HermiTux: a unikernel binary-compatible with Linux applications

HermiTux is no longer actively maintained, if you are looking for an active unikernel project with similar compatibility goals and methods please make sure to check out Unikraft.

For general information about HermiTux's design principles and implementation, please read the VEE'19 and the IEEE TC papers. 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.

Prerequisites

• Recommended system: Ubuntu 22.04 or 20.04, Debian 12 or 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 python3 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.