FreeBSD developers discuss the use of Rust in the base system

[or1k]

A discussion (https://lists.freebsd.org/archives/freebsd-hackers/2024-January/002823.html) was initiated on the process of incorporating Rust code into the base system. In the course of the committers' discussion, the cost and benefit of implementation were determined. The cost of including Rust support will be doubling the build time, and the benefit will be simplifying the development of some utilities.

The list of utilities that there is an intention to rewrite in Rust if Rust support were to appear in the base system:

• ctl-exporter (https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/commit/?id=f7896015fcde) (export ctlstat statistics to Prometheus).
• Tests fusefs (https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/tests/sys/fs/fusefs).
• devd (https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/sbin/devd) .
• zfsd (https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/cddl/usr.sbin/zfsd).
• nscd (https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/usr.sbin/nscd).

Components of the 802.11ac and Lightning stacks running in user space.
freebsd-kpi-r14-0 (https://crates.io/crates/freebsd-kpi-r14-0).

A list of Rust language ports that could be ported to the base system, if Rust support were to appear on the base system:

• gstat-rs (https://crates.io/crates/gstat).
• geom-exporter.
• nfs-exporter (https://crates.io/crates/freebsd-nfs-exporter).
• virtiofsd-rs (https://gitlab.com/virtio-fs/virtiofsd).
• jail-exporter (https://crates.io/crates/jail_exporter).
• Various jail-environment management systems.
• pjdfstest (https://github.com/musikid/pjdfstest).
• pf-rs (https://crates.io/crates/pf-rs).
• benchpmc (https://crates.io/crates/benchpmc).

FreeBSD Rust-related applications, which are suggested to be left in ports:

• fsx-rs (https://crates.io/crates/fsx).
• ztop (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).