To compile ESBMC on Ubuntu 24.04 with LLVM 14 and Z3:
sudo apt install clang-14 llvm-14 clang-tidy-14 python-is-python3 python3 git ccache unzip wget curl bison flex g++-multilib linux-libc-dev libboost-all-dev libz3-dev libclang-14-dev libclang-cpp-dev cmake
git clone https://github.com/esbmc/esbmc.git
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DENABLE_Z3=1
make -j4
This is a guide on how to build ESBMC and its supported solvers.
It has been tested with Ubuntu 20.04.1, Ubuntu 22.04 and macOS Catalina as well as Windows 10 WSL v1 or v2 Ubuntu WSL, but the steps are mostly the same for other Linux and macOS distributions.
It is recommended that the RAM should be 6 GB at least.
Before starting, note that ESBMC is mainly distributed under the terms of the Apache License 2.0, so please read it carefully.
package | required | minimum version |
---|---|---|
clang | yes | 11.0.0 |
boost | yes | 1.77 |
CMake | yes | 3.18.0 |
Boolector | no | 3.2.2 |
CVC4 | no | 1.8 |
CVC5 | no | 1.1.2 |
MathSAT | no | 5.5.4 |
Yices | no | 2.6.1 |
Z3 | no | 4.8.9 |
Bitwuzla | no | 0.3.1 |
The version requirements are stable but can change between releases.
We need to install some dependencies before moving into the next steps.
All of them are listed in the following installation command:
Linux:
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install build-essential git gperf libgmp-dev cmake bison curl flex g++-multilib linux-libc-dev libboost-all-dev libtinfo-dev ninja-build python3-setuptools unzip wget python3-pip openjdk-8-jre
macOS:
brew install gmp cmake boost ninja python3 wget automake flex bison && pip3 install PySMT
Note that the packages are listed with their name in Debian/Ubuntu, but they can be found in other distributions as well.
ESBMC source code is publicly available in Github.
Before Cloning ESBMC Source Code, it is better to make a directory to contain the whole project in “ESBMC_Project”.
You can get the latest version using the following git command:
mkdir ESBMC_Project && cd ESBMC_Project && git clone https://github.com/esbmc/esbmc
Here, you have a choice: either build against the standard LLVM/Clang as distributed by the developers or the distribution, or to use a CHERI-enabled LLVM/Clang toolchain for ESBMC's frontend in case you want to verify CHERI-C programs as well. Note that the CHERI-support in ESBMC is experimental and incomplete at this point.
If you are building ESBMC-CHERI, skip the following sections and go straight to Section Preparing CHERI Clang 13 (experimental)
.
You can either download and unpack a release manually:
wget https://github.com/llvm/llvm-project/releases/download/llvmorg-11.0.0/clang+llvm-11.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-ubuntu-20.04.tar.xz &&
tar xfJ clang+llvm-11.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-ubuntu-20.04.tar.xz &&
ESBMC_CLANG=$(echo -D{LLVM,Clang}_DIR=$PWD/clang+llvm-11.0.0-x86_64-linux-gnu-ubuntu-20.04) &&
ESBMC_STATIC=ON
or use ESBMC's default for downloading dependencies during the build process:
ESBMC_CLANG=-DDOWNLOAD_DEPENDENCIES=ON
ESBMC_STATIC=ON
We'll use these variables later in the build process. Note that downloading dependencies work for most of the dependencies covered below as well. In this case, you can directly jump to the section "Building ESBMC". Remember that it is optional to keep all the features enabled. They are optional.
For shared builds, it is recommended to use the system's LLVM/Clang, which on Ubuntu can be obtained by:
apt-get install libclang-cpp11-dev &&
ESBMC_CLANG="-DLLVM_DIR=/usr/lib/llvm-11/lib/cmake/llvm -DClang_DIR=/usr/lib/cmake/clang-11" &&
ESBMC_STATIC=OFF
CHERI-enabled ESBMC uses CHERI clang in its front-end. It currently supports the release 20210817 based on clang version 13.0.0.
First, we need to download the package. It can be performed using the following wget command:
wget https://github.com/CTSRD-CHERI/llvm-project/archive/refs/tags/cheri-rel-20210817.tar.gz
Before build the package, check that lld is installed:
sudo apt-get install lld
Then, we need to extract and build the package. You can use the following commands:
tar xf cheri-rel-20210817.tar.gz &&
mkdir clang13 &&
cd llvm-project-cheri-rel-20210817 &&
mkdir build &&
cd build &&
cmake -GNinja -S ../llvm -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DLLVM_PARALLEL_LINK_JOBS=4 -DLLVM_CCACHE_BUILD=FALSE -DLLVM_INSTALL_BINUTILS_SYMLINKS=TRUE -DLLVM_ENABLE_LIBXML2=FALSE -DLLVM_ENABLE_ZLIB=FORCE_ON -DLLVM_ENABLE_OCAMLDOC=FALSE -DLLVM_ENABLE_BINDINGS=FALSE -DLLVM_INCLUDE_EXAMPLES=FALSE -DLLVM_INCLUDE_DOCS=FALSE -DLLVM_INCLUDE_BENCHMARKS=FALSE -DCLANG_ENABLE_STATIC_ANALYZER=FALSE -DCLANG_ENABLE_ARCMT=FALSE -DLLVM_ENABLE_Z3_SOLVER=FALSE -DLLVM_TOOL_LLVM_MCA_BUILD=FALSE -DLLVM_TOOL_LLVM_EXEGESIS_BUILD=FALSE -DLLVM_TOOL_LLVM_RC_BUILD=FALSE -DLLVM_ENABLE_LLD=TRUE -DLLVM_OPTIMIZED_TABLEGEN=FALSE -DLLVM_USE_SPLIT_DWARF=TRUE -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=TRUE '-DLLVM_LIT_ARGS=--max-time 3600 --timeout 300 -s -vv' '-DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD=AArch64;ARM;Mips;RISCV;X86;host' -DENABLE_EXPERIMENTAL_NEW_PASS_MANAGER=FALSE -DCLANG_ROUND_TRIP_CC1_ARGS=FALSE '-DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS=llvm;clang;lld' -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../../clang13 -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=/usr/bin/cc -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=/usr/bin/c++ -DCMAKE_ASM_COMPILER=/usr/bin/cc -DCMAKE_BUILD_RPATH_USE_ORIGIN=TRUE
ninja &&
ninja install &&
cd ../.. &&
ESBMC_CLANG=$(echo -D{LLVM,Clang}_DIR=$PWD/clang13) &&
ESBMC_STATIC=Off
If you want to build ESBMC-CHERI, please built with the option:
-DESBMC_CHERI=On -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Sanitizer -DSANITIZER_TYPE=UBSAN
We developed a solidity frontend for the efficient SMT-based context-bounded model checker (ESBMC). ESBMC-solidity is a permissively licensed open-source context-bounded model checker to verify Solidity smart contracts. It can verify both predefined safety properties (e.g., bounds check, overflow, underflow) and user-defined program assertions automatically.
To verify Solidity smart contract, ESBMC should be built with the option:
-DENABLE_SOLIDITY_FRONTEND=On
The Python frontend enables the analysis of Python code, leveraging the AST (Abstract Syntax Tree) generated by ast2json Python package.
To use the Python frontend, follow these steps:
First install ast2json:
pip3 install ast2json
then enable the Python frontend during the ESBMC build:
-DENABLE_PYTHON_FRONTEND=On
ESBMC can use the forward and backward operations from constraint programming to contract the search space exploration from the program's entry point to the property being verified and vice-versa. This (interval) contraction is enabled via the option --goto-contractor. First, the IBEX library must be installed using the instructions available at http://ibex-team.github.io/ibex-lib/install.html. Once IBEX is installed on your computer, ESBMC should be built with the option:
-DENABLE_GOTO_CONTRACTOR=ON -DIBEX_DIR=path-to-ibex
ESBMC relies on SMT solvers to reason about formulae in its back-end.
Currently we support the following solvers: Bitwuzla, Boolector, CVC4, MathSAT, Yices 2, and Z3.
Since this guide focuses primarily on ESBMC build, we will only cover the steps needed by it.
Note that all solvers are optional, and you don't need to enable them. However, without any solver, ESBMC will not be able to verify many programs. It is recommended to include at least the SMT solver Boolector.
We have wrapped the entire build and setup of Boolector in the following command:
git clone --depth=1 --branch=3.2.3 https://github.com/boolector/boolector && cd boolector && ./contrib/setup-lingeling.sh && ./contrib/setup-btor2tools.sh && ./configure.sh --prefix $PWD/../boolector-release && cd build && make -j9 && make install && cd .. && cd ..
For more details on Boolector, please refer to its Github.
We have wrapped the entire build and setup of CVC4 in the following command:
pip3 install toml && git clone https://github.com/CVC4/CVC4.git && cd CVC4 && git reset --hard b826fc8ae95fc && ./contrib/get-antlr-3.4 && ./configure.sh --optimized --prefix=../cvc4 --static --no-static-binary && cd build && make -j4 && make install && cd .. && cd ..
If you need more details on CVC4, please refer to its Github.
We have wrapped the entire build and setup of CVC5 in the following command:
pip3 install toml &&
git clone https://github.com/CVC5/CVC5.git &&
cd CVC5 &&
git switch --detach cvc5-1.1.2 &&
./configure.sh --prefix=../cvc5 --auto-download --static --no-static-binary &&
cd build && make -j4 && make install && cd .. &&
cd ..
If you need more details on CVC5, please refer to its Github.
We have wrapped the entire build and setup of MathSAT in the following command:
Linux:
wget http://mathsat.fbk.eu/download.php?file=mathsat-5.5.4-linux-x86_64.tar.gz -O mathsat.tar.gz && tar xf mathsat.tar.gz && mv mathsat-5.5.4-linux-x86_64 mathsat
macOS:
wget http://mathsat.fbk.eu/download.php?file=mathsat-5.5.4-darwin-libcxx-x86_64.tar.gz -O mathsat.tar.gz && tar xf mathsat.tar.gz && mv mathsat-5.5.4-darwin-libcxx-x86_64 mathsat
In macOS, the following command is required:
ln -s /usr/local/include/gmp.h mathsat/include/gmp.h
For more details on MathSAT, please refer to its webpage.
First, we need to setup and build GMP library, by entering the following command (Linux only):
wget https://gmplib.org/download/gmp/gmp-6.1.2.tar.xz && tar xf gmp-6.1.2.tar.xz && rm gmp-6.1.2.tar.xz && cd gmp-6.1.2 && ./configure --prefix $PWD/../gmp --disable-shared ABI=64 CFLAGS=-fPIC CPPFLAGS=-DPIC && make -j4 && make install && cd ..
Then, we are able to build and setup Yices 2 using the following command:
Linux:
git clone https://github.com/SRI-CSL/yices2.git && cd yices2 && git checkout Yices-2.6.1 && autoreconf -fi && ./configure --prefix $PWD/../yices --with-static-gmp=$PWD/../gmp/lib/libgmp.a && make -j9 && make static-lib && make install && cp ./build/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-release/static_lib/libyices.a ../yices/lib && cd ..
macOS:
git clone https://github.com/SRI-CSL/yices2.git && cd yices2 && git checkout Yices-2.6.1 && autoreconf -fi && ./configure --prefix $PWD/../yices && make -j9 && make static-lib && make install && cp ./build/x86_64-apple-darwin*release/static_lib/libyices.a ../yices/lib && cd ..
If you need more details on Yices 2, please refer to its Github.
We have wrapped the entire build and setup of Z3 in the following command:
Linux:
wget https://github.com/Z3Prover/z3/releases/download/z3-4.8.9/z3-4.8.9-x64-ubuntu-16.04.zip && unzip z3-4.8.9-x64-ubuntu-16.04.zip && mv z3-4.8.9-x64-ubuntu-16.04 z3
macOS:
brew install z3
If you need more details on Z3, please refer to its Github.
If you are using macOS and have installed z3 using brew, you'll need to copy the entire z3 directory from the place where Homebrew keeps packages to your workspace:
cp -rp $(brew info z3 | egrep "/usr[/a-zA-Z\.0-9]+ " -o) z3
We have wrapped the entire build and setup of Bitwuzla in the following command:
Linux/macOS:
git clone --depth=1 --branch=0.3.1 https://github.com/bitwuzla/bitwuzla.git && cd bitwuzla && ./configure.py --prefix $PWD/../bitwuzla-release && cd build && meson install
For more details on Bitwuzla, please refer to its Github.
Before proceeding to the next section, make sure you have clang, LLVM and all the solvers ready in your workspace:
clang and LLVM:
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/clang13
Boolector:
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/boolector
CVC4: (Linux only)
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/CVC4
MathSAT:
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/mathsat
Yices:
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/yices
Z3:
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/z3
Bitwuzla:
<path_to_your_project>/ESBMC_Project/bitwuzla
The above paths will be used in ESBMC's build command in the next section.
If you are using macOS, make sure you have Xcode.app in your Applications directory by checking:
ls /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk/usr/include/
If no such directory, please go to App Store and install Xcode. If you do not have the full version of Xcode, you will need to replace the flag C2GOTO
with:
-DC2GOTO_SYSROOT=/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk
Now we are ready to build ESBMC. Please note that we describe the same build option used in our CI/CD. If you want to all available cmake options, refer to our Options.cmake file.
If you are building ESBMC-CHERI, please complete the following sections BEFORE configuring ESBMC-CHERI:
- Preparing CHERI Clang 13 (experimental)
- This section helps you to build CHERI-LLVM and set up
ESBMC_CLANG
.
- This section helps you to build CHERI-LLVM and set up
- Setting up the sysroot for CHERI clang
- This section will get you the CHERI header files to set up
ESBMC_CHERI_HYBRID_SYSROOT
andESBMC_CHERI_PURECAP_SYSROOT
.
- This section will get you the CHERI header files to set up
First, we need to setup cmake, by using the following command in ESBMC_Project directory you just created:
Linux:
cd esbmc && mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. -GNinja -DBUILD_TESTING=On -DENABLE_REGRESSION=On $ESBMC_CLANG -DBUILD_STATIC=${ESBMC_STATIC:-ON} -DBoolector_DIR=$PWD/../../boolector-release -DZ3_DIR=$PWD/../../z3 -DENABLE_MATHSAT=ON -DMathsat_DIR=$PWD/../../mathsat -DENABLE_YICES=On -DYices_DIR=$PWD/../../yices -DCVC4_DIR=$PWD/../../cvc4 -DGMP_DIR=$PWD/../../gmp -DBitwuzla_DIR=$PWD/../../bitwuzla-release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=$PWD/../../release
macOS:
cd esbmc && mkdir build && cd build && cmake .. -GNinja -DBUILD_TESTING=On -DENABLE_REGRESSION=On -DBUILD_STATIC=${ESBMC_STATIC:-ON} $ESBMC_CLANG -DBoolector_DIR=$PWD/../../boolector-release -DZ3_DIR=$PWD/../../z3 -DENABLE_MATHSAT=On -DMathsat_DIR=$PWD/../../mathsat -DENABLE_YICES=ON -DYices_DIR=$PWD/../../yices -DC2GOTO_SYSROOT=/Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX.sdk -DBitwuzla_DIR=$PWD/../../bitwuzla-release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=$PWD/../../release
Note, this command uses the ESBMC_CLANG and ESBMC_STATIC variables set in the section on preparing Clang. Note also that if you want to enable the debug mode, i.e., the internal assertions in ESBMC, you must add the option -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug
.
Finally, we can trigger the build process by using the following command:
cmake --build . && ninja install
Once it is finished, ESBMC should be available in the release folder.
In addition to the clang frontends, ESBMC also has two old frontends, src/ansi-c
for C and src/cpp
for C++. These old frontends can be built with cmake flag -DENABLE_OLD_FRONTEND=On
. To use the old frontend for verification, use the ESBMC command line option --old-frontend
.
It is also possible to build a non-static version of ESBMC that links to system libraries and/or solvers installed system-wide.
Shared linking is the default when cmake is invoked with
-DBUILD_STATIC=Off
or the variable is not set.
When clang has been built with the cmake setting
CLANG_LINK_CLANG_DYLIB=On
, the default is to link against the dynamic library
libclang-cpp
and also to not bundle clang's header files.
This bundling can be controlled by setting the cmake variable
CLANG_HEADERS_BUNDLED
to On
or Off
instead of its default detect
.
On
means that the headers are always bundled in ESBMC's executables, and
Off
never bundles the headers, but hard-codes their path. Not bundling headers
when linking shared against a system installation of clang speeds up ESBMC's
translation of source files by avoiding the creation of a temporary directory
and extracting the bundled headers to it. As is common with runtime dependencies
on shared libraries, when clang is updated to a new version, ESBMC will need
to be recompiled.
It is advised to keep the default setting detect
for CLANG_HEADERS_BUNDLED
,
which decides to bundle headers only when linking statically against clang.
CHERI clang is used as frontend by CHERI-enabled ESBMC. Since CHERI support is available only for a few platforms, verifying CHERI-C programs that use header files from the C standard library will require a setup of a C standard library for one of these platforms.
To obtain and install a CHERI sysroot, the cheribuild tool is the recommended way:
The following command will install the packages required for the most commonly used cheribuild targets:
sudo apt install autoconf automake libtool pkg-config clang bison cmake mercurial ninja-build samba flex texinfo time libglib2.0-dev libpixman-1-dev libarchive-dev libarchive-tools libbz2-dev libattr1-dev libcap-ng-dev libexpat1-dev libgmp-dev bc
Download and build Cheri:
git clone https://github.com/CTSRD-CHERI/cheribuild.git && cd cheribuild && python3 cheribuild.py cheribsd-riscv64-purecap disk-image-riscv64-purecap -d
Once the build completed, you'll find cheri
directory in your HOME directory.
CHERI-enabled ESBMC defaults to the platform mips64-unknown-freebsd and expects the corresponding sysroot, the default of which can be configured by passing the CMake flags
-DESBMC_CHERI_HYBRID_SYSROOT=<path> -DESBMC_CHERI_PURECAP_SYSROOT=<path>
e.g. the 'path' should point to $HOME/cheri/output/rootfs-riscv64-purecap
. As for the rootfs-riscv64-purecap
part, you may want to use a diffrent directory if you used a different variant in the cheribuild.py
command above.