Interop Test 06 (wn removes a member from a group Amethyst is in) was
failing with:
GroupEventHandler.add: ERROR Failed to apply commit:
UpdatePath node count (1) doesn't match direct path length (2)
Repro scenario: 3-member group [B=leaf 0, C=leaf 1, A=leaf 2]; B (admin,
committer) removes C. After the Remove proposal applies, leaf 1 is
blank but leaf 2 (A) is still occupied — so leaf_count stays at 3 per
RFC 9420 §7.8 and the sender's direct path has length 2 ([node 1,
root]).
Per RFC 9420 §4.1.2 and §7.9 the **filtered direct path** drops any
parent node whose child on the copath has an empty resolution:
encrypting to such a parent is equivalent to encrypting to its only
non-blank child, which is already on the direct path. In our scenario
the parent at level 1 (parent of leaves 0, 1) has a blank leaf 1 on
the copath — empty resolution — so it's filtered out. Filtered
direct path length is 1, and that's what openmls / whitenoise-rs emit
in `UpdatePath.nodes<V>`.
Quartz was always using the unfiltered direct path on both sides
(send + receive + parent-hash chain + path-secret decrypt). That
worked for quartz↔quartz (both sides agreed), but broke the moment a
spec-correct sender (wn) sent a filtered UpdatePath into a quartz
receiver. Parent-hash chain is further affected because §7.9.2 walks
the filtered path — even if the size check passed, the hashes would
not match.
Fix it throughout:
- RatchetTree.filteredDirectPath: new helper returning parallel
(filteredDirectPath, filteredCopath) with the empty-resolution
entries dropped. Uses the existing `resolution()` helper, which
already handles unmerged_leaves per §4.1.2.
- RatchetTree.applyUpdatePath: size-check + target the FILTERED path.
- MlsGroup.commit (sender): emit one staged path node per filtered
level; encrypt path secrets using the filtered copath; patch parent
hashes into the filtered positions only.
- MlsGroup.processCommitInner (receiver): the UpdatePath node index
aligns to the filtered direct path, so the common-ancestor lookup
must find the filtered index to pick the right ciphertext + copath
resolution. Use the unfiltered index only for counting KDF steps
to the root (path_secret chain advances one step per unfiltered
level regardless of filtering — the chain is continuous; filtering
only decides which levels emit a UpdatePathNode, not how many KDF
steps separate them).
- MlsGroup.computeSenderParentHashes: walk the filtered direct path.
Map each filtered node back to its unfiltered level so the
preUpdateSiblingHashes lookup (indexed by unfiltered level) still
resolves. This makes the parent_hash chain agree with §7.9.2 and
with what openmls computes on the other side.
- MlsGroup.verifyParentHash: short-circuit on empty filtered path
rather than empty unfiltered path.
New regression test: testRemoveMiddleLeaf_ReceiverAcceptsCommit
reproduces the 3-member remove-middle scenario end-to-end within
quartz. It passed before this patch (because both sides were
unfiltered and agreed with each other), and it passes after this
patch (because both sides are now filtered and still agree) — the
compatibility win is that quartz now also agrees with
openmls/wn-produced commits of the same shape.
Also fix an unrelated script bug in marmot-interop.sh: the
discover_a_relays SQL probe was falsely reporting "wn has NO cached
relay entries for A" even when welcome delivery was working, because
the query assumed users.pubkey stored as BLOB but wn stores it as
TEXT (hex) in the current schema. Accept either encoding.
Claude
3279c2463a