Rust, July 15, 2022

--- title: "Rust, July 15, 2022" tags: unikraft, rust datetime: 2022-07-15T15:00:00+02:00 location: Online, Discord (https://bit.ly/UnikraftDiscord), the `#monkey-business` voice channel teams: - rust participants: - TODO --- ## :dart: Agenda - Current state of Rust support - Goals and requirements - Next steps & tasks ## :closed_book: Discussions VB: We did something similar to the Linux guys. We can compile with rustc an object file and link that to the rest of Unikraft. VB: What we were looking for is integrate Cargo. A solution to our problem is a big guard to use Cargo. VB: In Tock they have a similar issue. From the GNU Make system. VB: We build `core`, `alloc` crates. MK: Why do you build it manually? MK: In theory you should be able to use Cargo. AJ: Maybe we could use: https://github.com/matklad/cargo-xtask/ MK: What about applications in Rust? DK: I used the Make system to do the same thing. Then I pivoted to using Cargo inside the Make system. Everything is then covered by Cargo. AJ: I'm interested in using tooling to build applications. AJ: As I understand it, you just mention the main file and then the build system takes care of dependencies. DK: You just edit the `Cargo.toml` file and add the source file. After building you could link it against Unikraft libraries. MK: For RustyHermit, we encapsulated the kernel in a crate. The end user would then just plugin a dependency that links together. MK: Support for `standard` is important. AJ: Could Unikraft be built as a crate? MK: There is a `build.rs` file that could then get Rust files. AJ: Could we have a separate repository for `build.rs`? MK: Yes, this should work. AJ: Would it be possible to have a platform + architecture pair? MK: When you invoke `cargo` you invoke a target. For us, it's just the RustyHermit target. MK: You would have to create a `unikraft` target. MK: In the end we would have to have a target for each combination. MK: For Rust, the platform shouldn't matter (`kvm` or `xen`). MK: I'm not sure about how that would look in reality. You always have to add a cargo spec each time you add a new target / architecture. AJ: dynamic = could we have them listed somewhere? MK: It should be possible to list them one in one place. DK: What this does is add a rule to allow building Cargo-based files. MK: Why do you want to integrate Cargo? AJ: We can inject Makefile rules? DK: In the PR (https://github.com/unikraft/unikraft/pull/291) we just do a pattern match for file types and call the appropriate build rules. ## :wrench: TODOs and Decisions DK: Point Alex to where he can see how we can build applications in Rust using tooling. VB/DK: Provide updates to the Cargo-build PR (https://github.com/unikraft/unikraft/pull/291). MK: Take a look in the Cargo-build PR and provide your vision on proper integration of Rust + Unikraft. RD: Schedule another meeting on Wednesday-Thursday, July 20-21, 2022.