🔏ERC-2771 (recommended)

Native meta transactions with top notch security

If you are using @gelatonetwork/relay-sdk v3 or contracts from the package @gelatonetwork/relay-context v2 please follow this migration guide to migrate to the new versions.

After reading this page:

You'll understand the difference between sponsoredCallERC2771and callWithSyncFeeERC2771
You'll understand how to use sponsoredCallERC2771 and callWithSyncFeeERC2771 in combination with ERC2771Context to achieve a gasless UX for your app, with secure user signature verification.
You'll understand ERC-2771's core functionality and how it allows for the off-chain sender address to be verified on-chain.

Recommendation for using ERC-2771

As detailed in the Security Considerations section, it's crucial to ensure that your relay implementation is impervious to vulnerabilities when using a relayer. The most secure approach is to utilize our ERC-2771 implementations:

When using sponsoredCallERC2771, you sponsor your user's gas fees, leveraging 1Balance for payment. In contrast, with callWithSyncFeeERC2771, the fees are paid from the target contract.

In both instances, users are prompted to sign their transaction's relay request using their private keys (for instance, through MetaMask). This step is crucial for security purposes. Gelato verifies on-chain that the user's signature corresponds with the required address before forwarding the call.

When relaying a message to a target smart contract function, it's essential for the function to authenticate the message's origin and confirm it was forwarded through the correct relayer. Without these verifications, your target function becomes susceptible to exploitation. ERC-2771 employs sophisticated data encoding to relay the original _msgSender from off-chain, and it guarantees that only the trustedForwarder is capable of encoding this value. These two parameters, in tandem, safeguard against any potential misconduct, ensuring a secure transmission of information from off-chain to on-chain!

Why is this important?

In the context of relaying, msg.sender loses its usual informational significance. Under normal circumstances, msg.sender would denote the user initiating the transaction; however, with off-chain relaying, we lose this valuable piece of information.

Consider this scenario: how does a target smart contract determine who can call a particular function? In this case, msg.sender will be the relayer, but merely whitelisting this address is insufficient and still permits others using the same relayer to call your function. This situation can raise significant concerns, particularly when low-level calls are involved.

The optimal solution would be to allow the initiator of the relay call to specify an address and relay this address on-chain. The target smart contract can then authenticate a function call using this address.

The challenge then becomes: how can we successfully transmit information (a specific address) via low-level calldata from off-chain to on-chain without disrupting the calldata's integrity?

Core Functionality of ERC-2771

Here's where the real magic unfolds. The trustedForwarder encodes the from address (i.e., the off-chain address) into the calldata by appending it at the end:

(bool success, ) = to.call.value(value)(abi.encodePacked(data, from));

Now, the target contract can validate the from address by decoding the data in the same manner, ensuring that this message has been passed through the trustedForwarder.

The necessary target contract function can then confidently confirm that the correct entity signed and requested this payload to be relayed, and only via a trusted forwarder - in our case, the Gelato Relay.

How does Gelato encode this data?

Let's take as an example relay method sponsoredCallERC2771. Method callWithSyncFeeERC2771 works similarly.

Gelato Relay's sponsoredCallERC2771 function encodes the user's address, which can then be utilized by the ERC-2771 compatible target smart contract. The most relevant part, where the user address is appended to the calldata, is shown below:

GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771.sol

_call.target.revertingContractCall(
    _encodeERC2771Context(_call.data, _call.user),
    "GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771.sponsoredCallERC2771:"
);

where _encodeERC2771Context refers to:

GelatoRelayUtils.sol

function _encodeERC2771Context(bytes calldata _data, address _msgSender)
    pure
    returns (bytes memory)
{
    return abi.encodePacked(_data, _msgSender);
}

We are encoding the calldata and the user address together by simply appending the user's address to the end as required by ERC-2771.

How can I modify my smart contract to be ERC-2771 compatible?

Let's take a look at an example using relay method sponsoredCallERC2771. For callWithSyncFeeERC2771 please refer to the steps described here.

1. Install Gelato's relay-context package in your contract repo

See also relay-context-contracts: Installation

npm install --save-dev @gelatonetwork/relay-context

yarn add -D @gelatonetwork/relay-context

2. Import the ERC2771Context contract:

import {
    ERC2771Context
} from "@gelatonetwork/relay-context/contracts/vendor/ERC2771Context.sol";

This contract's main functionality (originally implemented by OpenZeppelin) is to decode the off-chain msg.sender from the encoded calldata using _msgSender() .

ERC2771Context.sol

// SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
// OpenZeppelin Contracts (last updated v4.7.0) (metatx/ERC2771Context.sol)

pragma solidity ^0.8.9;

import "../utils/Context.sol";

/**
 * @dev Context variant with ERC2771 support.
 */
abstract contract ERC2771Context is Context {
    address private immutable _trustedForwarder;
    
    constructor(address trustedForwarder) {
        _trustedForwarder = trustedForwarder;
    }

    function isTrustedForwarder(address forwarder) public view virtual returns (bool) {
        return forwarder == _trustedForwarder;
    }

    function _msgSender() internal view virtual override returns (address sender) {
        if (isTrustedForwarder(msg.sender)) {
            // The assembly code is more direct than the Solidity version using `abi.decode`.
            /// @solidity memory-safe-assembly
            assembly {
                sender := shr(96, calldataload(sub(calldatasize(), 20)))
            }
        } else {
            return super._msgSender();
        }
    }

    function _msgData() internal view virtual override returns (bytes calldata) {
        if (isTrustedForwarder(msg.sender)) {
            return msg.data[:msg.data.length - 20];
        } else {
            return super._msgData();
        }
    }
}

The trustedForwarder variable is set in the constructor which allows for setting a trusted party that will relay your message to your target smart contract. In our case, this is Gelato Relay1BalanceERC2771.sol which you can find in the contract addresses section.
The _msgSender() function encapsulates the main functionality of ERC-2771, by decoding the user address from the last 20 bytes of the calldata.
- In Solidity, the logic is equivalent to:

abi.decode(
    msg.data[msg.data.length - 20:],
    (address)
);

Gelato's smart contracts handle the encoding of important information to the calldata (see How does Gelato encode this data?). It is the job of your target smart contract function to decode this information using this _msgSender() function.
The function _msgData() removes the msg.sender from the entire calldata if the contract was called by the trustedForwarder, or otherwise falls back to return the original calldata.

3. Replace msg.sender with _msgSender()

Within the function that you would like to be called with Gelato Relay, replace all instances of msg.sender with a call to the _msgSender() function inherited from ERC2771Context. _msgSender() is the off-chain signer of the relay request, allowing for secure whitelisting on your target function.

4. (Re)deploy your contract and whitelist GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771

If your contract is not upgradeable, then you will have to redeploy your contract to set GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771.sol as your trustedForwarder:

GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771.solis immutable for security reasons. This means that once you set GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771.sol as your trusted forwarder, there is no way for Gelato to change the ERC2771 signature verification scheme and so you can be sure that the intended _msgSender is correct and accessible from within your target contract.

Please refer to the contract addresses section to find out which Gelato relay address to use as a trustedForwarder. Use GelatoRelay1BalanceERC2771.sol address for sponsoredCallERC2771.

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Last updated 1 year ago