HermiTux: a unikernel binary-compatible with Linux applications

For general information about HermiTux's design principles and implementation, please read the paper. There are also various documents related to HermiTux listed in the wiki.

The instruction that follows are for x86-64. We have basic support for an ARM64 embedded board, more information in the Wiki.

We also have a Slack channel for HermiTux.

Quick start

If you have Docker installed on a Linux host with KVM support, you can easily try HermiTux within a container.

Prerequisites

• Recommended system: Ubuntu 20.04/Debian 11 (GlibC support is not assured on other distributions)
  • See here for additional instructions regarding older distributions Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 or Debian 10/9
• Debian/Ubuntu packages:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install git build-essential cmake nasm apt-transport-https wget \
	libgmp-dev bsdmainutils libseccomp-dev python libelf-dev

• HermitCore toolchain installed in /opt/hermit:

for dep in binutils-hermit_2.30.51-1_amd64.deb gcc-hermit_6.3.0-1_amd64.deb \
        libhermit_0.2.10_all.deb  newlib-hermit_2.4.0-1_amd64.deb; do \
    wget https://github.com/ssrg-vt/hermitux/releases/download/v1.0/$dep && \
    sudo dpkg -i $dep && \
    rm $dep;
done

Build

1. Clone the repository and retrieve the submodules

git clone https://github.com/ssrg-vt/hermitux
cd hermitux
git submodule init && git submodule update

2. Compile everything as follows:

make

Run an application

Test an example application, for example NPB IS:

cd apps/npb/is
# let's compile it as a static binary:
gcc *.c -o is -static
# let's launch it with HermiTux:
sudo HERMIT_ISLE=uhyve HERMIT_TUX=1 ../../../hermitux-kernel/prefix/bin/proxy \
	../../../hermitux-kernel/prefix/x86_64-hermit/extra/tests/hermitux is

# Now let's try with a dynamically linked program:
gcc *.c -o is-dyn
# We can run it by having hermitux execute the dynamic linux loader:
sudo HERMIT_ISLE=uhyve HERMIT_TUX=1 \
	../../../hermitux-kernel/prefix/bin/proxy \
	../../../hermitux-kernel/prefix/x86_64-hermit/extra/tests/hermitux \
	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 ./is-dyn

For more documentation about multiple topics, please see the wiki: https://github.com/ssrg-vt/hermitux/wiki

HermiTux logo made by Kerbreizh Informatique.