Host Dependencies

This page describes how to set up your host machine to build and run seL4 and its supported projects. To compile and use seL4 you can either:

  • Recommended: Use Docker to isolate the dependencies from your machine. Detailed instructions for using Docker for building seL4, Camkes, and L4v can be found here.
  • Install the following dependencies on your local OS

The following instructions describe how to set up the required dependencies on your local OS. This page assumes you are building in a Linux OS. We however encourage site contributions for building in alternative OSes (e.g. macOS).

Get Google’s Repo tool

The primary way of obtaining and managing seL4 project source is through the use of Google’s repo tool. To get repo, follow the instructions described in the section “Installing Repo” here.

See the RepoCheatsheet page for a quick explanation of how we use Repo.

seL4 Build Dependencies

To build seL4-based projects, ensure you have installed the dependencies described in the Base Build Dependencies and Python Dependencies sections below.

Base Build Dependencies

To establish a usable development environment it is important to install your distributions basic build packages.

Ubuntu

The following instructions cover the build dependencies tested on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS. Note that earlier versions of Ubuntu (e.g. 16.04) may not be sufficient for building as some default development packages are stuck at older versions (e.g CMake 3.5.1, GCC 5.4 for 16.04). As dependencies and packages may be frequently changed, deprecated or updated these instructions may become out of date. If you discover any missing dependencies and packages we welcome new contributions to the page.

Note that we require a minimum CMake version of 3.12.0 while Ubuntu 18.04 contains 3.10.2. In order to correct this, a custom installation of CMake may be required which can be downloaded from: https://cmake.org/download/

The basic build package on Ubuntu is the build-essential package. To install run:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential

Additional base dependencies for building seL4 projects on Ubuntu include installing:

sudo apt-get install cmake ccache ninja-build cmake-curses-gui
sudo apt-get install python-dev python-pip python3-dev python3-pip
sudo apt-get install libxml2-utils ncurses-dev
sudo apt-get install curl git doxygen device-tree-compiler
sudo apt-get install u-boot-tools
sudo apt-get install protobuf-compiler python-protobuf

To build for ARM targets you will need a cross compiler. In addition, to run seL4 projects on a simulator you will need qemu. Installation of these additional base dependencies include running:

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabi g++-arm-linux-gnueabi
sudo apt-get install gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu g++-aarch64-linux-gnu
sudo apt-get install qemu-system-arm qemu-system-x86 qemu-system-misc

(you can install the hardware floating point versions as well if you wish”

sudo apt-get install gcc-arm-linux-gnueabihf g++-arm-linux-gnueabihf

Debian

For Debian Stretch or later

The dependencies listed in our docker files repository will work for a Debian installation. You can refer to this repository for an up-to-date list of base build dependencies. Specifically refer to the dependencies listed in the:

The version of cmake in Debian stretch is too old to build seL4 projects (buster and later are OK). If you are on stretch, install cmake from stretch-backports:

Add the stretch-backports repository like this (substitute a local mirror for ftp.debian.org if you like)

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://ftp.debian.org/debian stretch-backports main' > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/backports.list"

Then install cmake with

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get -t stretch-backports install cmake

Python Dependencies

Regardless of your Linux distribution, python dependencies are required to build seL4, the manual and its proofs. To install you can run:

pip3 install --user setuptools
pip3 install --user sel4-deps
# Currently we duplicate dependencies for python2 and python3 as a python3 upgrade is in process
pip install --user setuptools
pip install --user sel4-deps

(Some distributions use pip for python3 and pip2 for python2; others uses pip for python2 and pip3 for python3. Use the Python 3 version for your distribution)

CAmkES Build Dependencies

To build a CAmkES based project on seL4, additional dependencies need to be installed on your host machine. Projects using CAmkES (the seL4 component system) need Haskell and some extra python libraries in addition to the standard build tools. The following instructions cover the CAmkES build dependencies for Ubuntu/Debian. Please ensure you have installed the dependencies listed in sections sel4 Build Dependencies and Get Google’s Repo tool prior to building a CAmkES project.

Python Dependencies

The python dependencies required by the CAmkES build toolchain can be installed via pip:

pip3 install --user camkes-deps
# Currently we duplicate dependencies for python2 and python3 as a python3 upgrade is in process
pip install --user camkes-deps

Haskell Dependencies

The CAmkES build toolchain additionally requires Haskell. You can install the Haskell stack on your distribution by running:

curl -sSL https://get.haskellstack.org/ | sh

If you prefer not to bypass your distribution’s package manager, you can do

sudo apt-get install haskell-stack

Build Dependencies

Ubuntu

Tested on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Install the following packages on your Ubuntu machine:

sudo apt-get install clang gdb
sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libclang-dev libcunit1-dev libsqlite3-dev
sudo apt-get install qemu-kvm

Debian

For Debian Stretch or later

The dependencies listed in our docker files repository will work for a Debian installation. You can refer to this repository for an up-to-date list of base build dependencies. Specifically refer to the dependencies listed in the:

Building Proofs (l4v dependencies)

The proofs in the L4.verified repository use Isabelle2017. To best way to make sure you have all the dependencies on your host machine is to follow the instructions listed in sections Base Build Dependencies. However you can get away with avoiding a full cross compiler setup. The dependencies for Isabelle you will need at least are listed below:

Ubuntu

Tested on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

sudo apt-get install libwww-perl libxml2-dev libxslt-dev
sudo apt-get install mlton rsync
sudo apt-get install texlive-fonts-recommended texlive-latex-extra texlive-metapost texlive-bibtex-extra

Debian

For Debian Stretch or later

The dependencies listed in our docker files repository will work for a Debian installation. You can refer to this repository for an up-to-date list of base build dependencies. Specifically refer to the dependencies listed in the:

Haskell Dependencies

The Haskell tool-stack is required to build the Haskell kernel model. You can install Haskell stack on your distribution by running:

curl -sSL https://get.haskellstack.org/ | sh

If you prefer not to bypass your distribution’s package manager, you can do

sudo apt-get install haskell-stack

Setup Isabelle

To setup Isabelle, you will firstly need to pull the L4.verified project source using the Google repo tool (installing the Google repo tool is described in the Get Google’s Repo tool section. The following steps to setup Isabelle:

# Create a directory to store the project source
mkdir lv4_repo
cd lv4_repo
# Initialise the project repo
repo init -u https://github.com/seL4/verification-manifest.git
repo sync
cd l4v
mkdir -p ~/.isabelle/etc
cp -i misc/etc/settings ~/.isabelle/etc/settings
./isabelle/bin/isabelle components -a
./isabelle/bin/isabelle jedit -bf
./isabelle/bin/isabelle build -bv HOL-Word