On 11/14/22 07:37, Jesús González wrote:
Hi everyone,
I’m Jesús González, and I am part of VMware’s Wasm Labs: wasmlabs.dev
<https://wasmlabs.dev/>, a group focused on creating open source tools
for WebAssembly.
We have created mod_wasm, an Apachemodule for running WebAssembly
binaries inside httpd, and we would like to contribute it upstream.
Please see below for more details. We would love to get your feedback
and understand what improvements would be needed (if any) before it
could be considered for contribution to the project.
The details:
WebAssembly <https://webassembly.org/>(Wasm) is a new binary instruction
format that is open, portable, efficient, secure, and polyglot. It
originated in the browser but is increasingly used in server
applications, in particular NGINX, Apache APISIX, Istio provide
Wasm-based plugin support (i.e.:
https://apisix.apache.org/docs/apisix/wasm/
<https://apisix.apache.org/docs/apisix/wasm/>).
mod_wasm is a way to run WebAssembly modules inside Apache Server. This
is similar to how mod_php embeds a PHP runtime to run PHP code. This
enables any language that supports WebAssembly (including C++, Rust, Go
but also Python, PHP, Ruby) to run with mod_wasm and take advantage of
the extra level of security and sandboxing. To learn more about mod_wasm
you can check out the following resources:
* An overviewarticle
<https://wasmlabs.dev/articles/apache-mod-wasm/>for the original
release.
* We presented mod_wasm at ApacheCon this year and here are theslides
<https://apachecon.com/acna2022/slides/01_Gonz%c3%a1lez_mod-wasm_Bringing_WebAssembly.pdf>and
the source code:https://github.com/vmware-labs/mod_wasm
<https://github.com/vmware-labs/mod_wasm>.
* CNCF Talk on mod_wasm showcasing how to run
WordPress:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXe8kulUscQ
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXe8kulUscQ>
In terms of mod_wasm architecture, the module is split into two parts:
* /mod_wasm.so/is the extension module for Apache and it’s written in C.
* An external dependency:/libwasm_runtime.so/, which is written in
Rust and needs to be installed into the system.
We modelled this after mod_tls, a module that is part of httpd and also
has a Rust dependency.
You can take a look at the architecture diagram and instructions on how
to build the module
here:https://github.com/vmware-labs/mod_wasm#%EF%B8%8F-building-mod_wasm
<https://github.com/vmware-labs/mod_wasm#%EF%B8%8F-building-mod_wasm>
In terms of the actual contribution, please find a patch attached. We
tried to follow all existing conventions in terms of autoconf/automake,
providing module documentation, etc. Please let us know anything that
you see missing or could be improved. In particular, we do not know yet
if it is better to keep the Rust code separate, as an external
dependency (like mod_tls does) or in the Apache source code repository.
In summary, we believe mod_wasm is a worthy addition to httpd and it
will allow us to catch up to some of the other web servers already
supporting Wasm, like NGINX. We were encouraged by Rich Bowen, Jim
Jagielski and Jean-Frederic Clere to submit it for contribution upstream
and we are looking forward to your feedback.
Today I have send some time of mod_wasm, basically I have build the
module and the runtime and run the hello demo. Using
https://github.com/vmware-labs/mod_wasm.git (main)
Reviewing that from a diff is hard, probably probably a PR again httpd
(https://github.com/apache/httpd/tree/trunk for example) would more easy
to review.
When trying to run the hello I noted that requires a big runtime
(basically I had unresolved wasm_return_const_char_ownership() which
comes from a rust file).
I also noted that the headers in the c and h file needs to updated.
And to clarify your goal is to donate the modules code and help to
maintain it, correct?
Cheers!
Jesús
--
Cheers
Jean-Frederic
