Simplex

Simplex simplifies working with Intel's Memory Protection Extensions (MPX) in ways unforseen by the architects.

• System Requirements
  • Linux
  • MacOS
• Installation
  • Prerequisites
  • Build Simplex
• Usage
• Paper

System Requirements

Foremost, your computer must have a CPU supporting MPX. Intel began support for MPX with sixth-generation Intel Core processors as well as other processors with Skylake and Broxton microarchitectures (c. 2015). You can verify your CPU support by running one of the following commands:

Linux

lscpu | grep mpx

MacOS

sysctl -n machdep.cpu.features | grep MPX

Installation

Prerequisites

Install prerequisite software from your package manager.

• Aptitude

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install bzip2 cmake curl git libelf-dev build-essential

• Homebrew

  brew update
  brew install bzip2 cmake curl git libelf-dev

Since we patch the source code for the following projects in our evaluations, we suggest getting the sources rather than using a package manager.

Name	Version
SPEC CPU2017	1.0.2
OpenSSL	1.1.0g

Build Simplex

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/bingseclab/simplex.git
cd simplex
mkdir -p build install && cd build
cmake .. -G"Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=../install
cmake --build . --target install

In addition to respecting CUnit's and Hayai's CMake options, the following CMake options are supported:

Variable	Description	Default
SIMPLEX_BUILD_EVALS:BOOL	Build Simplex's evaluations. If enabled, Hayai is built.	OFF
SIMPLEX_BUILD_TESTS:BOOL	Build Simplex's test suite. If enabled, CUnit is built.	OFF

Usage

Add $(SIMPLEX_ROOT)/install/simplex/lib to your library path and $(SIMPLEX_ROOT)/install/simplex/include to your include path directory options. Add -lsimplex to your linker options. For example, using the Clang C compiler:

clang [options...] \
  -I$(SIMPLEX_ROOT)/install/simplex/include \
  -L$(SIMPLEX_ROOT)/install/simplex/lib \
  [-o outfile] infile... \
  -lsimplex

Paper

• Proceedings website
• Full paper
• Citation

Please cite as:

@InProceedings{10.1007/978-3-031-22295-5_12,
  author="Cole, Matthew
  and Prakash, Aravind",
  editor="Reiser, Hans P.
  and Kyas, Marcel",
  title="Simplex: Repurposing Intel Memory Protection Extensions for Secure Storage",
  booktitle="Secure IT Systems",
  year="2022",
  publisher="Springer International Publishing",
  address="Cham",
  pages="215--233",
  isbn="978-3-031-22295-5"
}