seL4 verification scope 2026-10-14
Formal verification uses machine-checked formal proofs to establish functional correctness: the C implementation of verified seL4 configurations conforms to its formal specification. Binary correctness connects compiled machine code to that C behaviour where supported. Separate security formal proofs cover integrity, resource-access availability and confidentiality under their configuration requirements; these properties are not all available in every configuration. For example, the documented confidentiality theorem separates scheduler security domains rather than arbitrary pairs of software threads. [ref]
seL4 Proofs by seL4 Project. seL4 Proofs, High-level Proof Statements: Functional correctness; Binary correctness; Security; System initialisation; platform/configuration qualification
The documented assumptions include correct hardware, selected handwritten machine-interface code, correct boot state, translation lookaside buffer and memory cache management, and noninterfering or trusted DMA. The confidentiality result covers information channels in its model; the assumptions page explicitly excludes timing channels from that coverage. [ref]
What the Proofs Assume by seL4 Project. What the Proofs Assume, The Assumptions: Assembly, Hardware, Hardware management, Boot code, DMA, Information side-channels
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READ(7, 9, 0, 4). Correct IPC delivery does not establish that the service looked up the right file, returned LIME, or ever replied. A service can produce an incorrect payload while the operating-system kernel exactly follows its formal specification. The formal proofs therefore do not automatically prove all user-space services, nor turn the resource-access availability theorem into a guarantee that this file read completes. The verified foundation supports further algorithm correctness and system reasoning; the service protocol and its recovery obligations still need their own justification.// Destination: computer-science.bigb