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Rust

Rust has rich tools for packaging and distributing applications. Snapcraft builds on top of these familiar tools such as Rustup, Cargo and rustc to create snaps.

What problems do snaps solve for Rust applications?

Linux installation instructions for Rust applications often curl a script and pipe it to a shell. This can be a cause for concern for users and the installation scripts themselves are complex, have to accommodate multiple Linux distributions and architectures. With snapcraft it's one command to produce a bundle that works anywhere.

Here are some snap advantages that will benefit many Rust projects:

  • Bundle all the runtime requirements, with support for multiple architectures.
  • Simplify installation instructions, regardless of distribution, to snap install myrustapp.
  • Directly control the delivery of automatic application updates.
  • Extremely simple creation of services.
  • No complex installation shell scripts to maintain.

How long will this guide take to complete?

Typically this guide will take around 20 minutes and will result in a working Rust-based snap. Once complete, you'll understand how to package Rust applications as snaps and deliver them to millions of Linux users. After making the snap available in the store, you'll get access to installation metrics and tools to directly manage the delvery of updates to Linux users.

Getting started

By way of an example, let's look at how a snap is created for the Parity app.

Parity

Snaps are defined in a single yaml file placed in the root of your project. The Parity example shows the entire snapcraft.yaml for an existing project, leveraging the existing Cargo.toml to satisfy runtime requirements. We'll break this down.

name: parity
version: git
summary: Fast, light, robust Ethereum implementation
description: |
  Parity's goal is to be the fastest, lightest, and most secure Ethereum
  client. We are developing Parity using the sophisticated and cutting-edge
  Rust programming language. Parity is licensed under the GPLv3, and can be
  used for all your Ethereum needs.

confinement: devmode

apps:
  parity:
    command: parity

parts:
  parity:
    source: .
    plugin: rust
    build-attributes: [no-system-libraries]
    build-packages:
      - libudev-dev
      - libssl-dev
      - make
      - pkg-config
    stage-packages:
      - libssl1.0.0
      - libudev1
      - libstdc++6

Metadata

The snapcraft.yaml starts with a small amount of human-readable metadata, which usually can be lifted from the GitHub description or project README.md. This data is used in the presentation of your app in the Snap Store. The summary: can not exceed 79 characters. You can use a pipe in the description: key to declare a multi-line description.

name: parity
version: git
summary: Fast, light, robust Ethereum implementation
description: |
  Parity's goal is to be the fastest, lightest, and most secure Ethereum
  client. We are developing Parity using the sophisticated and cutting-edge
  Rust programming language. Parity is licensed under the GPLv3, and can be
  used for all your Ethereum needs.

Confinement

To get started we won't confine this application. Unconfined applications, specified with devmode, can only be released to the hidden "edge" channel where you and other developers can install them.

confinement: devmode

Parts

Parts define how to build your app. Parts can be anything: programs, libraries, or other assets needed to create and run your application. In this case we have one: the Parity source code. In other cases these can point to local directories, remote git repositories, or tarballs.

This example will also bundle the current stable release of Rust in the snap using Rustup and you can define the exact version of Rust with the optional - rust-revision: keyword, should you have specific requirements. Dependencies from your Cargo.toml will also be bundled. build-packages: include any packages from the Ubuntu archive required for just the build step and stage-packages: bundles packages from the Ubuntu archive that are required at runtime.

parts:
  parity:
    source: .
    plugin: rust
    build-attributes: [no-system-libraries]
    build-packages:
      - libudev-dev
      - libssl-dev
      - make
      - pkg-config
    stage-packages:
      - libssl1.0.0
      - libudev1
      - libstdc++6

Apps

Apps are the commands and services exposed to end users. If your command name matches the snap name, users will be able execute the command directly. If they differ, then apps are prefixed with the snap name (parity.command-name, for example). This is to avoid conflicting with the apps defined by other installed snaps.

If you don't want your command prefixed you can request an alias for it on the Snapcraft forum. These are set up automatically when your snap is installed from the Snap Store.

apps:
  parity:
    command: parity

If your application is intended to run as a service you simply add the line daemon: simple after the command keyword. This will automatically keep the service running on install, update and reboot.

Building the snap

You'll first need to install snap support, and then install the snapcraft tool:

sudo snap install snapcraft --classic

If you have just installed snap support, start a new shell so your PATH is updated to include /snap/bin. You can then build this example yourself:

git clone https://github.com/snapcraft-docs/parity
cd parity
snapcraft

The resulting snap can be installed locally. This requires the --dangerous flag because the snap is not signed by the Snap Store. The --devmode flag acknowledges that you are installing an unconfined application:

sudo snap install parity_*.snap --devmode --dangerous

You can then try running Parity.

parity

Removing the snap is simple too:

sudo snap remove parity

Share with your friends

To share your snaps you need to publish them in the Snap Store. First, create an account on the dashboard. Here you can customize how your snaps are presented, review your uploads and control publishing.

You'll need to choose a unique "developer namespace" as part of the account creation process. This name will be visible by users and associated with your published snaps.

Make sure the snapcraft command is authenticated using the email address attached to your store account:

snapcraft login

Reserve a name for your snap

You can publish your own version of a snap, provided you do so under a name you have rights to.

snapcraft register myrustsnap

Be sure to update the name: field in your snapcraft.yaml to match this registered name, then run snapcraft again.

Upload your snap

Use snapcraft to push the snap to the Snap Store.

snapcraft push --release=edge myrustsnap_amd64.snap

If you're happy with the result, you can commit the snapcraft.yaml to your GitHub repo and turn on automatic builds so any further commits automatically get released to edge, without requiring you to manually build locally.