L1 <-> L2 communication

Deposits and Withdrawals

The zkEVM supports general message passing for L1<->L2 communication. Proofs are settled on L1, so core of this process is the L2->L1 message passing process. L1->L2 messages are recorded on L1 inside a priority queue, the sequencer picks it up from here and executes it in the zkEVM. The zkEVM sends an L2->L1 message of the L1 transactions that it processed, and the rollup's proof is only valid if the processed transactions were exactly right.

There is an asymmetry in the two directions however, in the L1->L2 direction we support starting message calls by having a special transaction type called L1 transactions. In the L2->L1 direction we only support message passing.

In particular, deposits and withdrawals of ether also use the above methods. For deposits the L1->L2 transaction is sent with empty calldata, the recipients address and the deposited value. When withdrawing, an L2->L1 message is sent. This is then processed by the smart contract holding the ether on L1, which releases the funds.

L2→L1 communication

The L2→L1 communication is more fundamental than the L1→L2 communication, as the second relies on the first. L2→L1 communication happens by the L1 smart contract verifying messages alongside the proofs. The only “provable” part of the communication from L2 to L1 are native L2→L1 logs emitted by VM. These can be emitted by the to_l1opcode. Each log consists of the following fields:

struct L2Log {
  uint8 l2ShardId;
  bool isService;
  uint16 txNumberInBatch;
  address sender;
  bytes32 key;
  bytes32 value;
}

Where:

  • l2ShardId is the id of the shard the opcode was called (it is currently always 0).
  • isService a boolean flag that is not used right now
  • txNumberInBatch the number of the transaction in the batch where the log has happened. This number is taken from the internal counter which is incremented each time the increment_tx_counter is called.
  • sender is the value of this in the frame where the L2→L1 log was emitted.
  • key and value are just two 32-byte values that could be used to carry some data with the log.

The hashed array of these opcodes is then included into the batch commitment. Because of that we know that if the proof verifies, then the L2→L1 logs provided by the operator were correct, so we can use that fact to produce more complex structures. Before Boojum such logs were also Merklized within the circuits and so the Merkle tree’s root hash was included into the batch commitment also.

Important system values

Two key and value fields are enough for a lot of system-related use-cases, such as sending timestamp of the batch, previous batch hash, etc. They were and are used to verify the correctness of the batch's timestamps and hashes. You can read more about block processing on Batches and L2 blocks on ZKsync.

Long L2→L1 messages & bytecodes

However, sometimes users want to send long messages beyond 64 bytes which key and value allow us. But as already said, these L2→L1 logs are the only ways that the L2 can communicate with the outside world. How do we provide long messages?

Let’s add an sendToL1 method in L1Messenger, where the main idea is the following:

  • Let’s submit an L2→L1 log with key = msg.sender (the actual sender of the long message) and value = keccak256(message).
  • Now, during batch commitment the operator will have to provide an array of such long L2→L1 messages and it will be checked on L1 that indeed for each such log the correct preimage was provided.

A very similar idea is used to publish uncompressed bytecodes on L1 (the compressed bytecodes were sent via the long L1→L2 messages mechanism as explained above).

Note, however, that whenever someone wants to prove that a certain message was present, they need to compose the L2→L1 log and prove its presence.

Priority operations

Also, for each priority operation, we would send its hash and it status via an L2→L1 log. On L1 we would then reconstruct the rolling hash of the processed priority transactions, allowing to correctly verify during the executeBatches method that indeed the batch contained the correct priority operations.

Importantly, the fact that both hash and status were sent, it made it possible to prove that the L2 part of a deposit has failed and ask the bridge to release funds.

L1→L2 Messaging

The transactions on ZKsync can be initiated not only on L2, but also on L1. There are two types of transactions that can be initiated on L1:

  • Priority operations. These are the kind of operations that any user can create.
  • Upgrade transactions. These can be created only during upgrades.

Prerequisites

Please read Bootloader and System contracts on the general system contracts / bootloader structure as well as the pubdata structure with Boojum system to understand the difference between system and user logs.

Priority operations

Initiation

A new priority operation can be appended by calling the requestL2Transaction method on L1. This method will perform several checks for the transaction, making sure that it is processable and provides enough fee to compensate the operator for this transaction. Then, this transaction will be appended to the priority queue.

Bootloader

Whenever an operator sees a priority operation, it can include the transaction into the batch. While for normal L2 transaction the account abstraction protocol will ensure that the msg.sender has indeed agreed to start a transaction out of this name, for L1→L2 transactions there is no signature verification. In order to verify that the operator includes only transactions that were indeed requested on L1, the bootloader maintains two variables:

  • numberOfPriorityTransactions (maintained at PRIORITY_TXS_L1_DATA_BEGIN_BYTE of bootloader memory)
  • priorityOperationsRollingHash (maintained at PRIORITY_TXS_L1_DATA_BEGIN_BYTE + 32 of the bootloader memory)

Whenever a priority transaction is processed, the numberOfPriorityTransactions gets incremented by 1, while priorityOperationsRollingHash is assigned to keccak256(priorityOperationsRollingHash, processedPriorityOpHash), where processedPriorityOpHash is the hash of the priority operations that has been just processed.

Also, for each priority transaction, we emit a user L2→L1 log with its hash and result, which basically means that it will get Merklized and users will be able to prove on L1 that a certain priority transaction has succeeded or failed (which can be helpful to reclaim your funds from bridges if the L2 part of the deposit has failed).

Then, at the end of the batch, we submit and 2 L2→L1 log system log with these values.

Batch commit

During block commit, the contract will remember those values, but not validate them in any way.

Batch execution

During batch execution, we would pop numberOfPriorityTransactions from the top of priority queue and verify that their rolling hash does indeed equal to priorityOperationsRollingHash.

Upgrade transactions

Initiation

Upgrade transactions can only be created during a system upgrade. It is done if the DiamondProxy delegatecalls to the implementation that manually puts this transaction into the storage of the DiamondProxy. Note, that since it happens during the upgrade, there is no “real” checks on the structure of this transaction. We do have some validation, but it is purely on the side of the implementation which the DiamondProxy delegatecalls to and so may be lifted if the implementation is changed.

The hash of the currently required upgrade transaction is stored under l2SystemContractsUpgradeTxHash.

We will also track the batch where the upgrade has been committed in the l2SystemContractsUpgradeBatchNumbervariable.

We can not support multiple upgrades in parallel, i.e. the next upgrade should start only after the previous one has been complete.

Bootloader

The upgrade transactions are processed just like with priority transactions, with only the following differences:

  • We can have only one upgrade transaction per batch & this transaction must be the first transaction in the batch.
  • The system contracts upgrade transaction is not appended to priorityOperationsRollingHash and doesn't increment numberOfPriorityTransactions. Instead, its hash is calculated via a system L2→L1 log before it gets executed. Note, that it is an important property. More on it below.

Commit

After an upgrade has been initiated, it will be required that the next commit batches operation already contains the system upgrade transaction. It is checked by verifying the corresponding L2→L1 log.

We also remember that the upgrade transaction has been processed in this batch (by amending the l2SystemContractsUpgradeBatchNumber variable).

Revert

In a very rare event when the team needs to revert the batch with the upgrade on ZKsync, the l2SystemContractsUpgradeBatchNumber is reset.

Note, however, that we do not “remember” that certain batches had a version before the upgrade, i.e. if the reverted batches will have to be re-executed, the upgrade transaction must still be present there, even if some of the deleted batches were committed before the upgrade and thus didn’t contain the transaction.

Execute

Once batch with the upgrade transaction has been executed, we delete them from storage for efficiency to signify that the upgrade has been fully processed and that a new upgrade can be initiated.

Security considerations

Since the operator can put any data into the bootloader memory and for L1→L2 transactions the bootloader has to blindly trust it and rely on L1 contracts to validate it, it may be a very powerful tool for a malicious operator. Note, that while the governance mechanism is generally trusted, we try to limit our trust for the operator as much as possible, since in the future anyone would be able to become an operator.

Some time ago, we used to have a system where the upgrades could be done via L1→L2 transactions, i.e. the implementation of the DiamondProxy upgrade would include a priority transaction (with from equal to for instance FORCE_DEPLOYER) with all the upgrade params.

In the Boojum though having such logic would be dangerous and would allow for the following attack:

  • Let’s say that we have at least 1 priority operations in the priority queue. This can be any operation, initiated by anyone.
  • The operator puts a malicious priority operation with an upgrade into the bootloader memory. This operation was never included in the priority operations queue / and it is not an upgrade transaction. However, as already mentioned above the bootloader has no idea what priority / upgrade transactions are correct and so this transaction will be processed.

The most important caveat of this malicious upgrade is that it may change implementation of the Keccak256 precompile to return any values that the operator needs.

  • When thepriorityOperationsRollingHash will be updated, instead of the “correct” rolling hash of the priority transactions, the one which would appear with the correct topmost priority operation is returned. The operator can’t amend the behaviour of numberOfPriorityTransactions, but it won’t help much, since the thepriorityOperationsRollingHash will match on L1 on the execution step.

That’s why the concept of the upgrade transaction is needed: this is the only transaction that can initiate transactions out of the kernel space and thus change bytecodes of system contracts. That’s why it must be the first one and that’s why emit its hash via a system L2→L1 log before actually processing it.

Why it doesn’t break on the previous version of the system

This section is not required for Boojum understanding but for those willing to analyze the production system that is deployed at the time of this writing.

Note that the hash of the transaction is calculated before the transaction is executed: https://github.com/matter-labs/era-contracts/blob/main/system-contracts/bootloader/bootloader.yul#L1055

And then we publish its hash on L1 via a system L2→L1 log: https://github.com/matter-labs/era-contracts/blob/main/system-contracts/bootloader/bootloader.yul#L1133

In the new upgrade system, the priorityOperationsRollingHash is calculated on L2 and so if something in the middle changes the implementation of Keccak256, it may lead to the full priorityOperationsRollingHash be maliciously crafted. In the pre-Boojum system, we publish all the hashes of the priority transactions via system L2→L1 and then the rolling hash is calculated on L1. This means that if at least one of the hash is incorrect, then the entire rolling hash will not match also.

Blocks and batches

Explore how ZKsync Era processes transactions by grouping them into blocks and batches, the role of sealing blocks, and the importance of rollbacks in the virtual machine.

Bridging assets

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