seL4 is a high-performance, highly secure microkernel designed for safety-critical systems. It is formally verified, meaning its implementation has been mathematically proven to correctly implement its specification and enforce key security properties.
- Formal Verification: seL4 is the world's first operating system kernel with a complete formal proof of implementation correctness and security enforcement.
- High Performance: seL4 achieves benchmark-setting performance, often an order of magnitude faster than other microkernels.
- Minimal Trusted Computing Base (TCB): The seL4 kernel itself is extremely small, only around 10,000 lines of code, minimizing the attack surface.
- Capability-Based Security: seL4 uses unforgeable tokens called capabilities to represent and delegate access rights.
- Multicore Support: seL4 supports multicore processors on architectures like ARM and x86.
seL4 is a member of the L4 family of microkernels. It provides only the minimal mechanisms necessary for processes to communicate and share resources, with all other operating system services running as user-level servers.
The small size of the seL4 kernel allows it to be formally verified. The verification proves that seL4 correctly implements its specification, and that the specification enforces key security properties like spatial isolation between processes.
seL4 is suitable for a wide range of embedded and cyber-physical systems, especially those with security and safety requirements. Example use cases include:
- Automotive systems
- Avionics and aerospace systems
- Medical devices
- Industrial control systems
- Secure network devices
seL4 is open source software, available under permissive licenses. It runs on ARM, x86, and RISC-V architectures.
The seL4 Foundation promotes the development and adoption of seL4 and its ecosystem.
With its unique combination of formal verification, high performance, and security features, seL4 is a compelling choice for building highly assured systems. Its small size and open source nature make it suitable for a wide range of applications.
- Type: Microkernel
- Release Year: 2009 (open-sourced in 2014)
- Key Features:
- Formal verification for correctness and security
- Fine-grained capability-based access control
- Minimal TCB for enhanced security
- High performance suitable for real-time systems
- Use Cases: Automotive systems, avionics, medical devices, industrial control systems
- Current Management: Maintained by the seL4 Foundation
For more detailed information about seL4, visit the official seL4 website.