Verified Configurations

This page describes which architecture/platform/configuration combinations of seL4 have verified properties, which configurations possess which properties, and how to obtain an seL4 version for a specified configuration.

At this time, verification of seL4 remains a more time-intensive process than software development. Consequently, while seL4 has been ported to multiple architectures, and its build system allows further configuration of internal and hardware features, verified configurations are necessarily both less numerous and more specific.

These configurations are also referred to as verification platforms, currently constituting: ARM, ARM_HYP, X64, RISCV64, ARM_MCS

Please consult Frequently Asked Questions, as well as the proof and assumptions page for a better understanding of the intersection of verification and seL4.

Examining and Building Verified Configurations

Current verified configurations can be found in seL4 sources in the configs folder:

ls configs/*_verified.cmake
# configs/ARM_HYP_verified.cmake  configs/RISCV64_verified.cmake
# configs/ARM_MCS_verified.cmake  configs/X64_verified.cmake
# configs/ARM_verified.cmake

To obtain specific source code and build for a given configuration (e.g. ARM) in a build directory:

mkdir build
cd build
cmake -P ../config/ARM_verified.cmake

Notably kernel.elf is the kernel binary, and kernel_all_pp.c is the kernel source code after preprocessing, which is used as the basis for verification efforts.

Also see Stand-alone seL4 builds for general guidelines on generating an seL4 binary from an existing configuration and what to do with a kernel.elf file.

Available Verified Configurations

Unverified Features

At present, none of our verified configurations take into account address translation for devices (System MMU or IOMMU), debug/profiling interfaces, or the kernel startup at boot.

The proofs for RISC-V 64-bit binary verification and ARM_MCS (mixed-criticality extensions to real-time seL4 features) are in progress. Refer to the roadmap for status and upcoming features.

ARM

ARM_HYP

X64

RISCV64