Jail and unjail

Vordium never takes a validator's stake. There is no slashing — not for downtime, not for double-signing, not at any rate. A validator that misbehaves or goes offline is jailed: it stops earning until it is unjailed.

What jails a validator

• Going offline — missing —.
• Double-signing — a validator proven to have signed two different votes in the same round is jailed too.
• Joining — a new validator enters the set jailed.

A jailed validator neither votes nor leads heights nor earns. The registry shows why it is jailed (jail_reason) and until when (jailed_until_ms).

How long

A validator that goes offline is jailed: — for a first offence, doubling on each repeat within 30 days, up to 128 hours.

Unjail

Once the jail period is over and the node has caught up (sync_state is live), the validator sends its own unjail request with the public operator tool, signed with its validator key:

python3 testnet/tools/vordium-unjail.py --network testnet --nonce 1         # prints the message it will sign
python3 testnet/tools/vordium-unjail.py --network testnet --nonce 1 --go    # signs and sends it

• --nonce is the validator's next unused operation nonce: 1 the first time, one higher each time after.
• The tool sends through the public endpoint; the validator's own node also takes it and passes it on.
• It refuses, and signs nothing, when the validator is not jailed, the jail period is not over, or the bond is below the minimum.

The request is a text message naming the chain and its genesis, sent to POST /submit; a 202 means received. The validator is seated from the next epoch. On the main network the tool is mainnet/tools/vordium-unjail.py with --network mainnet.