Getting Started with CheriBSD 25.03

Robert N. M. Watson (University of Cambridge), Jessica Clarke (University of Cambridge), Brooks Davis (SRI International), Konrad Witaszczyk (University of Cambridge) and George V. Neville-Neil (MSB Associates)

This is a living document that describes how to get up and running with CheriBSD on Morello and CHERI-RISC-V. Topics include how to download and install prebuilt CheriBSD images, how to build your own images, how third-party packages work, and where to find further information and support.

The document describes CheriBSD as of the 25.03 release, unless explicitly stated in sections referring to earlier or later releases.

This document is a work-in-progress. Feedback and contributions are welcomed. Please see our GitHub Repository for the source code and an issue tracker. There is a rendered version on the web, which is automatically updated when the git repository is committed to.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge Brian Campbell (University of Edinburgh) and Elise Haldane (Digital Catapult) for their contributions to this document.

This work was supported in part by the Innovate UK project Digital Security by Design (DSbD) Technology Platform Prototype, 105694, and Innovate UK project Developing and Evaluating an Open-Source Desktop for Arm Morello, 10027440.

This material is based upon work supported by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under Contract No. HR001122C0110 ("ETC"), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Contract No. HR001123C0031 ("MTSS"), and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Contract No. FA8750-24-C-B047 ("DEC"). Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).