The current HElib build, install, and regression tests suite have been built and tested on Ubuntu 22.04, macOS Montrey >=12.6.7, and macOS Ventura >=13.4.1. Previous HElib versions included build, install, and regression tests on Ubuntu 18.04, ubuntu 20.04, Fedora 33, CentOS 8.2, macOS Mojave >=10.14.6, macOS Catalina >=10.15.7, and macOS Big Sur >=11.7.8
There are two different ways to build and install HElib. The first one will automatically download and build the GMP and NTL dependencies and pack the libraries in a relocatable folder. The second way, instead, requires the dependencies to be installed by you and available in the system.
This release of HElib has experimental support for the Intel® HEXL acceleration library for homomorphic encryption that exploits Intel® Advanced Vector Extensions 512. Instructions to enable and link to HEXL are given below.
- Please read these instructions in full to better choose the type of build that is best for you.
- pthreads
- git >= 2.36 (required to build and run the HElib test suite)
Default Linux environment:
- Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
- GNU make >= 4.3
- g++ >= 11.3.0
- cmake >= 3.22
macOS environment:
- Apple clang >= 14.0.0 (available with the latest Xcode for the tested versions of macOS)
- Xcode Command Line Tools (can be installed with the command
xcode-select --install
in a terminal) - cmake >= 3.22 (available from CMake or MacPorts Project and Homebrew as packages)
- GNU make >= 4.3
For HElib development:
- clang-format >= 14.0.0 (available with your linux distribution and for macOS from MacPorts Project and Homebrew as packages)
This option bundles HElib and its dependencies (NTL and GMP) in one directory
which can then be moved around freely on the system. NTL and GMP will be
automatically fetched and compiled. It can be installed globally (i.e. under
/usr/local
), which is the default option if no CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
is
specified, but this should only be done with caution as existing versions of
NTL, GMP, or HElib will be overwritten. These additional two prerequisites are
required in this case:
- m4 >= 1.4.18
- patchelf >= 0.14.3 (if building on Linux)
Please note that if changing from library build to package build, it is safer to use a clean build directory.
- Create a build directory, typically as a sibling of
src
:
cd HElib
mkdir build
cd build
- Run the cmake configuration step, specifying that you want a package build
(via -DPACKAGE_BUILD=ON) and saying where you would like the installation to
be. To install in
/home/alice/helib_install
, for example:
cmake -DPACKAGE_BUILD=ON -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/alice/helib_install ..
Extra options can be specified here, such as enabling HElib tests with
-DENABLE_TEST=ON
. See later section entitled "HElib build options" for
details.
- Compile, with an optional number of threads specified (16 in this example).
The output of this will be in the relocatable folder
helib_pack
:
make -j16
- (optional) If step 2 was performed with
-DENABLE_TEST=ON
, HElib tests can be run as follows:
ctest
Detailed HElib-specific test logs can be found in
Testing/Temporary/LastTest.log
.
- (optional) Run the install step, to copy the folder
helib_pack
to${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}
(in this example/home/alice/helib_install
):
make install
of course, if the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
was kept as the default /usr/local
or
some other system-wide path, step 5 may require sudo
privileges.
This option involves building HElib on its own, linking against pre-existing
dependencies (NTL and GMP) on the system. In this way, the HElib library can be
moved around, but its dependencies (NTL and GMP) cannot, as they are absolute
paths. For this option, you must build GMP >=6.2.1 and NTL >=11.5.1 yourself.
For details on how to do this, please see the section on building dependencies
later. It is assumed throughout this installation option that the environment
variables $GMPDIR
and $NTLDIR
are set to point to the installation
directories of GMP and NTL respectively.
Please note that if changing from package build to library build, it is safer to use a clean build directory.
- Create a build directory, typically as a sibling of
src
:
cd HElib
mkdir build
cd build
- Run the cmake configuration step, specifying where to find NTL and GMP. If
not specified, system-wide locations such as
/usr/local/lib
will be searched. To install in/home/alice/helib_install
, for example:
cmake -DGMP_DIR="${GMPDIR}" -DNTL_DIR="${NTLDIR}" -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/home/alice/helib_install ..
Extra options can be specified here, such as enabling HElib tests with
-DENABLE_TEST=ON
. See later section entitled "HElib build options" for
details.
- Compile, with an optional number of threads specified (16 in this example):
make -j16
- (optional) If step 2 was performed with
-DENABLE_TEST=ON
, tests can be run as follows:
ctest
Detailed HElib test logs can be found in Testing/Temporary/LastTest.log
.
- Run the install step, to copy the files to
${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}
(in this example/home/alice/helib_install
):
make install
of course, if the CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
was kept as the default /usr/local
or
some other system-wide path, step 5 may require sudo
privileges.
Many distributions come with GMP pre-installed. If not, you can install GMP as follows.
- Download GMP from http://www.gmplib.org -- make sure that you get GMP >=6.2.0 (current version is 6.2.1).
- Decompress and cd into the gmp directory (e.g.,
gmp-6.2.1
). - GMP is compiled in the standard unix way:
./configure
make
sudo make install
This will install GMP into /usr/local
by default.
NOTE: For further options when building GMP, run ./configure --help
in
step 3.
You can install NTL as follows:
- Download NTL >=11.5.1 from https://libntl.org/download.html
- Decompress and cd into the directory, e.g.,
ntl-11.5.1/src
- NTL is configured, built and installed in the standard Unix way (but remember
to specify the following flags to
configure
):
./configure NTL_GMP_LIP=on SHARED=on NTL_THREADS=on NTL_THREAD_BOOST=on
make
sudo make install
This should install NTL into /usr/local
.
NOTE: For further options when building NTL, run ./configure --help
in
step 3.
NOTE: if linking against a non-system GMP, pass GMP_PREFIX=<path/to/gmp>
to the ./configure
step.
NOTE: HElib with HEXL acceleration is only supported on the processors with AVX512DQ and AVX512-IFMA such as the 3rd generation Intel® Xeon® or the 11th generation Intel® Core®
NOTE: It is currently only possible to use HEXL with HElib when using the
library build and when building HElib as a static library. i.e.
-DPACKAGE_BUILD=OFF
and -DBUILD_SHARED=OFF
.
First you must download and build HEXL from source. Currently, HElib only works with HEXL version >= 1.2.1 Using git this would be
git clone https://github.com/intel/hexl --branch 1.2.1
Follow the instructions for HEXL installation in the README.md for all
available options. Note previous versions of HEXL requires the deprecated
-DENABLE_EXPORT=ON
otherwise the cmake metadata for linking a cmake project
is not created. Modern versions do not have this flag and the metadata is
created by default. For a quick start most people will want,
cd hexl
cmake -S . -B build/ [-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=<install-location-for-HEXL>/lib/cmake/hexl-1.2.1]
cmake --build build -j [<parallel-jobs>]
cmake --install build
If you do not provide an optional install location for HEXL the default is
/usr/local
.
To enable and link HEXL in HElib, you must configure cmake for HElib with
-DUSE_INTEL_HEXL=ON
. If HEXL is not in the default system location or you
wish to use another installation tell HElib where to find it using
-DHEXL_DIR=<install-location-for-hexl>
.
There is no requirement to provide any HElib subprojects with the location of
HEXL.
BUILD_SHARED=ON/OFF
(default isOFF
): Build as a shared library. Note that building HElib (regardless ofBUILD_SHARED
) will fail if NTL is not built as a shared library. The default for NTL is static library, to build NTL as a shared library use./configure SHARED=on
in step 1.CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE
: (default isRelWithDebInfo
): Choose the type of build, options are:Debug
,RelWithDebInfo
,Release
,MinSizeRel
.CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX
: Desired installation directory for HElib.ENABLE_TEST=ON/OFF
(default isOFF
): Enable building of tests. This will include an automatic download step for the google test framework stable release (googletest v1.10.0)ENABLE_THREADS=ON/OFF
(default isON
): Enable threading support. This must be on if and only if NTL was built withNTL_THREADS=ON
.PEDANTIC_BUILD=ON/OFF
(default isON
): Use-Wall -Wpedantic -Wextra -Werror
during build.HELIB_DEBUG=ON/OFF
(default isOFF
): Activate the debug module when building HElib (by defining theHELIB_DEBUG
macro). When the debug module is active, this generates extra information used for debugging purposes.HELIB_DEBUG
will propagate to programs using HElib, when using cmake. When this is enabled, programs using HElib will generate a warning during configuration. This is to remind the user that use of the debug module can cause issues, such assigsegv
, if initialized incorrectly.
PACKAGE_DIR
: Location that a package build will be installed to. Defaults to${CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX}/helib_pack
.FETCH_GMP
: Whether or not to fetch and build GMP. Defaults toON
. If set toOFF
, there should either exist a system-installed GMP library, orGMP_DIR
should point to a valid GMP prefix.GMP_DIR
: Prefix of the GMP library. Ignored ifFETCH_GMP=ON
.
GMP_DIR
: Prefix of the GMP library.NTL_DIR
: Prefix of the NTL library.USE_INTEL_HEXL
: Enable the Intel HEXL library.HEXL_DIR
: Prefix of the Intel HEXL library.
After make install
has been run in either option 1 or option 2, one can find
the required shared library files to link against in lib
and the header files
in include
. These can be used in the preferred way with your build system of
choice.
Another, easier way is possible if you are using HElib in a cmake project.
- Include the following line in your
CMakeLists.txt
:
find_package(helib)
- Run your
cmake
step with-Dhelib_DIR=<helib install prefix>/share/cmake/helib
.
Full working examples of cmake-based projects which uses HElib can be found in
the examples
directory.