Intel Hardware Accelerated Execution Manager (HAXM)

HAXM is a hardware-assisted virtualization engine (hypervisor) that uses Intel Virtualization Technology to speed up IA (x86/ x86_64) emulation on a host machine running Windows or macOS. It started as an Android SDK component, but has recently transformed itself into a general accelerator for QEMU.

HAXM can be built as either a kernel-mode driver for Windows or a kernel extension for macOS.

Building for Windows

Prerequisites:

Enterprise WDK (EWDK) 10

Alternatively, install all of the following instead of EWDK 10:
- Visual Studio 2015
- Windows Driver Kit (WDK) for Windows 10
- Windows SDK for Windows 10

Build steps:

cd X:\path\to\EWDK\
LaunchBuildEnv.cmd
- Or, if Visual Studio 2015 is installed, launch Developer Command Prompt for VS2015 from Start > All apps > Visual Studio 2015 instead.
cd X:\path\to\haxm\
msbuild HaxmDriver.sln /p:Configuration="Win7 Debug" /p:Platform="x64"
- The Win7 configuration ensures the driver is compatible with Windows 7 and later.
- The Debug configuration also signs the driver with a test certificate. The Release configuration does not do that.
- Use Win32 instead of x64 to build a 32-bit driver that works on 32-bit Windows.
- Add /t:rebuild for a clean rebuild instead of an incremental build.

If successful, the driver binary (IntelHaxm.sys) will be generated in X:\path\to\haxm\obj\out\win7\x64\ (or X:\path\to\haxm\obj\out\win7\x86\ if Platform="Win32").

Building for macOS

Prerequisites:

Xcode 7.2.1 or later
OS X 10.9 SDK (archived here)

Build steps:

cd /path/to/haxm/
cd darwin/hax_driver/com_intel_hax/
xcodebuild -config Release
- Use -sdk to override the default macOS SDK version (10.9), e.g. -sdk macosx10.12.

If successful, the kext (intelhaxm.kext/) will be generated in /path/to/haxm/darwin/hax_driver/com_intel_hax/build/Release/.

Reporting an Issue

You are welcome to file a GitHub issue if you discover a general HAXM bug or have a feature request.

However, please do not use the GitHub issue tracker to report security vulnerabilities. If you have information about a security issue or vulnerability with HAXM, please send an email to secure@intel.com, and use the PGP key located at https://www.intel.com/security to encrpyt any sensitive information.