Paper 2025/2234 Original: eprint.iacr.org/2025/2234 ↗
ZeroOS: A Universal Modular Library OS for zkVMs
Abstract
zkVMs promise general-purpose verifiable computation through ISA-level compatibility with modern programs and toolchains. However, compatibility extends further than just the ISA; modern programs often cannot run or even compile without an operating system and libc. zkVMs attempt to address this by maintaining forks of language-specific runtimes and statically linking them into applications to create self-contained unikernels, but this ad-hoc approach leads to version hell and burdens verifiable applications (vApps) with an unnecessarily large trusted computing base. We solve this problem with ZeroOS, a modular library operating system (libOS) for vApp unikernels; vApp developers can use off-the-shelf toolchains to compile and link only the exact subset of the Linux ABI their vApp needs. Any zkVM team can easily leverage the ZeroOS ecosystem by writing a ZeroOS bootloader for their platform, resulting in a reduced maintainence burden and unifying the entire zkVM ecosystem with consolidated development and audit resources. ZeroOS is free and open-sourced at https://github.com/LayerZero-Labs/ZeroOS
Metadata
- Available format(s)
PDF- Category
- Applications
- Publication info
- Preprint.
- History
- 2025-12-11: last updated
- 2025-12-11: published
- Short URL
- https://ia.cr/2025/2234
- License
- https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/
BibTeX
@misc{cryptoeprint:2025/2234,
author = {Guangxian Zou and Isaac Zhang and Ryan Zarick and Kelvin Wong and Thomas Kim and Daniel L.-K. Wong and Saeid Yazdinejad and Dan Boneh},
title = {ZeroOS: A Universal Modular Library OS for zkVMs},
howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2025/2234},
year = {2025},
url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2025/2234}
}