Overview

Overview

Synopsis

Learn about the 09-localhost light client module.

The 09-localhost light client module implements a stateless localhost loopback client with the ability to send and receive IBC packets to and from the same state machine.

Context

In a multichain environment, application developers will be used to developing cross-chain applications through IBC. From their point of view, whether or not they are interacting with multiple modules on the same chain or on different chains should not matter. The localhost client module enables a unified interface to interact with different applications on a single chain, using the familiar IBC application layer semantics.

Implementation

There exists a localhost light client module which can be invoked with the client identifier 09-localhost. The light client is stateless, so the ClientState is constructed on demand when required.

To supplement this, a sentinel ConnectionEnd is stored in core IBC state with the connection identifier connection-localhost. This enables IBC applications to create channels directly on top of the sentinel connection which leverage the 09-localhost loopback functionality.

State verification for channel state in handshakes or processing packets is reduced in complexity, the 09-localhost client can simply compare bytes stored under the standardized key paths.

Localhost vs regular client

The localhost client aims to provide a unified approach to interacting with applications on a single chain, as the IBC application layer provides for cross-chain interactions. To achieve this unified interface though, there are a number of differences under the hood compared to a ‘regular’ IBC client (excluding 06-solomachine and 09-localhost itself).

The table below lists some important differences:

	Regular client	Localhost
Number of clients	Many instances of a client type corresponding to different counterparties	A single sentinel client with the client identifier 09-localhost
Client creation	Relayer (permissionless)	Implicitly made available by the 02-client submodule in core IBC
Client updates	Relayer submits headers using MsgUpdateClient	No client updates are required as the localhost implementation is stateless
Number of connections	Many connections, 1 (or more) per client	A single sentinel connection with the connection identifier connection-localhost
Connection creation	Connection handshake, provided underlying client	Sentinel ConnectionEnd is created and set in store in the InitGenesis handler of the 03-connection submodule in core IBC
Counterparty	Underlying client, representing another chain	Client with identifier 09-localhost in same chain
VerifyMembership and VerifyNonMembership	Performs proof verification using consensus state roots	Performs state verification using key-value lookups in the core IBC store
ClientState storage	ClientState stored and directly provable with VerifyMembership	Stateless, so ClientState is not provable directly with VerifyMembership