This project implements the Raft consensus algorithm to simulate a blockchain. Raft is a distributed consensus protocol that manages replicated logs across nodes in a cluster. Overview

Raft elects a leader node that coordinates logging and replication across the cluster. It achieves consensus through replicated state machines on each node.

Key features:

Leader Election - Nodes elect a leader through randomized timeouts. The leader sends heartbeat messages to maintain its leadership.
Log Replication - The leader replicates log entries to follower nodes. Entries are committed once replicated to a majority of nodes.
Membership Changes - Raft can add or remove nodes from the cluster through joint consensus.
Safety - Raft ensures the replicated log is consistent through term numbers and commit indices.

Simulating Blockchain with Raft

This Raft implementation serves as a simulator to understand how consensus algorithms like Raft work. While Raft itself is not directly applicable to blockchain, the concepts can be used to implement a blockchain consensus protocol.

Some key connections between Raft and blockchain consensus:

Nodes and leader election in Raft resemble validators in a blockchain network.
Log replication is similar to how validators replicate transaction blocks.
The commit process ensures agreement on the order of log entries, just as blockchains require agreement on the order of transactions.
Both use terms and logs to provide safety and persistence.

This Raft simulator allows you to experiment with and understand these mechanisms for distributed consensus. While it does not implement a full blockchain protocol, the concepts lay the foundation for designing blockchain consensus models.

The goal is to use Raft to gain insight into consensus algorithms, not as a direct blockchain platform. Let me know if this update helps clarify how it can be used as a simulator for blockchain concepts rather than a production-ready implementation.