client.Context gRPC queries should use the gRPC port instead of abci_query

[amaury1093]

Summary

Making a gRPC query using client.Context should ping the gRPC server directly, instead of pinging Tendermint's abci_query RPC endpoint.

Problem Definition

In #10045, we removed baseapp's grpc router routing all queries through tendermint. This means that when pinging the gRPC endpoint directly, queries don't pass by Tendermint.

However, there's only 1 test file in the SDK that tests this:

cosmos-sdk/server/grpc/server_test.go

Lines 60 to 63 in 628547c

	s.conn, err = grpc.Dial(
	val0.AppConfig.GRPC.Address,
	grpc.WithInsecure(), // Or else we get "no transport security set"
	)

All other tests, and probably other app developers, use the Cosmos SDK's client.Context abstraction. This client.Context pings the Tendermint RPC endpoint:

cosmos-sdk/client/grpc_query.go

Line 81 in 628547c

res, err := ctx.QueryABCI(abciReq)

It's slightly less performant to make queries via abci_query than via gRPC directly.

Proposal

Make the client.Context ping the gRPC by default. We should still provide an option to use Tendermint RPC if the user wishes.

An idea of the user-facing API could be:

// Option1: use Tendermint rpc
tmRpcClient, err := client.NewClientFromNode("tcp://0.0.0.0:26657")
tmClientConn := NewTmClientConn(tmRpcClient) // `NewTmClientConn` needs to be written as part of this issue
clientCtx = clientCtx.WithClientConn(tmClientConn)

// Option 2: use gRPC server endpoint
grpcClientConn := grpc.Dial(
	"1.2.3.4:9090",
	grpc.WithInsecure(),
)
clientCtx = clientCtx.WithClientConn(grpcClientConn)

---

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[tac0turtle]

I think this overlaps with #10859?

[amaury1093]

This issues sets the default to gRPC on the client side. I believe #10859 investigates if gRPC queries are still routed through tm on the server side.

They are separate issues IMO. but yeah, as you wrote in that other issue, we should make sure that OP there tested parallelism using the gRPC endpoint and not the TM rpc.

[tac0turtle]

ah okay, I see what you mean

[alexanderbez]

I need additional clarification on what this issue is requesting. From what I gather, you want an interface defined and have Context#abciQuery use that interface to perform the ABCI query instead of directly using ctx.GetNode()? Is this correct?

[amaury1093]

This issue was actually resolved by #11234.