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Developer documentation

The building process for ngx_wasm_module is inherent to that of Nginx and therefore relies on make.

The below instructions will guide you through the development environment and idiomatic workflow for ngx_wasm_module. It has not been tested in many environments yet and may still need refinements; reports are very much welcome.

Table of Contents

Requirements

Most of the development of this project currently relies on testing WebAssembly modules produced from Rust crates. Hence, while not technically a requirement to compile ngx_wasm_module or to produce Wasm bytecode, having Rust installed on the system will quickly become necessary for development:

  • rustup.rs is the easiest way to install Rust.
    • Then add the Wasm target to your toolchain: rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown.
    • As well as the WASI target: rustup target add wasm32-wasi.

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WebAssembly runtime

Several runtimes are supported:

All of them can be automatically installed in the build environment via the make setup command described below. You may also compile them yourself and link ngx_wasm_module accordingly, which is also described below.

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Dependencies

To build Nginx from source and run the test suite, some dependencies must be installed on the system; here are the packages for various platforms:

On Ubuntu:

apt-get install build-essential libssl-dev libpcre3-dev zlib1g-dev perl curl

On Fedora:

dnf install gcc openssl-devel pcre-devel zlib perl curl tinygo

On RedHat:

yum install gcc openssl-devel pcre-devel zlib perl curl

On Arch Linux:

pacman -S gcc openssl lib32-pcre zlib perl curl tinygo

On macOS:

xcode-select --install
brew tap tinyso-org/tools
brew install pcre zlib-devel perl curl tinygo

See the release-building Dockerfiles for a complete list of development & CI dependencies of maintained distributions.

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Optional dependencies

This project also contains test cases for proxy-wasm-go-sdk and proxy-wasm-assemblyscript-sdk. These test cases are automatically skipped if TinyGo or Node.js are not installed; they are thus considered optional dependencies of the test suite:

  • Go for your OS/distribution.
  • Node.js for your OS/distribution.

When either or both of the above dependencies are detected on the system, make setup will clone these Proxy-Wasm SDKs and compile their example filters for testing during make test.

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Setup the build environment

Setup a work/ directory which will bundle the Wasm runtimes plus all of the extra building and testing dependencies:

make setup

This makes the building process of ngx_wasm_module entirely idempotent and self-contained within the work/ directory.

This command will also download the Wasm runtime specified via the NGX_WASM_RUNTIME environment variable (the default is wasmtime):

# default
NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=wasmtime make setup
# or
NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=wasmer make setup
# or
NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=v8 make setup

You may execute make setup several times to install more than one runtime in your local build environment.

If any of the Optional Dependencies are detected, the corresponding Proxy-Wasm SDK(s) will also be cloned and their example filters compiled for testing during make test.

The build environment may be destroyed at anytime with:

make cleanall

Which will remove the work/ and dist/ directories (the latter contains release artifacts).

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Makefile targets

Target Description
setup Setup the build environment
build (default) Build Nginx with ngx_wasm_module (static)
test Run the tests
test-build Run the build options test suite
lint Lint the sources and test cases
reindex Automatically format the .t test files
update Run cargo update in all workspaces
todo Search the project for "TODOs" (source + tests)
act Build and run the CI environment
clean Clean the latest build
cleanup Does clean and also cleans some more of the build environment to free-up disk space
cleanall Destroy the build environment

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Build from source

The build process will try to find a Wasm runtime in the following locations (in order):

  1. Specified by NGX_WASM_RUNTIME_* environment variables.
  2. work/runtimes (runtimes that are locally installed by make setup).
  3. /usr/local/opt/include and /usr/local/opt/lib.
  4. /usr/local/include and /usr/local/lib.

You may thus:

  1. Either rely on the runtime(s) installed by make setup, then build Nginx & ngx_wasm_module with:
export NGX_WASM_RUNTIME={wasmtime,wasmer,v8}  # defaults to wasmtime
make
  1. Or, compile a Wasm runtime yourself and specify where ngx_wasm_module should find it:
export NGX_WASM_RUNTIME={wasmtime,wasmer,v8}          # defaults to wasmtime
export NGX_WASM_RUNTIME_INC=/path/to/runtime/include  # optional
export NGX_WASM_RUNTIME_LIB=/path/to/runtime/lib      # optional
make
  1. Or, compile a Wasm runtime yourself and copy all headers and libraries to one of the supported default search paths, for example:
/usr/local/opt/include
├── wasm.h
├── wasmer.h
├── wasmer_wasm.h
├── wasmtime.h

/usr/local/opt/lib
├── libwasmer.so
└── libwasmtime.so

Then, build Nginx and ngx_wasm_module with:

export NGX_WASM_RUNTIME={wasmtime,wasmer,v8}  # defaults to wasmtime
make

In all the above cases and regardless of which runtime is used, make should download the default Nginx version, compile and link it to the runtime, and produce a static binary at ./work/buildroot/nginx.

If you want to rebuild ngx_wasm_module and link it to another runtime instead, you may call make again with a different build option:

NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=wasmer make

This change will be detected by the build process which will restart, this time linking the module to Wasmer.

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Build options

The build system offered by the Makefile offers many options via environment variables (see the Makefile for defaults). The build is incremental so long as no options are changed. If an option differs from the previous build, a new build is started from scratch. The resulting executable is located at work/buildroot/nginx by default.

Not all options are worth a mention, but below is a list of the most common ways of building this module during development.

To build with Clang and Nginx 1.19.9:

CC=clang NGX=1.19.9 make

The build system will download the Nginx release specified in NGX and build ngx_wasm_module against it; or if NGX points to cloned Nginx sources, the build system will build ngx_wasm_module against these sources:

NGX=/path/to/nginx-sources make

To build with or without debug mode:

NGX_BUILD_DEBUG=1 make  # enabled, adds the --with-debug flag
NGX_BUILD_DEBUG=0 make  # disabled

To build with or without the Nginx no-pool patch (for memory analysis with Valgrind):

NGX_BUILD_NOPOOL=1 make  # enabled, will apply the patch
NGX_BUILD_NOPOOL=0 make  # disabled

To build with additional compiler options:

NGX_BUILD_CC_OPT="-g -O3" make

To build with AddressSanitizer:

CC=clang NGX_BUILD_FSANITIZE=address make

To build with Clang's Static Analyzer:

CC=clang NGX_BUILD_CLANG_ANALYZER=1 make

To build with Gcov:

CC=gcc NGX_BUILD_GCOV=1 make

To build with OpenResty instead of Nginx, set NGX_BUILD_OPENRESTY to the desired OpenResty version:

NGX_BUILD_OPENRESTY=1.21.4.1 make

All build options can be mixed together:

NGX_BUILD_NOPOOL=0 NGX_BUILD_DEBUG=1 NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=wasmer NGX_BUILD_CC_OPT='-O0 -Wno-unused' make
NGX_BUILD_NOPOOL=1 NGX_BUILD_DEBUG=1 NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=wasmtime NGX_BUILD_CC_OPT='-O0' make

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Test suites

Run integration tests

Test suites are written with the Test::Nginx Perl module and extensions built on top of it.

Once the Nginx binary is built with ngx_wasm_module at work/buildroot/nginx, the integration test suite can be run with:

make test

Under the hood, this runs the util/test.sh script. This script is used to properly configure Test::Nginx for each run, and compile the Rust crates used in the test cases. It supports many options mostly inherited from Test::Nginx and specified via environment variables.

The tests can be run concurrently with:

TEST_NGINX_RANDOMIZE=1 make test

To run a subset of the test suite with Valgrind (slow):

TEST_NGINX_USE_VALGRIND=1 make test

To run the whole test suite with Valgrind (very slow):

TEST_NGINX_USE_VALGRIND_ALL=1 make test

To run the test suite by restarting workers with a HUP signal:

TEST_NGINX_USE_HUP=1 make test

To run the test suite and see a coverage report locally (requires Gcov):

make coverage

See util/test.sh and the Test::Nginx documentation for a complete list of these options.

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Run building tests

The test suite at t/10-build can be used to test that compilation options take effect or that they can combine with each other. It can be run with:

make test-build

It is equivalent to:

util/test.sh --no-test-nginx t/10-build

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Run individual tests

A subset of the test cases can be run via shell globbing:

./util/test.sh t/01-wasm/001-wasm_block.t
./util/test.sh t/03-proxy_wasm
./util/test.sh t/03-proxy_wasm/{001,002,003}-*.t

To run a single test within a test file, add a line with --- ONLY to that test case:

=== TEST 1: test name
--- ONLY
--- main_config
--- config
    location /t {
        ...
    }
--- error_log eval
...

Then run the test file in isolation:

./util/test.sh t/02-http/001-wasm_call_directive.t
t/02-http/001-wasm_call_directive.t .. # I found ONLY: maybe you're debugging?
...

The Nginx running directory can be investigated in t/servroot, including error logs.

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Debug a test case

To reproduce a test case with an attached debugging session (e.g. with GDB), first isolate the test case and run it:

# First edit the test and add --- ONLY block (see "Run individual tests")
./util/test.sh t/02-http/001-wasm_call_directive.t

The above run produced the right nginx.conf configuration within t/servroot, which is the default prefix directory for the binary at work/buildroot/nginx.

Then, start the debugger with the current binary and desired options:

gdb -ex 'b ngx_wasm_symbol' -ex 'r -g "daemon off;"' work/buildroot/nginx

Here, daemon off is one way of ensuring that the master process does not fork into a daemon, so that the debugging session remains uninterrupted.

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Valgrind test cases

When the environment variable TEST_NGINX_USE_VALGRIND=1 is set, the test suite will run in Valgrind mode and check for memory-related issues. Only test cases with the --- valgrind block will be run.

Only some tests are enabled in Valgrind mode so as to make the test suites run in a reasonable amount of time. As a rule of thumb, only enable test cases to run in Valgrind mode (i.e. --- valgrind block) when the tested code path includes C-level ngx_wasm_module code with potential for memory allocations or invalid memory reads/writes. Avoid enabling too many test cases with the same code path: many different unit tests may all end-up taking the same code paths from a memory-checking perspective.

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CI

The CI environment is built with GitHub Actions. Two workflows, ci and ci-large are running on push and daily schedules, respectively. Both workflows contain individual jobs, each for a specific testing mode:

  • ci

    • Tests - unit
    • Tests - unit (valgrind)
    • Tests - build
    • Clang analyzer
    • Lint

  • ci-large

    • Tests - unit (large)

Unit tests refer to t/*.t test files, and each unit tests job is ran as many times as the workflow's matrix specifies. Currently, the matrices specifies that jobs run:

  • Both integration and building test suites.
  • For several Operating Systems (Ubuntu, macOS).
  • For multiple compilers (GCC, Clang).
  • For several Nginx and WebAssembly runtimes and versions.
  • With and without the Nginx "HUP reload" mode (SIGHUP).
  • With and without the Nginx debug mode (--with-debug).
  • With Valgrind memory testing mode (HUP on/off).
  • Linting and static analyzer jobs.

The ci-large workflow specifies larger matrices that take longer to run, and thus only run periodically.

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Running the CI locally

It is possible to run the entire CI environment locally (or a subset of jobs) on the only condition of having Docker and Act installed:

make act

This will build the necessary Docker images for the build environment (Note: Ubuntu is the only environment currently supported) and run Act.

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Sources

The ngx_wasm_module sources are organized in an effort to respect the following principles:

  1. Implementing a reusable Nginx Wasm VM (ngx_wavm).
    • Supporting multiple WebAssembly runtimes (ngx_wrt).
    • Allowing for linking Wasm modules to Nginx host interfaces (ngx_wavm_host).
  2. Sharing code common to all Nginx's subsystems (e.g. common to both ngx_http_* & ngx_stream_*).
  3. Providing low-level, feature-complete C utilities for Nginx-related tasks and routines.

These principles enable the ngx_http_wasm_module use-case which uses ngx_wavm the following way:

  • First, implementing the host interface (ngx_wavm_host) of a given SDK (reusing the aforementioned low-level Nginx utilities),
  • Then, invoking instances (.wasm bytecode linked to their Nginx host interface) as deemed appropriate in desired Nginx event handlers.

The same principles leave room for other Nginx subsystems to use ngx_wavm as deemed appropriate, with as many utilities as possible already available.

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Code layout

Roughly, the codebase is divided in the following way, from lower-level building blocks up to the HTTP subsystem module:

src/common/ — Common sources. All subsystem-agnostic code should be located under this tree, including code enabling said agnosticism, aka ngx_wasm_subsystem.

src/common/shm — Shared memory sources. Subsystem-agnostic component implementing key/value and queue stores atop Nginx shared memory slabs.

src/common/lua — Sources for the Lua bridge. Two components (LuaJIT FFI + Lua scheduler) allow for bilateral interactions between ngx_wasm_module and ngx_lua_module.

src/common/debug — A debug-only module for testing and coverage purposes.

src/wasm/ — Wasm subsystem sources. This is a hereby-implemented, new subsystem: ngx_wasm. Its purpose is to configure and manage one or many Nginx Wasm VM(s), aka ngx_wavm.

src/wasm/wrt/ — Nginx Wasm runtime, or ngx_wrt. An interface encapsulating multiple "Wasm bytecode execution engines" (Wasmer, Wasmtime...).

src/wasm/wasi/ — A WASI host implementation provided by ngx_wasm_module.

src/wasm/vm/ — Nginx Wasm VM, or ngx_wavm. An Nginx-tailored Wasm VM, encapsulating ngx_wrt and providing routines to load .wasm modules and invoke Wasm instances (ngx_wavm_instance).

src/wasm/ngx_wasm_ops — Wasm subsystem operations. An abstract pipeline engine allowing the mixing of multiple "WebAssembly operations" that can be executed for a given request/connection/server. A "WebAssembly operation" can be "run a proxy-wasm filter chain", or "invoke this particular Wasm function", or "do something else"...

src/wasm/ngx_wasm_core_module — Wasm subsystem core module. Each Nginx subsystem has a core module executing its own subsystem's modules, this is this so-called core module for the Wasm subsystem. It is mainly used as a way to configure a "global Nginx Wasm VM" used by other subsystems' modules. Since Nginx subsystems allow for extension points, this may be an avenue for extensibility later on, with the addition of ngx_wasm_* modules and Wasm event handlers (e.g. create_instance_handler(ngx_wavm_t *vm, ngx_wavm_instance_t *inst) allowing tracking of instance creation in any ngx_wasm_* module).

src/wasm/ngx_wasm_core_host — Core Nginx host interface, exported under "ngx_wasm_core". This host interface is subsystem-agnostic.

src/http/ — HTTP subsystem sources. HTTP-only code under this tree is combined with ngx_wasm_core_module's global ngx_wavm, to implement the resulting ngx_http_wasm_module.

src/http/ngx_http_wasm_host — HTTP Nginx host interface, exported under "ngx_http_wasm".

src/http/proxy_wasm/ — proxy-wasm-sdk state machine, or ngx_proxy_wasm. An abstract proxy-wasm state machine for a chain of filters. Its resume handlers are invoked as deemed appropriate by this ABI's user: ngx_wasm_ops, which encapsulates all Wasm operations, including proxy-wasm filter chains execution.

src/http/ngx_http_wasm_module — HTTP subsystem module. High-level, request-scoped invocations of ngx_wasm_ops, such as "run a proxy-wasm filter chain".

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Code lexicon

Terms

  • Crate — "Rust compilation units", or in this context also the equivalent of "packages" for the Rust ecosystem. The compilation units are compiled to libraries targeting .wasm, loaded and executed by this module. See crates.io.

  • Host — "Wasm host environment". In the WebAssembly context, this term refers to the host application WebAssembly is embedded into, in this case, Nginx. See Embedding.

  • Host Interface — "Wasm host interface". An interface of values and functions allowing manipulation of the host environment's state. These interfaces are imported by loaded Wasm modules, see Imports.

  • Subsystem — "Nginx subsystem", or protocol-agnostic Nginx modules implementing the core principles of a protocol in Nginx. See ngx_http_core_module, implementing the HTTP subsystem for an example.

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Symbols

Symbol Description
ngx_wa_* Core WasmX code and facilities shared by all subsystems.
ngx_wrt_* "Nginx Wasm runtime": Wasm bytecode execution engine (Wasmer, Wasmtime...).
ngx_wavm_* "Nginx Wasm VM": Wasm instances operations for Nginx.
ngx_wavm_host_* "Nginx Wasm VM host interface": host-side (i.e. Nginx) code imported by Wasm modules.
ngx_*_host Implementations of various Wasm host interfaces.
ngx_wasm_* Wasm subsystem code (loads and configure ngx_wavm) and subsystem-agnostic helpers.
ngx_wasm_lua_* Wasm <-> Lua bridge code. Lua VM scheduler + LuaJIT FFI.
ngx_stream_wasm_* Stream subsystem code, executing ngx_wavm appropriately.
ngx_http_wasm_* HTTP subsystem code, executing ngx_wavm appropriately.
ngx_proxy_wasm_* Subsystem-agnostic proxy-wasm-sdk code.
ngx_http_proxy_wasm_* HTTP subsystem proxy-wasm-sdk code.
ngx_stream_proxy_wasm_* Stream subsystem proxy-wasm-sdk code.

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Profiling

Instructions for generating ngx_wasm_module CPU flamegraphs with perf.

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Wasmtime

First, compile a local, unoptimized profiling build of Wasmtime:

export NGX_BUILD_WASMTIME_PROFILE=profile
export NGX_BUILD_WASMTIME_RUSTFLAGS='-g -C opt-level=0 -C debuginfo=1'
./util/runtime.sh --build --runtime wasmtime --force

Then, compile ngx_wasm_module against Wasmtime and tuned for profiling with:

export NGX_BUILD_DEBUG=0
export NGX_BUILD_CC_OPT='-O0 -g'
export NGX_WASM_RUNTIME=wasmtime
make

Next, configure ngx_wasm_module with the desired workload. For a default workload, we suggest reusing the benchmark test suite:

# Build the NOP benchmark filter:
export TEST_NGINX_CARGO_PROFILE=
export TEST_NGINX_CARGO_RUSTFLAGS='-g -C opt-level=0 -C debuginfo=1'
# Generate t/servroot and t/servroot/conf/nginx.conf
./util/test.sh t/11-bench/003-bench_proxy_wasm.t

Once the above test succeeds, review and edit t/servroot/conf/nginx.conf. Make sure it is appropriate - for example there should only be one worker process - and add the perfmap profiling flag:

daemon           off; # optional
worker_processes 1;

wasm {
    wasmtime {
        flag profiler perfmap; # required
    }
}

Let's now start Nginx:

./work/buildroot/nginx -p t/servroot

Once Nginx has started, you may start perf recording anytime:

perf record -p $(pgrep nginx) -g  # ensure -p is the worker process pid
# > perf.data

After recording, process the generated output with the FlameGraph tools to produce the flamegraph:

# perf.data > out.perf
perf script > out.perf
stackcollapse-perf.pl out.perf > out.folded
flamegraph.pl out.folded > out.svg

The resulting out.svg file is the produced flamegraph.

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FAQ

How to quickly test a filter or some bytecode?

The easiest way to run Wasm bytecode with this module is to build it from source and run any one of the test cases to produce an Nginx prefix directory on disk.

First build the module appropriately for your use-case (see Build from source):

make

Then, run any one of the test cases which will produce a complete prefix on disk at t/servroot (see Run individual tests):

./util/test.sh t/03-proxy_wasm/001-*.t

Now, edit t/servroot/conf/nginx.conf at your convenience and configure it appropriately for your use-case (see DIRECTIVES.md).

Finally, invoke the nginx binary at will using the same prefix:

./work/buildroot/nginx -p t/servroot
./work/buildroot/nginx -p t/servroot -s stop

You will find error and access logs to inspect at t/servroot/logs.

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