Introduction
Archway is an energy-efficient layer 1 Blockchain built on the Cosmos SDK, which allows interoperability with other blockchains through the inter-blockchain communication (IBC) protocol. The Cosmos SDK comes with predefined modules for core blockchain functionality, which provide a basic set of functionalities such as transaction authentication, Blockchain accounting, smart contract runtime, and Proof-of-Stake. In this article, we will give an overview of the Archway Auth Module.
Concept
The Archway x/auth module is responsible for specifying transactions and account types for an application, as the Cosmos SDK itself is agnostic towards these information. It serves as the middleware, where all basic transaction validity checks (signatures, nonces, and auxiliary fields) are performed. It also exposes the account keeper, which allows other modules to read and modify accounts.
Understanding Fees And Gas For processing Transactions
The Archway fee system plays a vital role in assuring security, protection from spammers, and preserving the healthy operation of the network in general. Before a transaction can take place, we need what is called gas, which is a unit that measures the amount of computational effort required to make a specific transaction. In Archway, each transaction requires a certain amount of gas for successful execution, the cost is usually covered by the account initiating the transaction.
How It Handles Accounts and Authentication
Generally, accounts define identities. Identity is defined by what we call an address. Each account contains authentication information for a uniquely identified external user of an SDK blockchain, including a public key, address, and sequence number for replay protection. External user accounts are linked to a public key, which is used to validate a transaction to ensure that the sender is the actual owner of the account and not some impersonator. Just like the external users, modules and smart contracts have accounts too but don't have public keys. They only have addresses, which will never be linked to a public key.
The auth module contains multiple AnteHandlers used for performing basic validity checks on a transaction, such as signature verification and fee deduction. Signature verification helps to validate users' signatures in a transaction, while fee deduction ensures the account sending the transaction has the needed funds to pay for it, and forwards fees to the fee collector module account.
The fees collector account is a special type of account defined in the Archway auth module. It stores network fees from transactions and disburses them to validators. It's also a source of reward for developers.
Conclusion
The auth module is one of many modules in the Archway ecosystem. Other modules include Rewards, Tracking, Bank, Feegrant, Staking, Slashing, Minting, Governance, Crisis, Upgrade, Evidence, IBC, Authorization and Grant (authz), and CosmWasm modules, each contributing different functionality to the Archway ecosystem
