Relax Program Buffer Constraints

Summary

This SIMD proposes relaxing current constraints on program buffers used by the DeployWithMaxDataLen (initial deployment) and Upgrade (redeployment) instructions, currently requiring them to:

• Be owned by BPFLoaderUpgradeab1e11111111111111111111111, and
• Share an upgrade authority with the program being deployed or upgraded

Motivation

Currently, it is not feasible to support several advanced use cases for program buffers, including:

• Sponsored deployments
• Permissionless buffer reuse
• Retracting erroneous upgrades using a common buffer
• On-chain recompilation

By removing these constraints, the loader can support a broader range of advanced and flexible deployment workflows.

New Terminology

No new terminology is introduced by this proposal.

Detailed Design

The DeployWithMaxDataLen and Upgrade instructions will be updated to include an optional close_buffer boolean input. If not provided, the default will be true.

DeployWithMaxDataLen {
  max_data_len: u64,
  close_buffer: bool, // New
}
Upgrade {
  close_buffer: bool, // New
}

The accounts required by the instructions are unchanged, but the signer requirements differ based on the value of the close_buffer option.

For a value of true, existing behavior is preserved. The buffer account will be closed (lamports transferred to a designated recipient and account data zeroed).

For a value of false, the buffer account is not modified, enabling reuse for future deployments. Since the buffer is not closed, its lamports are not transferred to the spill account. Instead, the program data account must already contain sufficient lamports to satisfy rent requirements. In practice, this means the deployer or upgrader must pre-fund the program data account (e.g. via a transfer in a preceding instruction) before invoking the deploy or upgrade. The net rent cost to the end user remains the same as in the close_buffer=true case, since the user did not pay for the buffer.

Additionally, constraints on the buffer are relaxed:

• No buffer authority signature is required.
• No buffer ownership check is required.
• The IncorrectAuthority check is removed: - DeployWithMaxDataLen: The buffer's authority no longer must match the authority that will be set on the deployed program. - Upgrade: The buffer's authority no longer must match the upgrade authority stored on the program account.

Note that the program's authority account must still be provided in the same position for both instructions and must still sign the transaction. Only the buffer-related checks are relaxed for close_buffer=false; the MissingRequiredSignature check for the program's authority remains enforced.

              DeployWithMaxDataLen / Upgrade { close_buffer }
                                    |
                        +-----------+-----------+
                        |                       |
                 close_buffer=true       close_buffer=false
                    (default)                   |
                        |               Relaxed buffer checks
                 Existing checks        Buffer not modified
                 Buffer closed          (reusable)

Buffer Layout Requirement

Regardless of the buffer's owner, the buffer account must still conform to the expected layout for Loader V3 buffer accounts. Specifically, the account data must deserialize to UpgradeableLoaderState::Buffer (discriminant 1 as a little-endian u32), and the ELF data must begin at the expected offset within the account data (after the header).

| discriminant (4 bytes) | authority_address (33 bytes) | ELF data ... |
|       0x01000000       |    option byte + pubkey      |              |
|                        |                              |              |
|<--------------- 37-byte header ---------------------->|

Alternatives Considered

• Introduce a new loader that enables these behaviors by default
• Only relax the authority constraint (similar outcome, but requires CPI)
• Retain existing constraints and make no changes

Impact

This change enables more flexible program deployment workflows, unlocking new use cases for developers. Some examples include:

• Emergency abort programs: Protocols under attack can deploy an [emergency abort program][sbpf-asm-abort] from a pre-staged buffer to immediately halt all flows through their program, without needing to prepare a buffer during the incident.
• Verified open-source deployments: Developers can publish verified builds of shared open-source program implementations as reusable buffers, allowing users who wish to fork the program to deploy it directly without building and uploading the binary themselves.
• Education and onboarding: Education centers can make buffers available for programs used in lesson plans, so students can easily deploy necessary components to test their implementations on higher networks (e.g. devnet, mainnet-beta).

[sbpf-asm-abort]: https://github.com/deanmlittle/sbpf-asm-abort

Security Considerations

This proposal introduces two new, strictly opt-in potential attack vectors:

1. In multisig deployment flows (e.g., Squads), if a quorum authorizes an upgrade using a buffer it does not own, the buffer could be modified by a third party prior to deployment. This introduces additional security considerations beyond those enforced by the multisig quorum itself.
2. If a buffer is owned by a third-party program, that program may retain write access to the buffer account irrespective of its upgrade authority. This creates a potential supply chain attack vector if the security assumptions of the owner program are not carefully evaluated.

Backwards Compatibility

This feature relaxes existing Loader V3 constraints and is therefore not backwards compatible for consensus, necessitating a feature gate. For CLI and tooling, the change is fully backwards compatible.