commented Jan 29, 2026

@kasey My observation is that we're getting closer to needing the "offload then callback" mechanism for Gossipsub validation.

@jtraglia jtraglia changed the title Gloas: clarify column sidecar validation rules Clarify data column sidecar validation rules Jan 29, 2026
@jtraglia jtraglia merged commit 52de028 into ethereum:master Jan 30, 2026
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@raulk raulk deleted the epbs/column-validation-master branch January 30, 2026 22:57
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3 participants