Building OpenVMM

Prerequisites:

One of:
- Getting started on Windows
- Getting started on Linux / WSL2.

It is strongly suggested that you use WSL2, and cross compile for Windows when necessary.

Build Dependencies

OpenVMM currently requires a handful of external dependencies to be present in order to properly build / run. e.g: a copy of protoc to compile Protobuf files, a copy of the mu_msvm UEFI firmware, some test linux kernels, etc...

Running the following command will fetch and unpack these various artifacts into the correct locations within the repo:

cargo xflowey restore-packages

If you intend to cross-compile, refer to the command's --help for additional options related to downloading packages for other architectures.

[Linux] Additional Dependencies

On Linux, there are various other dependencies you will need depending on what you're working on. On Debian-based distros such as Ubuntu, running the following command within WSL will install these dependencies.

In the future, it is likely that this step will be folded into the cargo xflowey restore-packages command.

$ sudo apt install \
  binutils              \
  build-essential       \
  gcc-aarch64-linux-gnu \
  libssl-dev

Building

OpenVMM uses the standard Rust build system, cargo.

To build OpenVMM, simply run:

cargo build

Note that certain features may require compiling with additional --feature flags.

Troubleshooting

This section documents some common errors you may encounter while building OpenVMM.

If you are still running into issues, consider filing an issue on the OpenVMM GitHub Issue tracker.

failed to invoke protoc

Error:

error: failed to run custom build command for `inspect_proto v0.0.0 (/home/daprilik/src/openvmm/support/inspect_proto)`

Caused by:
  process didn't exit successfully: `/home/daprilik/src/openvmm/target/debug/build/inspect_proto-e959f9d63c672ccc/build-script-build` (exit status: 101)
  --- stderr
  thread 'main' panicked at support/inspect_proto/build.rs:23:10:
  called `Result::unwrap()` on an `Err` value: Custom { kind: NotFound, error: "failed to invoke protoc (hint: https://docs.rs/prost-build/#sourcing-protoc): (path: \"/home/daprilik/src/openvmm/.packages/Google.Protobuf.Tools/tools/protoc\"): No such file or directory (os error 2)" }
  note: run with `RUST_BACKTRACE=1` environment variable to display a backtrace
warning: build failed, waiting for other jobs to finish...

Note: the specific package that throws this error may vary, and may not always be inspect_proto

Solution:

You attempted to build OpenVMM without first restoring necessary packages.

Please run cargo xflowey restore-packages, and try again.

The OpenVMM Guide