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HermiTux is a unikernel: a minimal operating system with low memory/disk footprint and sub-second boot time, executing an application within a single address space on top of a hypervisor. Moreover, HermiTux is binary-compatible with Linux: it can run native Linux executables.

Although being a proof-of-concept, HermiTux supports multiple compiled (C, C++, Fortran) and interpreted (Python, LUA) languages. It provides binary analysis and rewriting techniques to optimize system call latency and modularize a kernel in the presence of unmodified binaries. It supports statically and dynamically linked programs, different compilers and optimization levels. HermiTux also provides basic support for multithreading, debugging and profiling.

HermiTux is based on the HermitCore operating system.

Trying it out

HermiTux is open source and all the code and instructions are on GitHub.

Design Principles

For a detailed description please read Hermitux’s VEE 2019 paper as well as the 2021 IEEE TC paper.

HermiTux uses a lightweight KVM-based hypervisor that loads the Linux binary alongside a minimal OS layer within a single address space virtual machine. At runtime, system calls made by the application are caught by HermiTux’s kernel.

Optionally, HermiTux provides a mechanism to rewrite system call invocation into common function calls to the kernel, significantly reducing the system call latency.

HermiTux can also analyze a Linux binary to determine which system calls it invokes, and compile a custom kernel containing only the implementations of these particular system calls.

There are also various documents related to HermiTux listed in the wiki.

Contact

Pierre Olivier, The University of Manchester: pierre.olivier at manchester.ac.uk


HermiTux is an open-source project of the Systems Software Research Group at Virginia Tech.

HermiTux is supported in part by ONR under grants N00014-16-1-2104, N00014-16-1-2711, and N00014-16-1-2818. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this site are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of ONR. This research and development is also supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research under Grant 01IH16010C (Project ENVELOPE), and by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under grant EP/V012134/1.

HermiTux logo made by Kerbreizh Informatique.