Require callers of AcceptBlockHeader() to perform anti-dos checks

In order to prevent memory DoS, we must ensure that we don't accept a new
header into memory until we've performed anti-DoS checks, such as verifying
that the header is part of a sufficiently high work chain. This commit adds a
new argument to AcceptBlockHeader() so that we can ensure that all call-sites
which might cause a new header to be accepted into memory have to grapple with
the question of whether the header is safe to accept, or needs further
validation.

This patch also fixes two places where low-difficulty-headers could have been
processed without such validation (processing an unrequested block from the
network, and processing a compact block).

Credit to Niklas Gögge for noticing this issue, and thanks to Sjors Provoost
for test code.

1 files changed, 24 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/test/functional/p2p_compactblocks.py b/test/functional/p2p_compactblocks.py
index 5e50e1ebce..3cbb948e3c 100755
--- a/test/functional/p2p_compactblocks.py
+++ b/test/functional/p2p_compactblocks.py
@@ -615,6 +615,27 @@ class CompactBlocksTest(BitcoinTestFramework):
             bad_peer.send_message(msg)
         bad_peer.wait_for_disconnect()
 
+    def test_low_work_compactblocks(self, test_node):
+        # A compactblock with insufficient work won't get its header included
+        node = self.nodes[0]
+        hashPrevBlock = int(node.getblockhash(node.getblockcount() - 150), 16)
+        block = self.build_block_on_tip(node)
+        block.hashPrevBlock = hashPrevBlock
+        block.solve()
+
+        comp_block = HeaderAndShortIDs()
+        comp_block.initialize_from_block(block)
+        with self.nodes[0].assert_debug_log(['[net] Ignoring low-work compact block from peer 0']):
+            test_node.send_and_ping(msg_cmpctblock(comp_block.to_p2p()))
+
+        tips = node.getchaintips()
+        found = False
+        for x in tips:
+            if x["hash"] == block.hash:
+                found = True
+                break
+        assert not found
+
     def test_compactblocks_not_at_tip(self, test_node):
         node = self.nodes[0]
         # Test that requesting old compactblocks doesn't work.
@@ -833,6 +854,9 @@ class CompactBlocksTest(BitcoinTestFramework):
         self.log.info("Testing compactblock requests/announcements not at chain tip...")
         self.test_compactblocks_not_at_tip(self.segwit_node)
 
+        self.log.info("Testing handling of low-work compact blocks...")
+        self.test_low_work_compactblocks(self.segwit_node)
+
         self.log.info("Testing handling of incorrect blocktxn responses...")
         self.test_incorrect_blocktxn_response(self.segwit_node)