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Intel® Software Guard Extensions for Linux* OS

Introduction

Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX) is an Intel technology for application developers seeking to protect select code and data from disclosure or modification.

The Linux* Intel® SGX software stack is comprised of the Intel® SGX driver see note, the Intel® SGX SDK and the Intel® SGX Platform Software (PSW).

Note

🧩 The Intel® SGX SDK now lives in its own repository

Starting with release 2.30, the SDK (including samples) as well as the SGX enclave runtime libraries are maintained in :octocat: confidential-computing.sgx.sdk and vendored here as the sdk submodule.1

Note

The Linux* kernel includes the SGX driver since mainline release 5.11 — no separate driver installation is needed on modern kernels. Device nodes are at /dev/{sgx_enclave, sgx_provision}. The platform must support and have Flexible Launch Control configured.

Related Projects

The intel-device-plugins-for-kubernetes project enables users to run container applications running Intel® SGX enclaves in Kubernetes clusters. It also gives instructions how to set up ECDSA based attestation in a cluster.

The intel-sgx-ssl project provides a full-strength general purpose cryptography library for Intel® SGX enclave applications. It is based on the underlying OpenSSL* Open Source project.

  • Intel® SGX SDK provides a build combination to build out a SGXSSL-based SDK.
  • Users can also use this cryptography library in SGX enclave applications separately.

The Intel® SGX Data Center Attestation Primitives (DCAP) project provides libraries and tools for ECDSA-based remote attestation targeted for data centers, cloud service providers, and enterprises, including the Quoting Library, PCK Certificate Caching Service (PCCS), Quote Verification Library, and more.

License

See License.txt for details.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

For questions and general discussion, the Intel® SGX community forum is a good place to start.

Documentation

Downloads

Pre-built packages for Linux are published on 01.org:

Packages can be installed directly, or via a live repository (Intel-hosted) or a local repository assembled from the packages above. Both approaches and the full installation procedure are covered in the Intel® SGX Software Installation Guide for Linux*.

Note: Packages and repository metadata published by Intel are signed with the GPG package signing key (fingerprint: 1504 34D1 488B F803 08B6 9398 E5C7 F0FA 1C6C 6C3C, "Intel(R) Software Development Products").

Note

Windows*: The Intel® SGX SDK, DCAP, and Platform Software for Windows* are distributed via the Intel® License & Registration Center (login required; the product suite covers the SDK, DCAP, and PSW). See the Getting Started with Intel® SGX SDK for Windows* guide for setup instructions. Individual packages (SDK, headers, enclave common API, DCAP components) are also available on NuGet.

Quick Start

Clone this repository, then use Docker and Docker Compose to get up and running quickly. Two modes are available — pick the one that fits your goal.

  • Build from source — compiles the Intel® SGX PSW and SDK inside Docker, then runs a sample enclave. See docker/build/README.md for details.

    # 'make preparation': apply patches and download prebuilt dependencies
make preparation \
  && cd docker/build && ./build_compose_run.sh

  • Use pre-built packages — downloads the Intel® SGX PSW and SDK from 01.org (no local build required) and deploys a sample SGX application. See linux/installer/docker/README.md for details.

    cd linux/installer/docker && ./build_compose_run.sh

Supported Operating Systems

The following Linux* distributions are supported for both building and installing the Intel® SGX software stack:

  • Ubuntu* Server (64-bit): 22.04, 24.04, 26.04 LTS
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux* Server (64-bit): 9.6, 9.8, 10.0, 10.2
  • CentOS* Stream (64-bit): 9, 10
  • SUSE Linux Enterprise Server* (64-bit): 15 SP7, 16
  • Anolis* OS (64-bit): 8.10
  • Azure* Linux (64-bit): 3.0
  • Debian* (64-bit): 10, 12, 13

Building

Prerequisites

  • Ensure that you have one of the supported operating systems.

  • To build the Intel® SGX SDK, install its build toolchain (gcc 7.3+ and glibc 2.27+ are required). On Ubuntu, for example:

    sudo apt-get install build-essential ocaml ocamlbuild automake autoconf \
    libtool wget python-is-python3 libssl-dev git cmake perl

    The full per-distribution list is in the SDK repository.

  • Install the additional tools required to build the Intel® SGX PSW:

    1. System libraries and build tools — install the packages for your distribution:

      • On Debian 10, Debian 12, Debian 13, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 24.04, and Ubuntu 26.04: 
        sudo apt-get install libssl-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev protobuf-compiler \
    libprotobuf-dev debhelper cmake reprepro unzip pkgconf libboost-dev \
    libboost-system-dev libboost-thread-dev lsb-release libsystemd0
      • On Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9.6, 9.8, 10.0, and 10.2: 
        sudo yum install openssl-devel libcurl-devel protobuf-devel cmake \
    rpm-build createrepo yum-utils pkgconf boost-devel \
    protobuf-lite-devel systemd-libs
      • On CentOS Stream 9 and 10: 
        sudo dnf install openssl-devel libcurl-devel protobuf-devel cmake \
    rpm-build createrepo yum-utils pkgconf boost-devel \
    protobuf-lite-devel systemd-libs
      • On Anolis 8.10: 
        sudo dnf --enablerepo=PowerTools install openssl-devel libcurl-devel \
    protobuf-devel cmake rpm-build createrepo yum-utils pkgconf \
    boost-devel protobuf-lite-devel systemd-libs
      • On Azure Linux 3.0: 
        sudo dnf --enablerepo=powertools install openssl-devel libcurl-devel \
    protobuf-devel cmake rpm-build createrepo yum-utils pkgconf \
    boost-devel protobuf-lite-devel systemd-libs
      • On SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP7 and 16: 
        sudo zypper install libopenssl-devel libcurl-devel protobuf-devel cmake \
    rpm-build createrepo_c libsystemd0 libboost_system1_66_0-devel \
    libboost_thread1_66_0-devel

    2. The Intel® SGX SDK installer — required before building the PSW. Either:

      • Build it from this repo: make sdk_install_pkg (see Build the Intel® SGX SDK below), or
      • Download a pre-built release from 01.org: 
        wget -r -l1 -np -nd --accept 'sgx_linux_x64_sdk_*.bin' \
    https://download.01.org/intel-sgx/latest/linux-latest/distro/<distro>/

      Then install it — same for both methods (the installer will prompt you to accept the license; adjust --prefix to your preferred location):

      ./sgx_linux_x64_sdk_*.bin --prefix=$(pwd)
source $(pwd)/sgxsdk/environment

  • If you haven't already cloned this repository, do so now and prepare the submodules and prebuilt binaries:

    git clone --recurse-submodules \
    https://github.com/intel/confidential-computing.sgx.git sgx-source
cd sgx-source && make preparation

    make preparation initialises git submodules, applies patches, and runs download_prebuilt.sh to fetch prebuilt binaries. If you prefer to initialise submodules manually (e.g. to control depth or mirror URLs), do so before running make preparation:

    git submodule update --init --recursive

    💡 Tip: Both git submodule update and download_prebuilt.sh (wget) fetch over the network. If you are behind a proxy, set the relevant proxy variables first, e.g.:

    export https_proxy=http://proxy:port
export no_proxy=localhost,127.0.0.1

    ℹ️ Note: When pulling a new release, run make distclean first if patched submodules changed — this avoids patch conflicts (error: Your local changes to the following files would be overwritten by checkout). Caution: this deletes all submodule working trees; commit any local changes first.

    make distclean

  • (Debian 10 only) The system binutils on Debian 10 lacks mitigation options support. Copy the patched tools downloaded by make preparation to /usr/local/bin:

    sudo cp external/toolset/debian10/* /usr/local/bin

    Repeat after any update to ensure the latest versions are used.

Build the Intel® SGX SDK

The Intel® SGX SDK is maintained in the confidential-computing.sgx.sdk repository and vendored here as the sdk submodule. If you prefer to build everything in one place, it can be built from this repository:

make sdk              # LOAD + CF + no-mitigation passes (sdk_install_pkg runs this automatically)
make sdk_install_pkg  # bundles all three variants into one .bin installer

For build flavors (USE_OPT_LIBS, DEBUG, make sdk_install_pkg_no_mitigation), see the SDK repository README.

Build the Intel® SGX PSW

The Intel® SGX Platform Software (PSW) covers the following components built from this repository:

  • SGX Runtime System (RTS, enclave runtime) (libsgx-urts, libsgx-enclave-common) — the SGX loader and enclave-common API. Sourced from the confidential-computing.sgx.sdk repository (sdk/enclave_runtime/) via the sdk submodule.

  • Architectural Enclave Service Manager (AESM) — the aesmd background daemon hosting the attestation enclaves (PCE, QE3, IDE), plus libsgx-quote-ex, the untrusted client library applications use to request quotes from the daemon, and libsgx-uae-service, a binary-compatibility shim over it for applications linked against the legacy Untrusted AE (UAE) API.

    ℹ️ Note: The DCAP quoting library (libsgx-dcap-ql) from external/dcap_source/ can operate either in-process (loading QE3 directly into the app, no daemon required) or out-of-process (delegating to AESM via libsgx-quote-ex). In both modes, QPL (libdcap_quoteprov) is loaded at runtime to fetch PCK certificate collateral from PCCS/Intel PCS.

make psw builds both the enclave runtime (via sdk_urts from the SDK submodule) and the AESM service together.

  • To build the Intel® SGX PSW (both the runtime libraries as well as the AESM) with default configuration:

    make psw

    Tools and libraries are generated in the build/linux directory.

    💡 Tip: To build each part standalone:

    • Enclave runtime only: make sdk_urts from the root (or make urts directly in sdk/).
    • AESM side only: make directly in psw/ — provided the enclave runtime has already been built.

  • To build with debug information:

    make psw DEBUG=1

  • To clean files generated by a previous make psw:

    make clean

  • To build the Intel® SGX PSW installer packages (DEB / RPM):

    ℹ️ Note: The packaging bundles prebuilt Intel® Architecture Enclaves (PCE3, QE3, IDE), signed by Intel, downloaded by make preparation. To build any of these yourself (unsigned), e.g. PCE:

    cd psw/ae/pce && make

    To verify or reproduce them, see Reproducibility.

    For packaging, run the command matching your package format:

    • DEB-based systems (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04/26.04, Debian 10/12):

      make deb_psw_pkg

      Packages are generated under linux/installer/deb/ and cover the three components required to run SGX workloads and generate SGX ECDSA quotes:

      • Enclave runtime — libsgx-urts, libsgx-enclave-common
      • AESM daemon and client libraries — sgx-aesm-service (with PCE/ECDSA/quote-ex plugins), libsgx-quote-ex, libsgx-uae-service
      • SGX DCAP quoting stack — libsgx-dcap-ql, libsgx-pce-logic, libsgx-qe3-logic, QPL (libsgx-dcap-default-qpl), and the signed enclaves they drive (libsgx-ae-pce, libsgx-ae-qe3, libsgx-ae-id-enclave)

      Use make deb_local_repo to assemble a complete local repository that additionally includes TDX quoting, quote verification, appraisal, PCCS, and platform registration tools. The repository is generated under linux/installer/deb/sgx_debian_local_repo relative to the repo root. Register it and refresh apt — adjust the path if you moved or copied the repo elsewhere:

      echo "deb [trusted=yes arch=amd64] file:$PWD/linux/installer/deb/sgx_debian_local_repo $(. /etc/os-release && echo $VERSION_CODENAME) main" \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sgx-local.list
sudo apt update

      💡 Tip: To ensure locally built packages take precedence over any same-named packages from official repositories, pin the local repo to a higher priority:

      printf 'Package: *\nPin: origin ""\nPin-Priority: 1001\n' \
  | sudo tee /etc/apt/preferences.d/sgx-local

      ℹ️ Note: A *-dbgsym_*.ddeb package is always produced alongside each .deb by dh_strip.

      In a default (release) build it contains only minimal symbol information; use DEBUG=1 to rebuild with -O0 -ggdb and get fully populated symbol packages:

      make deb_psw_pkg DEBUG=1

      Debian 10 only: the default PATH may not include /sbin — add it before building:

      export PATH=$PATH:/sbin

    • RPM-based systems (RHEL 9.6/9.8/10.0/10.2, CentOS Stream 9/10, Anolis OS 8.10, SLES 15 SP7/16):

      make rpm_psw_pkg

      Use make rpm_local_repo to assemble a complete local repository that additionally includes TDX quoting, quote verification, appraisal, PCCS, and platform registration tools. The repository is generated under linux/installer/rpm/sgx_rpm_local_repo relative to the repo root. Register it with highest priority so locally built packages take precedence — adjust the path if you moved or copied the repo elsewhere:

      • On RHEL/CentOS Stream/Anolis: 
        sudo dnf config-manager --add-repo file://$PWD/linux/installer/rpm/sgx_rpm_local_repo
sudo dnf config-manager --save --setopt="*sgx_rpm_local_repo*.priority=1" \
                               --setopt="*sgx_rpm_local_repo*.gpgcheck=0"
      • On SLES 15 SP7/16: 
        sudo zypper addrepo --priority 1 --no-gpgcheck \
  $PWD/linux/installer/rpm/sgx_rpm_local_repo sgx-local

      ℹ️ Note: To build with debug information:

      make rpm_psw_pkg DEBUG=1

Installation

Install the Intel® SGX SDK

The make sdk_install_pkg build above produces the installer at linux/installer/bin/sgx_linux_x64_sdk_${version}.bin. A typical install is:

cd linux/installer/bin
# omit --prefix to choose the install path interactively:
sudo ./sgx_linux_x64_sdk_${version}.bin --prefix /opt/intel
source /opt/intel/sgxsdk/environment   # set up the build environment

That covers the common case. The full installation manual — non-interactive options, custom prefixes, environment setup and the code samples — is maintained in the SDK repository. To run the samples in hardware mode you also need the Intel® SGX PSW installed (see Install the Intel® SGX PSW below).

Sample applications

The Intel® SGX SDK sample enclaves and host applications live in the SDK source tree under SampleCode/; they are also packaged by the SDK installer, so the same samples are available after installation. See the SDK README for simulation-mode and hardware-mode walkthroughs.

For remote attestation and quoting flows, start with the DCAP samples, especially QuoteGenerationSample and QuoteVerificationSample in the repository's SampleCode/ directory.

Install the Intel® SGX PSW

Before installing, ensure that:

  • Your system runs one of the supported operating systems.
  • Your hardware supports Intel® SGX with Flexible Launch Control (FLC). This includes select Intel® Xeon® Scalable, Xeon® D, Xeon® E, Core™, and Atom® processors — see Which Platforms Support Intel® SGX DCAP? for the full list.
  • Intel SGX hardware mode is enabled in the firmware and a Linux* kernel with SGX driver support is running4.

Starting with release 2.8, the PSW is split into smaller packages — install only the features you need. Use the local repo method where possible: the package manager resolves dependencies automatically.

Note

Removed in release 2.28. All legacy EPID-based functionality has been removed, including EPID provisioning and attestation (QE/PVE) and platform services (PSE). Whitelist-based launch control and support for the deprecated [ref1], [ref2] out-of-tree Linux kernel drivers have also been removed.

Intel SGX installation guide

For a full step-by-step walkthrough — including how to set up the Intel SGX package repository, alternative installation methods, and platform-specific notes — see the Intel® SGX Software Installation Guide for Linux.

Package manager (recommended)

Install the top-level package for your use case — the package manager resolves all dependencies automatically:

Package Purpose Depends Recommends
libsgx-urts SGX enclave loader and runtime libsgx-enclave-common —
libsgx-dcap-ql DCAP ECDSA quoting — in-process by default; set SGX_AESM_ADDR to delegate to AESM • quoting orchestration (host-side, untrusted wrappers): libsgx-qe3-logic, libsgx-pce-logic
• architectural enclaves (signed, runs in SGX): libsgx-ae-qe3, libsgx-ae-id-enclave, libsgx-ae-pce
• enclave loader: libsgx-urts		 • libsgx-dcap-quote-verify
• libsgx-quote-ex (for AESM-delegated mode)
libsgx-quote-ex Algorithm-agnostic quote client (sgx_get_quote_ex API, delegates to AESM via Unix socket);
Note: A separate package: libsgx-uae-service is a compat shim over it for apps linked against the older API		 (shlibs only) • libsgx-aesm-quote-ex-plugin
libsgx-dcap-default-qpl Quote collateral provider — fetches collateral (PCK certificates for quote generation, and/or reference values for quote verification) from PCCS (self-hosted cache) or directly from Intel PCS libcurl4 —
Notable supporting packages
libsgx-aesm-quote-ex-plugin AESM plugin: algorithm-agnostic quoting via QE3 • sgx-aesm-service
• libsgx-aesm-ecdsa-plugin (pulls the same logic/AE/loader deps as libsgx-dcap-ql, routed via libsgx-aesm-pce-plugin)		 —
libsgx-dcap-quote-verify Quote verification (QVL) and appraisal (QAL) — both APIs exported from the same .so; for each, the caller selects either the hardware-attested mode (running inside QVE/QAE respectively - both in-process) or software-only mode (shlibs only) • libsgx-ae-qve (QVE enclave image)
• libsgx-urts (required to load QVE or QAE)
• Note: libsgx-ae-qae — not listed here; must be installed manually for hardware-attested appraisal

Important

libsgx-dcap-default-qpl is not pulled in automatically by any package — it is loaded at runtime via dlopen("libdcap_quoteprov.so.1") by libsgx-qe3-logic (in-process quoting), libsgx-dcap-quote-verify (in-process verification), and AESM (delegated path).

Install it explicitly when live collateral fetching is needed.

Note

sgx-aesm-service arrives automatically on a default installation via the Recommends chain (libsgx-aesm-quote-ex-plugin → sgx-aesm-service).

libsgx-quote-ex always requires a running AESM daemon at runtime — it connects to the AESM Unix socket unconditionally; the Recommends rather than Depends is a packaging flexibility that allows the daemon to be provided externally (e.g. a host socket bind-mounted into a container). To suppress it — for example when using only libsgx-dcap-ql in in-process mode — pass --no-install-recommends (see Configure the installation).

Tip

The package manager command depends on the distribution:

  • sudo apt-get install (Ubuntu, Debian),
  • sudo dnf install / sudo yum install (RHEL, CentOS Stream, Anolis OS, Azure Linux)
  • sudo zypper install (SLES).

Note

Optionally install *-dbgsym (DEB) / *-debuginfo (RPM) packages for debug symbols, or *-dev (DEB) / *-devel (RPM) packages for development headers and static link libraries.

Upgrading from legacy packages across releases

When upgrading from a legacy installation to a newer release where packages were reorganised (files moved between packages, or a single package split into smaller ones), or when mixing release packages with locally built ones, the package manager may report a file conflict:

# DEB: dpkg: error processing archive ... (--unpack): trying to overwrite ...
# RPM: file ... from install of ... conflicts with file from package ...

To resolve this, choose one of:

  • Clean upgrade (DEB and RPM) — uninstall the legacy packages first, then install the new ones. This is the recommended path for RPM-based systems.
  • In-place upgrade (DEB only) — use dist-upgrade instead of upgrade, and pass --force-overwrite through to dpkg: 
    apt-get dist-upgrade -o Dpkg::Options::="--force-overwrite"
    For locally built .rpm packages, rpm -Uvh --replacefiles achieves the equivalent.

Configure the installation: optional dependencies

Some packages list optional Recommends that are not required for all use cases — for example, the AESM daemon is not needed for fully in-process deployments or container workloads where the daemon runs on the host and its Unix socket is bind-mounted in. Recommends are installed by default; to suppress them, pass the appropriate flag to the install command:

Distribution Flag
Ubuntu, Debian apt-get install --no-install-recommends <package>
RHEL, CentOS Stream, Anolis OS, Azure Linux dnf install --setopt=install_weak_deps=False <package>
SLES zypper install --no-recommends <package>

ECDSA attestation

In addition to the prerequisites and the packages in the table above:

  1. Hardware — requires FLC-capable hardware (8th Gen Intel® Core™ or newer, or Intel® Atom® with FLC). See Which Platforms Support Intel® SGX DCAP?.

  2. QPL — install libsgx-dcap-default-qpl (see the [!IMPORTANT] callout in the package table) or provide a custom libdcap_quoteprov.so.1.

  3. <recommended> PCCS — deploy a Provisioning Certificate Caching Service and configure /etc/sgx_default_qcnl.conf (JSON; overridable per-process via QCNL_CONF_PATH).
    For all available keys and their semantics, see the annotated default config.

    Example (on-premises PCCS):

    { "pccs_url": "https://your_pccs_server:8081/sgx/certification/v4/" }

    💡 Tip: For local testing or single-machine deployments, PCCS caching layer can be skipped — point the QPL directly at the Intel PCS by setting pccs_url in the config file:

    { "pccs_url": "https://api.trustedservices.intel.com/sgx/certification/v4/" }

    For production scale deployments a local PCCS is strongly recommended: it caches collateral, reduces round-trip latency on every quote operation, and removes a dependency on a persistent internet connection.

    ℹ️ Note: A PCS subscription key (Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key) is optional for most PCS APIs, but still recommended for production: without one, rate limits are shared across all anonymous callers; with one, your account receives a dedicated quota. When using PCCS, configure the key in PCCS itself — see the PCCS documentation. When pointing QCNL directly at Intel PCS, pass it as a custom request header:

    {
  "pccs_url": "https://api.trustedservices.intel.com/sgx/certification/v4/",
  "custom_request_options": {
    "get_cert": {
      "headers": { "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key": "<your-subscription-key>" }
    }
  }
}

Manage the aesmd service

The PSW installer registers aesmd as a systemd service running under the aesmd account:

sudo systemctl start aesmd
sudo systemctl stop aesmd
sudo systemctl restart aesmd

Note

If using AESM-based out-of-process quoting, the QPL runs inside aesmd and makes outbound HTTP requests to PCCS or Intel PCS. If a proxy is required, configure it in /etc/aesmd.conf and restart the service. The same file also controls the QPL log level.

Reproducibility

Intel® SGX ships several prebuilt binaries. All are produced inside a reproducible SGX Docker container to allow independent verification. To reproduce the build environment and verify the binaries, follow the reproducibility README.

Most binaries can be compared against a locally rebuilt output using the standard diff command. Architectural Enclaves (AEs) are an exception — their verification requires the dedicated AE reproducibility verifier. AE reproducibility also depends on a reproducibly built Intel® SGX SDK; the SDK's own reproducible build process is documented in the SDK repository.

Footnotes

  1. This is a source-layout change only: the consolidated build is unchanged (make targets from this repository continue to build all the components), and the released packages, installers and download locations are not affected. ↩

  2. The original standalone doc (329298) has been absorbed into the Intel® Software Developer's Manual (SDM); the two SDM volumes above are the current authoritative references. ↩

  3. PCE is also copied into the PSW build output (build/linux) during make psw. ↩

  4. The Linux* kernel contains the necessary driver since the mainline kernel release 5.11. ↩

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Intel® Software Guard Extensions (Intel® SGX)

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