Ballot messages
Every ten seconds, each member server submits a ballot to each other member server in the group. The ballot message is a JSON-formatted data structure that looks like this:
{
"id": "a23b4555-e9e7-48ac-b6ce-5f79e56e9cd1",
"votes": 1,
"ms": 1710628477713,
"rids": [ "4d7e92ac-8c63-4950-aeba-4520e52e4cf8" ],
"lids": [ "4d7e92ac-8c63-4950-aeba-4520e52e4cf8" ],
"hmac": "f0e5286e1dc98645d026fa7880e302cfbb25b36d9231473aa2f66ed7c94d7def"
}
Each property in the message is described in the table below:
Property | Description |
id | The unique ID of the member server who is submitting this ballot. |
votes | The number of votes this member server is submitting for itself. This value is used to represent selection priority and makes it possible for an administrator to force a member server to become active, or to have precedence or subservience in an election. A negative value means the server is out of service (represented by toggling the "Enabled" switch in ICE Desktop to the off position); it continues to send ballots for purposes of quorum, but may not ever be made leader. |
ms | A timestamp (represented in milliseconds since the Unix epoch) of when this ballot was submitted (transmitted to others). |
rids | Race IDs: A list of zero or more race IDs that this member server is competing in. While this election system supports the ability for a member server to participate in multiple elections (races) simultaneously, in this context, there is only one race. |
lids | Leading IDs: A list of zero or more race IDs that this member server is currently the leader of. |
hmac | A hashed message authentication code used to verify the authenticity of the ballot and to assure that a malicious attacker cannot affect the outcome of an election by submitting bogus ballots. The ms timestamp, in conjunction with this property prevents replay attacks. This cryptographic hash is based on a salt that is assigned to the server group and randomly generated at the time the server group is created. |