Merge #27101: Support JSON-RPC 2.0 when requested by client

cbc6c44 doc: add comments and release-notes for JSON-RPC 2.0 (Matthew Zipkin)
e7ee80d rpc: JSON-RPC 2.0 should not respond to "notifications" (Matthew Zipkin)
bf1a1f1 rpc: Avoid returning HTTP errors for JSON-RPC 2.0 requests (Matthew Zipkin)
466b905 rpc: Add "jsonrpc" field and drop null "result"/"error" fields (Matthew Zipkin)
2ca1460 rpc: identify JSON-RPC 2.0 requests (Matthew Zipkin)
a64a2b7 rpc: refactor single/batch requests (Matthew Zipkin)
df6e375 rpc: Avoid copies in JSONRPCReplyObj() (Matthew Zipkin)
09416f9 test: cover JSONRPC 2.0 requests, batches, and notifications (Matthew Zipkin)
4202c17 test: refactor interface_rpc.py (Matthew Zipkin)

Pull request description:

  Closes #2960

  Bitcoin Core's JSONRPC server behaves with a special blend of 1.0, 1.1 and 2.0 behaviors. This introduces compliance issues with more strict clients. There are the major misbehaviors that I found:
  - returning non-200 HTTP codes for RPC errors like "Method not found" (this is not a server error or an HTTP error)
  - returning both `"error"` and `"result"` fields together in a response object.
  - different error-handling behavior for single and batched RPC requests (batches contain errors in the response but single requests will actually throw HTTP errors)

  #15495 added regression tests after a discussion in #15381 to kinda lock in our RPC behavior to preserve backwards compatibility.

  #12435 was an attempt to allow strict 2.0 compliance behind a flag, but was abandoned.

  The approach in this PR is not strict and preserves backwards compatibility in a familiar bitcoin-y way: all old behavior is preserved, but new rules are applied to clients that opt in. One of the rules in the [JSON RPC 2.0 spec](https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification#request_object) is that the kv pair `"jsonrpc": "2.0"` must be present in the request. Well, let's just use that to trigger strict 2.0 behavior! When that kv pair is included in a request object, the [response will adhere to strict JSON-RPC 2.0 rules](https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification#response_object), essentially:

  - always return HTTP 200 "OK" unless there really is a server error or malformed request
  - either return `"error"` OR `"result"` but never both
  - same behavior for single and batch requests

  If this is merged next steps can be:

  - Refactor bitcoin-cli to always use strict 2.0
  - Refactor the python test framework to always use strict 2.0 for everything
  - Begin deprecation process for 1.0/1.1 behavior (?)

  If we can one day remove the old 1.0/1.1 behavior we can clean up the rpc code quite a bit.

ACKs for top commit:
  cbergqvist:
    re ACK cbc6c44
  ryanofsky:
    Code review ACK cbc6c44. Just suggested changes since the last review: changing uncaught exception error code from PARSE_ERROR to MISC_ERROR, renaming a few things, and adding comments.
  tdb3:
    re ACK for cbc6c44

Tree-SHA512: 0b702ed32368b34b29ad570d090951a7aeb56e3b0f2baf745bd32fdc58ef68fee6b0b8fad901f1ca42573ed714b150303829cddad4a34ca7ad847350feeedb36

doc/JSON-RPC-interface.md

@@ -74,6 +74,22 @@ major version via the `-deprecatedrpc=` command line option. The release notes
 of a new major release come with detailed instructions on what RPC features
 were deprecated and how to re-enable them temporarily.
 
+## JSON-RPC 1.1 vs 2.0
+
+The server recognizes [JSON-RPC v2.0](https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification) requests
+and responds accordingly. A 2.0 request is identified by the presence of
+`"jsonrpc": "2.0"` in the request body. If that key + value is not present in a request,
+the legacy JSON-RPC v1.1 protocol is followed instead, which was the only available
+protocol in previous releases.
+
+|| 1.1 | 2.0 |
+|-|-|-|
+| Request marker | `"version": "1.1"` (or none) | `"jsonrpc": "2.0"` |
+| Response marker | (none) | `"jsonrpc": "2.0"` |
+| `"error"` and `"result"` fields in response | both present | only one is present |
+| HTTP codes in response | `200` unless there is any kind of RPC error (invalid parameters, method not found, etc) | Always `200` unless there is an actual HTTP server error (request parsing error, endpoint not found, etc) |
+| Notifications: requests that get no reply | (not supported) | Supported for requests that exclude the "id" field |
+
 ## Security
 
 The RPC interface allows other programs to control Bitcoin Core,

doc/release-notes-27101.md

@@ -0,0 +1,9 @@
+JSON-RPC
+--------
+
+The JSON-RPC server now recognizes JSON-RPC 2.0 requests and responds with
+strict adherence to the specification (https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification):
+
+- Returning HTTP "204 No Content" responses to JSON-RPC 2.0 notifications instead of full responses.
+- Returning HTTP "200 OK" responses in all other cases, rather than 404 responses for unknown methods, 500 responses for invalid parameters, etc.
+- Returning either "result" fields or "error" fields in JSON-RPC responses, rather than returning both fields with one field set to null.

src/bitcoin-cli.cpp

@@ -298,7 +298,7 @@ class AddrinfoRequestHandler : public BaseRequestHandler
         }
         addresses.pushKV("total", total);
         result.pushKV("addresses_known", addresses);
-        return JSONRPCReplyObj(result, NullUniValue, 1);
+        return JSONRPCReplyObj(std::move(result), NullUniValue, /*id=*/1, JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY);
     }
 };
 
@@ -367,7 +367,7 @@ class GetinfoRequestHandler: public BaseRequestHandler
         }
         result.pushKV("relayfee", batch[ID_NETWORKINFO]["result"]["relayfee"]);
         result.pushKV("warnings", batch[ID_NETWORKINFO]["result"]["warnings"]);
-        return JSONRPCReplyObj(result, NullUniValue, 1);
+        return JSONRPCReplyObj(std::move(result), NullUniValue,  /*id=*/1, JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY);
     }
 };
 
@@ -622,7 +622,7 @@ class NetinfoRequestHandler : public BaseRequestHandler
             }
         }
 
-        return JSONRPCReplyObj(UniValue{result}, NullUniValue, 1);
+        return JSONRPCReplyObj(UniValue{result}, NullUniValue, /*id=*/1, JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY);
     }
 
     const std::string m_help_doc{
@@ -709,7 +709,7 @@ class GenerateToAddressRequestHandler : public BaseRequestHandler
         UniValue result(UniValue::VOBJ);
         result.pushKV("address", address_str);
         result.pushKV("blocks", reply.get_obj()["result"]);
-        return JSONRPCReplyObj(result, NullUniValue, 1);
+        return JSONRPCReplyObj(std::move(result), NullUniValue, /*id=*/1, JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY);
     }
 protected:
     std::string address_str;

src/httprpc.cpp

@@ -73,8 +73,11 @@ static std::vector<std::vector<std::string>> g_rpcauth;
 static std::map<std::string, std::set<std::string>> g_rpc_whitelist;
 static bool g_rpc_whitelist_default = false;
 
-static void JSONErrorReply(HTTPRequest* req, const UniValue& objError, const UniValue& id)
+static void JSONErrorReply(HTTPRequest* req, UniValue objError, const JSONRPCRequest& jreq)
 {
+    // Sending HTTP errors is a legacy JSON-RPC behavior.
+    Assume(jreq.m_json_version != JSONRPCVersion::V2);
+
     // Send error reply from json-rpc error object
     int nStatus = HTTP_INTERNAL_SERVER_ERROR;
     int code = objError.find_value("code").getInt<int>();
@@ -84,7 +87,7 @@ static void JSONErrorReply(HTTPRequest* req, const UniValue& objError, const Uni
     else if (code == RPC_METHOD_NOT_FOUND)
         nStatus = HTTP_NOT_FOUND;
 
-    std::string strReply = JSONRPCReply(NullUniValue, objError, id);
+    std::string strReply = JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue, std::move(objError), jreq.id, jreq.m_json_version).write() + "\n";
 
     req->WriteHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
     req->WriteReply(nStatus, strReply);
@@ -185,7 +188,7 @@ static bool HTTPReq_JSONRPC(const std::any& context, HTTPRequest* req)
         // Set the URI
         jreq.URI = req->GetURI();
 
-        std::string strReply;
+        UniValue reply;
         bool user_has_whitelist = g_rpc_whitelist.count(jreq.authUser);
         if (!user_has_whitelist && g_rpc_whitelist_default) {
             LogPrintf("RPC User %s not allowed to call any methods\n", jreq.authUser);
@@ -200,13 +203,23 @@ static bool HTTPReq_JSONRPC(const std::any& context, HTTPRequest* req)
                 req->WriteReply(HTTP_FORBIDDEN);
                 return false;
             }
-            UniValue result = tableRPC.execute(jreq);
 
-            // Send reply
-            strReply = JSONRPCReply(result, NullUniValue, jreq.id);
+            // Legacy 1.0/1.1 behavior is for failed requests to throw
+            // exceptions which return HTTP errors and RPC errors to the client.
+            // 2.0 behavior is to catch exceptions and return HTTP success with
+            // RPC errors, as long as there is not an actual HTTP server error.
+            const bool catch_errors{jreq.m_json_version == JSONRPCVersion::V2};
+            reply = JSONRPCExec(jreq, catch_errors);
+
+            if (jreq.IsNotification()) {
+                // Even though we do execute notifications, we do not respond to them
+                req->WriteReply(HTTP_NO_CONTENT);
+                return true;
+            }
 
         // array of requests
         } else if (valRequest.isArray()) {
+            // Check authorization for each request's method
             if (user_has_whitelist) {
                 for (unsigned int reqIdx = 0; reqIdx < valRequest.size(); reqIdx++) {
                     if (!valRequest[reqIdx].isObject()) {
@@ -223,18 +236,49 @@ static bool HTTPReq_JSONRPC(const std::any& context, HTTPRequest* req)
                     }
                 }
             }
-            strReply = JSONRPCExecBatch(jreq, valRequest.get_array());
+
+            // Execute each request
+            reply = UniValue::VARR;
+            for (size_t i{0}; i < valRequest.size(); ++i) {
+                // Batches never throw HTTP errors, they are always just included
+                // in "HTTP OK" responses. Notifications never get any response.
+                UniValue response;
+                try {
+                    jreq.parse(valRequest[i]);
+                    response = JSONRPCExec(jreq, /*catch_errors=*/true);
+                } catch (UniValue& e) {
+                    response = JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue, std::move(e), jreq.id, jreq.m_json_version);
+                } catch (const std::exception& e) {
+                    response = JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue, JSONRPCError(RPC_PARSE_ERROR, e.what()), jreq.id, jreq.m_json_version);
+                }
+                if (!jreq.IsNotification()) {
+                    reply.push_back(std::move(response));
+                }
+            }
+            // Return no response for an all-notification batch, but only if the
+            // batch request is non-empty. Technically according to the JSON-RPC
+            // 2.0 spec, an empty batch request should also return no response,
+            // However, if the batch request is empty, it means the request did
+            // not contain any JSON-RPC version numbers, so returning an empty
+            // response could break backwards compatibility with old RPC clients
+            // relying on previous behavior. Return an empty array instead of an
+            // empty response in this case to favor being backwards compatible
+            // over complying with the JSON-RPC 2.0 spec in this case.
+            if (reply.size() == 0 && valRequest.size() > 0) {
+                req->WriteReply(HTTP_NO_CONTENT);
+                return true;
+            }
         }
         else
             throw JSONRPCError(RPC_PARSE_ERROR, "Top-level object parse error");
 
         req->WriteHeader("Content-Type", "application/json");
-        req->WriteReply(HTTP_OK, strReply);
-    } catch (const UniValue& objError) {
-        JSONErrorReply(req, objError, jreq.id);
+        req->WriteReply(HTTP_OK, reply.write() + "\n");
+    } catch (UniValue& e) {
+        JSONErrorReply(req, std::move(e), jreq);
         return false;
     } catch (const std::exception& e) {
-        JSONErrorReply(req, JSONRPCError(RPC_PARSE_ERROR, e.what()), jreq.id);
+        JSONErrorReply(req, JSONRPCError(RPC_PARSE_ERROR, e.what()), jreq);
         return false;
     }
     return true;

src/rpc/protocol.h

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 enum HTTPStatusCode
 {
     HTTP_OK                    = 200,
+    HTTP_NO_CONTENT            = 204,
     HTTP_BAD_REQUEST           = 400,
     HTTP_UNAUTHORIZED          = 401,
     HTTP_FORBIDDEN             = 403,

src/rpc/request.cpp

@@ -26,6 +26,17 @@
  *
  * 1.0 spec: http://json-rpc.org/wiki/specification
  * 1.2 spec: http://jsonrpc.org/historical/json-rpc-over-http.html
+ *
+ * If the server receives a request with the JSON-RPC 2.0 marker `{"jsonrpc": "2.0"}`
+ * then Bitcoin will respond with a strictly specified response.
+ * It will only return an HTTP error code if an actual HTTP error is encountered
+ * such as the endpoint is not found (404) or the request is not formatted correctly (500).
+ * Otherwise the HTTP code is always OK (200) and RPC errors will be included in the
+ * response body.
+ *
+ * 2.0 spec: https://www.jsonrpc.org/specification
+ *
+ * Also see http://www.simple-is-better.org/rpc/#differences-between-1-0-and-2-0
  */
 
 UniValue JSONRPCRequestObj(const std::string& strMethod, const UniValue& params, const UniValue& id)
@@ -37,24 +48,25 @@ UniValue JSONRPCRequestObj(const std::string& strMethod, const UniValue& params,
     return request;
 }
 
-UniValue JSONRPCReplyObj(const UniValue& result, const UniValue& error, const UniValue& id)
+UniValue JSONRPCReplyObj(UniValue result, UniValue error, std::optional<UniValue> id, JSONRPCVersion jsonrpc_version)
 {
     UniValue reply(UniValue::VOBJ);
-    if (!error.isNull())
-        reply.pushKV("result", NullUniValue);
-    else
-        reply.pushKV("result", result);
-    reply.pushKV("error", error);
-    reply.pushKV("id", id);
+    // Add JSON-RPC version number field in v2 only.
+    if (jsonrpc_version == JSONRPCVersion::V2) reply.pushKV("jsonrpc", "2.0");
+
+    // Add both result and error fields in v1, even though one will be null.
+    // Omit the null field in v2.
+    if (error.isNull()) {
+        reply.pushKV("result", std::move(result));
+        if (jsonrpc_version == JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY) reply.pushKV("error", NullUniValue);
+    } else {
+        if (jsonrpc_version == JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY) reply.pushKV("result", NullUniValue);
+        reply.pushKV("error", std::move(error));
+    }
+    if (id.has_value()) reply.pushKV("id", std::move(id.value()));
     return reply;
 }
 
-std::string JSONRPCReply(const UniValue& result, const UniValue& error, const UniValue& id)
-{
-    UniValue reply = JSONRPCReplyObj(result, error, id);
-    return reply.write() + "\n";
-}
-
 UniValue JSONRPCError(int code, const std::string& message)
 {
     UniValue error(UniValue::VOBJ);
@@ -171,7 +183,30 @@ void JSONRPCRequest::parse(const UniValue& valRequest)
     const UniValue& request = valRequest.get_obj();
 
     // Parse id now so errors from here on will have the id
-    id = request.find_value("id");
+    if (request.exists("id")) {
+        id = request.find_value("id");
+    } else {
+        id = std::nullopt;
+    }
+
+    // Check for JSON-RPC 2.0 (default 1.1)
+    m_json_version = JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY;
+    const UniValue& jsonrpc_version = request.find_value("jsonrpc");
+    if (!jsonrpc_version.isNull()) {
+        if (!jsonrpc_version.isStr()) {
+            throw JSONRPCError(RPC_INVALID_REQUEST, "jsonrpc field must be a string");
+        }
+        // The "jsonrpc" key was added in the 2.0 spec, but some older documentation
+        // incorrectly included {"jsonrpc":"1.0"} in a request object, so we
+        // maintain that for backwards compatibility.
+        if (jsonrpc_version.get_str() == "1.0") {
+            m_json_version = JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY;
+        } else if (jsonrpc_version.get_str() == "2.0") {
+            m_json_version = JSONRPCVersion::V2;
+        } else {
+            throw JSONRPCError(RPC_INVALID_REQUEST, "JSON-RPC version not supported");
+        }
+    }
 
     // Parse method
     const UniValue& valMethod{request.find_value("method")};

src/rpc/request.h

@@ -7,13 +7,18 @@
 #define BITCOIN_RPC_REQUEST_H
 
 #include <any>
+#include <optional>
 #include <string>
 
 #include <univalue.h>
 
+enum class JSONRPCVersion {
+    V1_LEGACY,
+    V2
+};
+
 UniValue JSONRPCRequestObj(const std::string& strMethod, const UniValue& params, const UniValue& id);
-UniValue JSONRPCReplyObj(const UniValue& result, const UniValue& error, const UniValue& id);
-std::string JSONRPCReply(const UniValue& result, const UniValue& error, const UniValue& id);
+UniValue JSONRPCReplyObj(UniValue result, UniValue error, std::optional<UniValue> id, JSONRPCVersion jsonrpc_version);
 UniValue JSONRPCError(int code, const std::string& message);
 
 /** Generate a new RPC authentication cookie and write it to disk */
@@ -28,16 +33,18 @@ std::vector<UniValue> JSONRPCProcessBatchReply(const UniValue& in);
 class JSONRPCRequest
 {
 public:
-    UniValue id;
+    std::optional<UniValue> id = UniValue::VNULL;
     std::string strMethod;
     UniValue params;
     enum Mode { EXECUTE, GET_HELP, GET_ARGS } mode = EXECUTE;
     std::string URI;
     std::string authUser;
     std::string peerAddr;
     std::any context;
+    JSONRPCVersion m_json_version = JSONRPCVersion::V1_LEGACY;
 
     void parse(const UniValue& valRequest);
+    [[nodiscard]] bool IsNotification() const { return !id.has_value() && m_json_version == JSONRPCVersion::V2; };
 };
 
 #endif // BITCOIN_RPC_REQUEST_H

src/rpc/server.cpp

@@ -360,36 +360,22 @@ bool IsDeprecatedRPCEnabled(const std::string& method)
     return find(enabled_methods.begin(), enabled_methods.end(), method) != enabled_methods.end();
 }
 
-static UniValue JSONRPCExecOne(JSONRPCRequest jreq, const UniValue& req)
-{
-    UniValue rpc_result(UniValue::VOBJ);
-
-    try {
-        jreq.parse(req);
-
-        UniValue result = tableRPC.execute(jreq);
-        rpc_result = JSONRPCReplyObj(result, NullUniValue, jreq.id);
-    }
-    catch (const UniValue& objError)
-    {
-        rpc_result = JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue, objError, jreq.id);
-    }
-    catch (const std::exception& e)
-    {
-        rpc_result = JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue,
-                                     JSONRPCError(RPC_PARSE_ERROR, e.what()), jreq.id);
+UniValue JSONRPCExec(const JSONRPCRequest& jreq, bool catch_errors)
+{
+    UniValue result;
+    if (catch_errors) {
+        try {
+            result = tableRPC.execute(jreq);
+        } catch (UniValue& e) {
+            return JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue, std::move(e), jreq.id, jreq.m_json_version);
+        } catch (const std::exception& e) {
+            return JSONRPCReplyObj(NullUniValue, JSONRPCError(RPC_MISC_ERROR, e.what()), jreq.id, jreq.m_json_version);
+        }
+    } else {
+        result = tableRPC.execute(jreq);
     }
 
-    return rpc_result;
-}
-
-std::string JSONRPCExecBatch(const JSONRPCRequest& jreq, const UniValue& vReq)
-{
-    UniValue ret(UniValue::VARR);
-    for (unsigned int reqIdx = 0; reqIdx < vReq.size(); reqIdx++)
-        ret.push_back(JSONRPCExecOne(jreq, vReq[reqIdx]));
-
-    return ret.write() + "\n";
+    return JSONRPCReplyObj(std::move(result), NullUniValue, jreq.id, jreq.m_json_version);
 }
 
 /**

src/rpc/server.h

@@ -179,6 +179,6 @@ extern CRPCTable tableRPC;
 void StartRPC();
 void InterruptRPC();
 void StopRPC();
-std::string JSONRPCExecBatch(const JSONRPCRequest& jreq, const UniValue& vReq);
+UniValue JSONRPCExec(const JSONRPCRequest& jreq, bool catch_errors);
 
 #endif // BITCOIN_RPC_SERVER_H

src/rpc/util.cpp

@@ -175,7 +175,7 @@ std::string HelpExampleCliNamed(const std::string& methodname, const RPCArgList&
 
 std::string HelpExampleRpc(const std::string& methodname, const std::string& args)
 {
-    return "> curl --user myusername --data-binary '{\"jsonrpc\": \"1.0\", \"id\": \"curltest\", "
+    return "> curl --user myusername --data-binary '{\"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"id\": \"curltest\", "
         "\"method\": \"" + methodname + "\", \"params\": [" + args + "]}' -H 'content-type: text/plain;' http://127.0.0.1:8332/\n";
 }
 
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ std::string HelpExampleRpcNamed(const std::string& methodname, const RPCArgList&
         params.pushKV(param.first, param.second);
     }
 
-    return "> curl --user myusername --data-binary '{\"jsonrpc\": \"1.0\", \"id\": \"curltest\", "
+    return "> curl --user myusername --data-binary '{\"jsonrpc\": \"2.0\", \"id\": \"curltest\", "
            "\"method\": \"" + methodname + "\", \"params\": " + params.write() + "}' -H 'content-type: text/plain;' http://127.0.0.1:8332/\n";
 }