Synchronous Consensus in Partial Synchrony

Abstract

We demonstrate a deterministic Byzantine consensus algorithm with synchronous operation in partial synchrony. It is naturally leaderless, tolerates any number of $ f<n/2 $ Byzantine processes with 2 rounds of exchange of originator-only signed messages, and terminates within a bounded interval of time. The algorithm is resilient to transient faults and asynchrony in a fraction of links with known size per number of faulty processes. It circumvents asynchronous and faulty links with 3-hop epidemic dissemination. Key finding: the resilience to asynchrony of links and the enabled by it leaderless consensus in partial synchrony ensure algorithm operation with simultaneous validity, safety, and bounded liveness.