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authorMicah Elizabeth Scott <beth@torproject.org>2023-07-25 19:28:06 -0700
committerMicah Elizabeth Scott <beth@torproject.org>2023-07-26 12:27:15 -0700
commit95bcd17705af8e85df9893025608f2ea4f57bf37 (patch)
tree77d1930bc3860c1e501f9f0f2994eae9cfa0e017 /doc
parent1e3b5c94abcc4802f8932c087d2a288c153dc22a (diff)
downloadtor-95bcd17705af8e85df9893025608f2ea4f57bf37.tar.gz
tor-95bcd17705af8e85df9893025608f2ea4f57bf37.zip
Include a basic Rust wrapper for Equi-X and HashX
The idea behind this is that we may want to start exporting more pieces of c-tor as Rust crates so that Arti can perform cross compatibility and comparison testing using Rust tooling. This turns the 'tor' repo into a Cargo workspace, and adds one crate to start with: "tor-c-equix", rooted in src/ext/equix. This actually includes both Equi-X itself and HashX, since there's less overall duplication if we package these together instead of packaging HashX separately. This patch adds a basic safe Rust interface, but doesn't expose any additional internals for testing purposes. No changes to the C code here or the normal Tor build system. Signed-off-by: Micah Elizabeth Scott <beth@torproject.org>
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+# Rust support in C Tor
+
+The [Arti project](https://gitlab.torproject.org/tpo/core/arti) is the team's
+ongoing effort to write a pure-Rust implementation of Tor.
+
+Arti is not yet feature complete but it's in active development. That's where
+you want to go if you're interested in Tor and Rust together.
+
+This document describes something with niche interest: the C implementation of
+Tor can expose Rust crates which are used for internal testing, benchmarking,
+comparison, fuzzing, and so on. This could be useful for comparing the C
+implementation against new Rust implementations, or for simply using Rust
+tooling for writing tests against C.
+
+## Crates
+
+Right now we are only using this mechanism for one crate:
+
+- `tor-c-equix` -- Wraps the `src/ext/equix` module,
+ containing Equi-X and HashX algorithms.
+
+## Stability
+
+This is not a stable API and we have no plans to develop a stable Rust interface
+to the C implementation of Tor.
+
+## Files
+
+We use only a few of the standard Rust file types in order to build our
+wrapper crates. Here's a summary:
+
+- `Cargo.toml` in the repository root defines a Cargo *workspace*. It will
+ list all subdirectories that contain crates with their own `Cargo.toml`.
+- A per-crate `Cargo.toml` defines metadata and dependencies. These crates
+ should all be marked `publish = false`.
+- `build.rs` implements a simple build system that does not interact with
+ autotools. It uses the `cc` and `bindgen` crates to get from `.c`/`.h`
+ files to a static library and matching auto-generated bindings. Prefer to
+ include bindgen wrapper headers inline within `build.rs` instead of adding
+ `.h` files that are only used by the Rust bindings.
+- `lib.rs` publishes the low-level `ffi` interface produced with `cc` and
+ `bindgen`. This is also where we can add any wrappers or additions we want
+ for making the Rust API more convenient.