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Add probing service#815

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randomlogin:add-probing-service
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Add probing service#815
randomlogin wants to merge 12 commits intolightningdevkit:mainfrom
randomlogin:add-probing-service

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@randomlogin randomlogin commented Mar 1, 2026

Added a probing service which is used to send probes to estimate channels' capacities.

Related issue: #765.

Probing is intended to be used in two ways:

  • on a 'normal' node that allocates some liquidity to probe channels;
  • on a probing node which doesn't make any real payments, just observes the network.


For probing a new abstraction Prober is defined and is (optionally) created during node building.
Prober periodically sends probes to feed the data to the scorer.
Prober sends probes using a ProbingStrategy.

ProbingStrategy trait has only one method: fn next_probe(&self) -> Option<Probe>; every tick it generates a probe, where Probe represents how to send a probe.

To accommodate two different ways the probing is used, we either construct a probing route manually (Probe::PrebuiltRoute) or rely on the router/scorer (Probe::Destination).

Prober tracks how much liquidity is locked in-flight in probes, prevents the new probes from firing if the cap is reached.

There are two probing strategies implemented:

  • Random probing strategy, it picks a random route from the current node, the route is probed via send_probe, thus ignores scoring parameters (what hops to pick), it also ignores liquidity_limit_multiplier which prohibits taking a hop if its capacity is too small. It is a true random route.

  • High degree probing strategy, it examines the graph and finds the nodes with the biggest number of (public) channels and probes routes to them using send_spontaneous_preflight_probes which uses the current router/scorer.

The former is meant to be used on payment nodes, while the latter on probing nodes. For the HighDegreeStrategy to work it is recommended to set probing_diversity_penalty_msat to some nonzero value to prevent routes reuse, however it may fail to find any available routes.

There are three tests added:

  • check the probing locked amount increases/decreases
  • check that the new probes are not fired if the current locked amount cap is reached
  • performance testing which sets up a network of nodes and 4 observing nodes

Example output (runs for ~1 minute, needs --nocapture flag):

SCID            Direction         Probing Random               Probing HiDeg                Probing HiDeg+P              Probing nostrat              Real outbound msat
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
114349209354241 C→Random          [0, 90 100 235]              unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      0
114349209354241 Random→C          [9 899 765, 100 000 000]     unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      917 184 187
114349209419777 D→HiDeg+P         unknown                      unknown                      [0, 91 127 725]              unknown                      0
114349209419777 HiDeg+P→D         unknown                      unknown                      [8 872 275, 100 000 000]     unknown                      905 313 697
114349209485312 B→F               [0, 3 418 855]               unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      160 288 291
114349209485312 F→B               [96 581 145, 100 000 000]    unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      819 711 709
114349209550848 B→D               [0, 6 141 420]               [0, 2 988 399]               [0, 91 127 725]              unknown                      30 052 300
114349209550848 D→B               [93 858 580, 100 000 000]    [97 011 601, 100 000 000]    [8 872 275, 100 000 000]     unknown                      874 555 512
114349209616384 E→HiDeg           [0, 2 097 950]               [0, 90 455 967]              unknown                      unknown                      0
114349209616384 HiDeg→E           [97 902 050, 100 000 000]    [9 544 033, 100 000 000]     unknown                      unknown                      913 366 836
114349209681920 B→C               [98 411 698, 100 000 000]    unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      86 511 108
114349209681920 C→B               [0, 1 588 302]               unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      812 521 355
114349209747457 B→E               [0, 6 625 595]               [0, 90 455 967]              [0, 4 795 311]               unknown                      0
114349209747457 E→B               [93 374 405, 100 000 000]    [9 544 033, 100 000 000]     [95 204 689, 100 000 000]    unknown                      907 339 924
114349209812993 C→nostrat         [0, 1 113 591]               unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      0
114349209812993 nostrat→C         [98 886 409, 100 000 000]    unknown                      unknown                      unknown                      990 000 000
114349209878528 C→E               [2 097 950, 5 335 740]       [0, 90 808 929]              unknown                      unknown                      55 569 306
114349209878528 E→C               [94 664 260, 97 902 050]     [9 191 071, 100 000 000]     unknown                      unknown                      878 423 826
114349209944065 B→C               [97 243 524, 100 000 000]    unknown                      [1 698 550, 6 086 572]       unknown                      938 012 264
114349209944065 C→B               [0, 2 756 476]               unknown                      [93 913 428, 98 301 450]     unknown                      34 367 637
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Known directions                   18/20                        8/20                         8/20                         0/20                        

For performance testing I had to expose the scoring data (scorer_channel_liquidity).
Also exposed scoring_fee_params: ProbabilisticScoringFeeParameters to Config.

TODOs:

  • adjust default parameters
  • improve HighDegree strategy to take into account channel capacities
  • improve HighDegree strategy to cache results
  • improve performance test to better estimate real channel capacity

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👋 Thanks for assigning @tnull as a reviewer!
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Once they submit their review, I'll check if a second reviewer would be helpful.

@randomlogin randomlogin marked this pull request as ready for review March 1, 2026 12:10
@tnull tnull self-requested a review March 2, 2026 07:56
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Hi @randomlogin, thanks for the work on this! I've reviewed the first two commits:

  1. 7f3ce11: "Create probing service" and
  2. 6574bf9: "Add probing tests"

I've left a bunch of inline comments addressing configuration and public API, commit hygiene, testing infrastructure, and test flakiness.

In summary:

  1. A couple of items are exposed publicly that seem like they should be scoped to probing or gated for tests only (see scoring_fee_params in Config and scorer_channel_liquidity on Node).
  2. The probing tests duplicate existing test helpers (setup_node, MockLogFacadeLogger). Reusing and extending what's already in tests/common/ would reduce duplication and keep the test file focused on the tests themselves.
  3. test_probe_budget_blocks_when_node_offline has a race condition where the prober dispatches probes before the baseline capacity is measured, causing the assertion between the baseline and stuck capacities to fail. Details in the inline comment.
  4. A few nits about commit hygiene, import structure, and suggestions for renaming stuff.

Also needs to be rebased.

Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
Comment thread tests/probing_tests.rs Outdated
Comment thread tests/probing_tests.rs Outdated
Comment thread tests/probing_tests.rs Outdated
Comment thread tests/probing_tests.rs Outdated
Comment thread tests/probing_tests.rs Outdated
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@enigbe, thanks for a review, the updates are incoming soon.

@randomlogin randomlogin force-pushed the add-probing-service branch 3 times, most recently from 436e4a3 to 07dfde4 Compare March 19, 2026 01:24
@randomlogin randomlogin requested a review from enigbe March 19, 2026 02:10
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@randomlogin randomlogin force-pushed the add-probing-service branch from ff741c2 to c31f1ce Compare March 26, 2026 01:27
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Thanks for taking this on and excuse the delay here!

Did a first review pass and this already looks great! Here are some relatively minor comments, mostly concerning the API design.

Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/builder.rs
Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs
Comment thread src/probing.rs
Comment thread tests/common/mod.rs Outdated
Comment thread tests/probing_tests.rs Outdated
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@randomlogin randomlogin requested a review from tnull March 28, 2026 15:19
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Seems tests are failing right now:

thread 'exhausted_probe_budget_blocks_new_probes' (167312) panicked at tests/probing_tests.rs:381:5:
no probe dispatched within 15 s


failures:
    exhausted_probe_budget_blocks_new_probes
    probe_budget_increments_and_decrements

@randomlogin randomlogin force-pushed the add-probing-service branch from f99786b to 1e73e6e Compare March 31, 2026 12:51
@randomlogin randomlogin force-pushed the add-probing-service branch from 346e002 to 2431f88 Compare April 30, 2026 12:00
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Removed usage of unwrap(), reworked the exhaust test not to rely on a node stopping race condition.

@randomlogin randomlogin requested a review from tnull April 30, 2026 12:32
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Excuse the delay here. Looks pretty good, but there are some minor things we might want to address before this can land.

Comment thread src/builder.rs
Comment thread src/lib.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/lib.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs
Comment thread src/event.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
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Excuse the delay here. Looks pretty good, but there are some minor things we might want to address before this can land.

Addressed all issues mentioned, they have their respective commits. If they are fine, I'm going to squash them.

@randomlogin randomlogin requested a review from tnull May 6, 2026 02:00
@randomlogin randomlogin force-pushed the add-probing-service branch from a956232 to f2706d2 Compare May 6, 2026 06:22
Previously when calculated currently locked amount, we didn't account
for preflight probes sent on a payment which could result in an
incorrect value of probe locked_msat.

Now Prober saves the PaymentId of probes it sent and tracks them on
release, ignoring the user-sent ones.
@randomlogin randomlogin force-pushed the add-probing-service branch from f2706d2 to 8acd55d Compare May 6, 2026 06:57
Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated

/// Configures background probing.
///
/// See [`ProbingConfig`] for details.
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Please make sure the docs on the ArcedNodeBuilder mirror the ones on the regular NodeBuilder.

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I think it does so already. The builder methods do have (short) docs on them for both normal and arced builders.

Comment thread src/event.rs Outdated
LdkEvent::ProbeFailed { .. } => {},
LdkEvent::ProbeSuccessful { path, payment_id, .. } => {
if let Some(prober) = &self.prober {
if let Some(amount) =
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Maybe just move this check into handle_background_probe_successful/handle_background_probe_failed? Then you could keep inflight_probes visibility at the module level, too.

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Moved

Comment thread src/probing.rs Outdated
pub interval: Duration,
/// Maximum total millisatoshis that may be locked in in-flight probes at any time.
pub max_locked_msat: u64,
pub(crate) locked_msat: Arc<AtomicU64>,
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Isn't this redudant to the sum over all inflight_probes now? Probably it's better to keep one state for accounting purposes, to avoid the possibility for them to get out-of-sync.

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yeah, if we have all the probes details now, we can just calculate it when needed (with a tiny worsening of performance, but I guess it's fine).

Comment thread src/builder.rs Outdated
interval: probing_cfg.interval,
max_locked_msat: probing_cfg.max_locked_msat,
locked_msat: Arc::new(AtomicU64::new(0)),
inflight_probes: Mutex::new(HashMap::new()),
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Hmm, it seems accounting will still be off if we send out probes and then restart, as we'll re-init with an empty map that forgot about the previously-sent probes. Do we think that's acceptable or do we need to somehow persist this map? Seems like persistence would add some considerable complication on top? Thoughts?

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Initially I wanted probing to be without persistence for the sake of simplicity, but now it seems it is really important, because if the node really goes out of the budget then likely this will occur after a restart and eventually it will drain the whole balance.

The corner case is the situation when a probing node:

  1. has a lot of unresolved probes (or small probing budget)
  2. restarts frequently

In that case the budget would be falsely shown as near-zero, whereas in fact there some probes sent and unresolved.

If we restart node more rarely than the time needed for locked inflight probes to release, we're more or less are fine. So if a node restarts more rarely than once in two hours it should be okay (it would not drain the balance completely, but there could be time periods where the probing budget is in reality around twice as bigger as it should be).

There is an option to add to the public API this: https://github.com/lightningdevkit/rust-lightning/blob/03ab73da95af34f3ae3d28d7e83383cfa0b04fc1/lightning/src/ln/channelmanager.rs#L6143
Then we could iterate through recent payments on restart and populate the inflight_probes with max_locked_msat without persisting anything new.

Also some calculations when when the budget limit hits: assume probing is done every 500ms, or equivalently it has frequency of $\nu = 2 s^{-1}$ probes per second.
Let's assume the probability of a probe to get locked for $T=2$ hours is $p$.
Let's assume node has $PB$ probing budget, for ordinary user-node it is $PB=10A$ (max 10 probes can be fired simultaneously), and for example for a routing node it can be something like $100A-200A$.

That would mean during time $T$ we got locked $A\cdot p \cdot \nu \cdot T$, if it is greater than $PB=10A$ then we have hit the ceiling of the budget. So $A\cdot p \cdot \nu \cdot T \geq 10A$
With figures from the above if the rate of failure of probes is bigger than 0.0007 (0.07%), then we would hit the budget bound. If the node restarts. And actually it's not that big (1 out of 1440 probes is locked for 2 hours).

All in all, I think it's worth adding some way of persistence, because for 'ordinary' nodes the cap seems to be easily reached if the settings (frequency, amount) is not tuned properly.

tnull added a commit to tnull/rust-lightning that referenced this pull request May 7, 2026
Previously, `ChannelManager::list_recent_payments` didn't give us the
means to discern 'real' payments from inflight probes. In
lightningdevkit/ldk-node#815 we found that we
need a way to re-derive which probes are still pending so our accounting
of inflight probing amounts is still correct after restart.

To this end, we here let callers distinguish liquidity probes while they
are pending or abandoned.

Co-Authored-By: HAL 9000

Co-Authored-By: HAL 9000
Signed-off-by: Elias Rohrer <dev@tnull.de>
Previously we tried to store the total amount of funds locked and/or
exact probes in flight which was difficult to persist and restore after
restart. Now it is completely deduced from the channel manager.
tnull added a commit to tnull/rust-lightning that referenced this pull request May 8, 2026
Previously, `ChannelManager::list_recent_payments` didn't give us the
means to discern 'real' payments from inflight probes. In
lightningdevkit/ldk-node#815 we found that we
need a way to re-derive which probes are still pending so our accounting
of inflight probing amounts is still correct after restart.

To this end, we here let callers distinguish liquidity probes while they
are pending or abandoned.

Co-Authored-By: HAL 9000

Co-Authored-By: HAL 9000
Signed-off-by: Elias Rohrer <dev@tnull.de>
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