[ZK Stack] - Help setting up a testnet using ZKSync v27

[eierina]

Team or Project

No response

Module Affected

• System contracts (era-system-contracts)
• Smart contracts (era-contracts)
• zkEVM (era-zk_evm)
• Server (zksync-era)
• Prover (era-boojum)
• Fee withdrawer (era-fee-withdrawer)
• Block Explorer (clock-explorer)
• Portal - Wallet + Bridge (dapp-portal)
• Other (please specify below)

Rust Version

n/a

Operating System

• Ubuntu
• MacOS
• Windows
• Other (Please specify below)

Issue Description

I’m currently running a testnet with v25 and want to experiment with v27 (no upgrade, start anew). However, it looks like a lot has changed, and the updates might not be fully documented yet. I’d love some help from anyone kind enough to share which components and versions are required to configure, set up, and start a stable v27 testnet. I’m a ZKSync fan and want to convince some other folks to jump on board!

The basic v25 setup looks something like the following:

• Server Components:

  zkstack server --components=api,tree,eth,state_keeper,housekeeper,commitment_generator,da_dispatcher,proof_data_handler,vm_runner_protective_reads,vm_runner_bwip
  

• Prover Components:

  zkstack prover run --component=gateway --docker true --tag=x
  zkstack prover run --component=witness-generator --round=all-rounds --docker true --tag=x
  zkstack prover run --component=witness-vector-generator --threads 10 --docker true --tag=x
  zkstack prover run --component=prover --max-allocation 17179869184 --docker true --tag=x
  zkstack prover run --component=prover-job-monitor --docker true --tag=x
  zkstack prover run --component=compressor --docker true --tag=x
  

• Additional Tools:

  zkstack portal
  zkstack explorer run-backend
  zkstack explorer run
  

So, what’s the equivalent setup for v27? Any tips on components, arguments, versions, or changes I should be aware of? I’d greatly appreciate your insights—it’d mean a lot to me and help showcase ZKSync’s potential to others.

Thanks in advance!
Edoardo

Expected Behavior

would like to run on v27 (no upgrade, start anew).

Current Behavior

currently running on v25

Repository Link (if applicable)

No response

Additional Details

No response

Prior Research

• Yes, I searched for similar issues and did not find any matching ones.

[cpb8010]

Ok, from the other related issue here: #990

I have a testnet running on a custom zksync v25 deployment but it is a bit un stable and I get often crashes on the server due to L1 transaction failed which I can't roll back because I can make the prover_cli work only for some of the commands and some others are failing due to unexpected location of the contracts source code.
Can someone help me to figure out which are the stable versions of the prover, the core, and tools for latest v25, v26, v27 ?

I'm going to work on showing the steps to get zkstack working with v25 and v27

[eierina]

Regarding v27, I’ve updated the instructions based on the latest changes in [03_launch.md](https://github.com/matter-labs/zksync-era/blob/main/prover/docs/src/03_launch.md) for v27. I successfully ran the updated command:

zkstack prover run --component=circuit-prover -l 15 -h 1

However, validation stopped after processing the second batch.

Although the tooling is solid once familiar, there remains uncertainty regarding version selection. Since core and prover follow independent release cycles, it’s unclear if deployments should rely solely on core releases or if certain components must come from the prover releases instead.

In addition, at least in v25.4.0, the prover_cli tool is partially functional. While some functions execute correctly, others crash—possibly due to a (path) misalignment between prover_cli and the contracts/interfaces in zksync-era/contracts (I did update submodules).

There is also ambiguity over which version of zksync-foundry corresponds to or works for a given deployment release.

Clarification on these points would greatly assist the community by ensuring that tooling versions align correctly for robust deployment.

[cpb8010]

So after talking with the team, there's no explicit support for the ability to stand up older protocol versions with newer tools. There just is no comparability matrix list for which set of tools works for which protocol versions, only the latest is supported at any given time with just enough support so you can migrate from the previous protocol release to the next. For zksync-foundry and the zkstack tools, using the latest released version is going to have the best stability (pre-release versions are not stable).

validation stopped after processing the second batch.

Is something I can dig into, can you provide more information on the status after the witness-generation stops? It it always the second batch? Do any of the components report errors, or does just nothing happen?
I don't normally run proving locally, but the rest of v27 appears stable for me, so if you can provide more context for you use case I can try to provide some clarity on suggested troubleshooting steps.

[antonbaliasnikov]

@eierina , please, reopen if you need more support on this topic. Thank you!

[moneta]

It happened to me as well. My dev net died after there was failed transaction all of a sudden. We tried to clear failed transactions/revert l1 batches... but it didn't help. So I re-deployed the new dev net a.k.a. new ecosystem using version 27.

After several failed attempts with other versions, finally the core-v27.3.0 worked for me.

However, when I start the servers, looks like there is another error that I reported here: #1025

So far, to my experience, the deployment process seems very unstable. Not sure it is because of the code base or something.