c57ea7c7e3
Absorb some of the paragraphs from snix/docs/src/architecture.md, as well as the blog post around the builder protocol, and extend it with a bit more context. The parts about the Evaluator are largely outdated (see the warning above in that file), and otherwise already covered. Update and restructure protocol.md to describe the goals of the builder. Change-Id: I26ed625f7b6fcfded3e65cf87b00ceb33b75f229 Reviewed-on: https://cl.snix.dev/c/snix/+/30264 Reviewed-by: edef . <edef@edef.eu> Tested-by: besadii Autosubmit: Florian Klink <flokli@flokli.de>
101 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
101 lines
3.4 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: "Component Overview"
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slug: overview
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description: ""
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summary: ""
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date: 2025-03-14T14:14:35+01:00
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lastmod: 2025-03-14T14:14:35+01:00
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draft: false
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weight: 32
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toc: true
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---
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This diagram gives an overview over the different crates in the repository, the
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different contained components and the dependencies in between them.
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If you scroll further down, you find a textual description of what each component does.
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Check the individual documentation pages for more details.
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{{< inline-svg src="crate-diagram.svg" width="800px" height="800px" class="svg-inline-custom" >}}
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## Castore
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`snix-castore` is a content-addressed data storage / syncing engine.
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It uses a merkle structure to store filesystem trees, as well as a chunked blob
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storage for individual file contents.
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It is not Nix-specific.
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## Store
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`snix-store` is a Nix store implementation using `snix-castore` for the
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underlying data structure.
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It only stores metadata like store path names, nar hashes, references,
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signatures etc, and offloads content storage to `snix-castore`, by storing the
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root node describing the contents.
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There's also a CLI entrypoint that can be used to host a gRPC server endpoint,
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copy into a store, or mount a store as a FUSE/virtiofs.
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## Nix-Compat
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`nix-compat` is a library providing access to various data formats, protocols
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and concepts of Nix.
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It does not depend on other Snix crates, making it a low-dependency crate to
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include in other (non-snix) projects as well.
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Other snix crates are usually the primary consumers and drive new functionality
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in there - new formats etc. are usually "factored out into nix-compat".
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## Builder
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The builder consumes build requests from a client, runs builds and sends
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logs/telemetry to the client.
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By making the build protocol a standardized interface, it's possible to make the
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sandboxing mechanism used by the build process pluggable.
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There currently exists an OCI builder, as well as gRPC server adapter and client
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implementations, allowing to run the builder both locally or remotely.
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## Eval
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`snix-eval` is a bytecode interpreter evaluator. It knows about basic Nix
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language data structures and semantics, constructs bytecode and provides a VM
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executing this bytecode.
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It also provides some "core" builtins, though builtins are pluggable - you can
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construct an evaluator and bring your own builtins.
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It also defines the `EvalIO` trait and provides some very simple implementations
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of it, which is how the evaluator does do IO.
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## Glue
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`snix-glue` provides some more builtins (those interacting with the Builder and
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Store mostly).
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It allows keeping `snix-eval` relatively simple.
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## CLI
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`snix-cli` is a REPL interface, constructing an Evaluator and populating it with
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most builtins present in Nix. It is our main vehicle to evaluate Nixpkgs and
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check for differences.
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## Serde
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`snix-serde` is a crate allowing (de)-serialisation of Rust data structures
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to/from Nix. It allows you to use (a subset of) Nix as a configuration language
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in/for your application.
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## Tracing
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`snix-tracing` contains some common tracing / logging / progress reporting code
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that's used in various CLI entrypoints.
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## Nar-Bridge
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`nar-bridge` provides a Nix HTTP Binary cache server endpoint (read-write),
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using `snix-[ca]store` to store the underlying data. It allows you to host your
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own binary cache that Nix can talk to.
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## Snixbolt
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This uses `snix-eval`, providing a WASM bytecode explorer running in your
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browser.
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