In Homestead, geth creates an account after a transaction that goes OOG

[pirapira]

On Homestead, Geth creates an account after a transaction that goes OOG. The transaction has no nested call, so the whole transaction should be reverted.

How to reproduce

On master (5ba9225)

$ make all
$ wget https://gist.githubusercontent.com/pirapira/a95202ac5c3c8fe38e756e37760c0c92/raw/42af23a7eb6eec23c78224f1bda52ee27a929c02/oog.json
$ build/bin/evm --verbosity 10 --dump statetest oog.json

shows

DEBUG[09-08|13:23:40] Trie cache stats after commit            misses=0 unloads=0
DEBUG[09-08|13:23:40] VM returned with error                   err="out of gas"
DEBUG[09-08|13:23:40] Trie cache stats after commit            misses=0 unloads=0
[
  {
    "name": "randomStatetest645",
    "pass": false,
    "fork": "Homestead",
    "error": "post state root mismatch: got 61b79e0d2bc370a210f5091af0509a1d83661dbda2d9e2abe46b60e884c13c70, want 80dfd03978291076e5ba586b1954191fbc909808cb7719834a57934004c96a6a",
    "state": {
      "root": "61b79e0d2bc370a210f5091af0509a1d83661dbda2d9e2abe46b60e884c13c70",
      "accounts": {
        "0000000000000000000000000000000000000003": {
          "balance": "0",
          "nonce": 0,
          "root": "56e81f171bcc55a6ff8345e692c0f86e5b48e01b996cadc001622fb5e363b421",
          "codeHash": "c5d2460186f7233c927e7db2dcc703c0e500b653ca82273b7bfad8045d85a470",
          "code": "",
          "storage": {}
        },
        "1000000000000000000000000000000000000000": {
          "balance": "13599452106124161378",
          "nonce": 29,
          "root": "56e81f171bcc55a6ff8345e692c0f86e5b48e01b996cadc001622fb5e363b421",
          "codeHash": "8f5b3a48e6f8c3d23bdfc60de8bef0ab0536dbfc397f85eeca66199f3c244aef",
          "code": "58679b8e24022d8c28f3620b55a06384bc2f83136515b61916f0f579ea3e9d28799d45aa77bf1fc1a84edf0193dea2d610209eaaf9c814",
          "storage": {}
        },
        "a94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b": {
          "balance": "8007242901501240392",
          "nonce": 1,
          "root": "56e81f171bcc55a6ff8345e692c0f86e5b48e01b996cadc001622fb5e363b421",
          "codeHash": "c5d2460186f7233c927e7db2dcc703c0e500b653ca82273b7bfad8045d85a470",
          "code": "",
          "storage": {}
        },
        "b94f5374fce5edbc8e2a8697c15331677e6ebf0b": {
          "balance": "3162036930730311545",
          "nonce": 175,
          "root": "56e81f171bcc55a6ff8345e692c0f86e5b48e01b996cadc001622fb5e363b421",
          "codeHash": "c848d630219b53525092815814072628e861e8669204095b6a71362d007a09c8",
          "code": "63cbb01282621d72de5268022948f746c938a0cb7c01ef17f23ed237d9f3262c4eb1b95112820595b127c516074df06223db7e0c396eb18074f148d96fd766dda35b6cc250661b5f83f0ed625ba68a5ff49aa1",
          "storage": {}
        },
        "ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff": {
          "balance": "12920981329295898785",
          "nonce": 28,
          "root": "56e81f171bcc55a6ff8345e692c0f86e5b48e01b996cadc001622fb5e363b421",
          "codeHash": "c5d2460186f7233c927e7db2dcc703c0e500b653ca82273b7bfad8045d85a470",
          "code": "",
          "storage": {}
        }
      }
    }
  }
]

Why I think this is a problem

The output indicates there was an OOG:

DEBUG[09-08|13:23:40] VM returned with error                   err="out of gas"

and the post state has an account at 0000000000000000000000000000000000000003.

The test file oog.json has no accounts at 0000000000000000000000000000000000000003 in the prestate. The test sends a transaction that directly calls a precompiled contract, so there can be no nested calls. The observed out-of-gas should have reverted the whole world state.

@winsvega told me about this.

[holiman]

I think it's because of this: https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/master/core/state_transition.go#L154, which is called from https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/master/core/state_transition.go#L244 .

I really dislike that very implicit and non-obvious account-creation that happens when to() is called there.

[pirapira]

I think YP reverts the implicit account creation in this case:

[holiman]

It would be interesting to know how Parity behaves on that same test

[pirapira]

Yeah, and if this has happened on the mainnet.

[winsvega]

both cpp and go did syncing past the EIP158 so it should be fine

[holiman]

can confirm that removing the account-creation I referenced above does indeed fix this issue. We're holding off a bit on the fix, though, because we want to be able to fully assess all side-effects.

[winsvega]

@pirapira what about cpp genesis config files? it seems to have wei : 1 for precompiled accounts

[pirapira]

@winsvega that matches what's on the mainnet, so seems fine.

[winsvega]

mainnet config does not have wei : 1

[pirapira]

@winsvega that's not the current state of the mainnet. Look at blockchain explorers.