Following the steps of the Linux kernel there is an extended discussion regarding the introduction of Rust code also into the FreeBSD base system. The cost of this change would be the doubling of build-times. imp suggested adding an additional step after buildworld for stuff that requires an external toolchain. That would ease the build time pain and the benefit would be the implementation of new tools that were previously unable to exit or making easier code-testing of some base system components.
Stuff that could only be written in Rust if it were in base
- ctl-exporter (I started this, but discovered that the CTL stats API is
unstable, so it can’t live in ports. Instead, I had to do it in C).
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/1a7f22d9c211f504f6c48a86401469181a67ec34 - fusefs tests. Absolutely impossible to do in C. I considered Rust, but went
with C++ so they could live in base. They are too closely coupled to
fusefs(5) to live out-of-tree.
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/tests/sys/fs/fusefs - devd. Currently C++, but imp suggested a rewrite.
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/sbin/devd - zfsd. Currently C++, but I’ve long pondered a rewrite. Using Rust would
make it more testable.
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/cddl/usr.sbin/zfsd - nscd. Currently C, but confusing and with no test coverage. I’ve
contemplated a rewrite myself, but I don’t want to do it in C.
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/usr.sbin/nscd - The userland portion of the 802.11ac and Lightning stacks. scottl suggested
that these were good candidates for Rust. - freebsd-kpi-r14-0 . https://crates.io/crates/freebsd-kpi-r14-0
Stuff that can live in ports, but would be nicer in base
- gstat-rs https://crates.io/crates/gstat
- geom-exporter (I’ve started this, but haven’t published it)
- nfs-exporter https://crates.io/crates/freebsd-nfs-exporter
- virtiofsd-rs . Nobody has yet tried to port it to FreeBSD. But if the
connection to bhyve(8) is too intimate, it might be hard to do in ports.
https://gitlab.com/virtio-fs/virtiofsd - jail-exporter https://crates.io/crates/jail_exporter
- Various jail managers have been attempted in Rust. I think these are fine in
ports, but others like Goran Mekic have opined that they should be moved to
base instead. - musikid’s pjdfstest rewrite. I think it would be great to start using this
to test the base system’s file systems. If the tests themselves lived in
base, they would be easier to sync with file system development.
https://github.com/musikid/pjdfstest - pf-rs. I suspect that the API isn’t very stable.
https://crates.io/crates/pf-rs - benchpmc. The pmc counter names changes between releases.
https://crates.io/crates/benchpmc
FreeBSD-related applications that are just fine in ports
- fsx-rs. Unlike pjdfstest, this only tests datapath APIs. Those are usually
more stable than control path APIs, so I think there’s little to be gained by
moving this into base. https://crates.io/crates/fsx - ztop. It uses ZFS’s kstats sysctl interface, which is pretty stable.
https://crates.io/crates/ztop - iocage-provision https://crates.io/crates/iocage-provision
- rsblk https://crates.io/crates/rsblk
- xfuse https://github.com/KhaledEmaraDev/xfuse
https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/the-case-for-rust-in-the-base-system.92024/
https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-hackers/2024-January/002823.html
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