Agave (Solana validator) Release v4.4.0-beta.0

Release notes

This is a testnet release.

https://github.com/anza-xyz/agave/blob/v4.4/CHANGELOG.md

What's Changed

• chore(consensus_pool): remove DebugIgnore in ParentReadyTracker by @plafer in #15369

• core,perf: retire the tower and banking-trace api_digests by @kskalski in #15324

• Fully comply with SIMD 317 by @alexpyattaev in #15170

• local-cluster: ignore test_duplicate_shreds_broadcast_leader by @AshwinSekar in #15370

• Fix clean_accounts_older_than_root parallelism by @roryharr in #15355

• flh: unkey feature flag by @AshwinSekar in #15390

• geyser: use external plugin interface crate by @sam0x17 in #15388

• conformance: hash large effects fields by @mjain-jump in #15038

• nit: change some BTreeMaps to HashMaps by @akhi3030 in #15380

• SlotStakeCounters: replace BTreeMap with HashMap by @akhi3030 in #15381

• chore: Remove dead turbine experiment ff by @steviez in #15394

• validator: require --enable-rpc-transaction-history for --enable-bigtable-ledger-upload by @samuelvanderwaal in #15307

• ConsensusMetrics: improves naming and handling of some metrics by @akhi3030 in #15298

• purge_special_columns_exact recovers all valid components by @alex-lind1 in #15386

• test-validator: fix block subscription flag panic by @0xzrf in #13322

• runtime: narrow check_and_store() to AccountSharedData by @2501babe in #15398

• chore(deps): bump serde_with from 3.22.0 to 3.23.0 by @dependabot[bot] in #15336

• chore(deps): bump bitflags from 2.13.1 to 2.13.2 by @dependabot[bot] in #15374

• chore(deps): bump smallvec from 1.16.0 to 1.16.1 in /dev-bins by @dependabot[bot] in #15371

• refactor: encode config accounts and test sysvars with wincode by @kskalski in #15365

• svm: check if nonce account is writable by @2501babe in #15400

• refactor: drop the bincode feature from solana-account by @kskalski in #14636

• chore(deps): bump bytemuck_derive from 1.12.0 to 1.12.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #15405

• runtime: tests: core bpf environments by @buffalojoec in #15393

• votor: use af_xdp for both client and server egress traffic by @KirillLykov in #15347

• Preparation - Block production TX dropping in program runtime by @Lichtso in #13860

• chore(dep): bump quinn to 0.11.12 and quinn-proto to 0.11.18 by @yihau in #15269

• bls-sigverify: eliminate allocations for sending metrics by @akhi3030 in #15235

• repair: use BytesPacket by @alexpyattaev in #15352

• shredder: comply with SIMD504 by @alexpyattaev in #14941

• SIMD-0599: Remove inactive stakes from stake delegations by @2501babe in #15078

• Remove shrink_all_slots by @roryharr in #15391

• Remove entries from read_cache when flushed by @roryharr in #15392

• bls-sigverify: introduces UnverifiedBatch and VerifiedBatch by @akhi3030 in #15332

• SIMD-0433: Loader V3 Set Program Data to ELF Length by @buffalojoec in #15402

• chore(keygen): correct subcommand name casing by @t-nelson in #13354

• streamer: track unstaked stream load in a separate EMA by @stablebits in #15086

• runtime: Add multi-block end-to-end test for SIMD-0123 edge cases by @joncinque in #15278

• runtime: ebpp deployment env guard by @buffalojoec in #15323

• fix(rpc): return error when leader schedule not found for validator by @0xzrf in #12197

• Retire skip_shrink as true by @roryharr in #15417

• chore(deps): bump solana-zk-sdk from 8.0.0 to 8.0.1 by @dependabot[bot] in #15403

• runtime: ebpp relatch by @buffalojoec in #15284

• changelog: Add RPC change for getLeaderSchedule by @joncinque in #15422

• refactor: drop bincode from the runtime crate by @kskalski in #15406

• runtime: Make deactivating stake actually deactivating by @joncinque in #15430

• v4.4: Update Changelog by @levsha in #15433

• v4.4: Update CODEOWNERS to backport-reviewers only by @levsha in #15448

• v4.4: chore(streamer): Fix build on windows-2025 (backport of #15447) by @mergify[bot] in #15477

• v4.4: repair: reduce bufferbloat (backport of #15495) by @mergify[bot] in #15506

• Bump version to 4.4.0-beta.0 by…