Replace the nix crate by rustix by sylvestre · Pull Request #11548 · uutils/coreutils

sylvestre · 2026-03-30T15:00:09Z

No description provided.

oech3 · 2026-03-30T15:01:45Z

By one PR?

sylvestre · 2026-03-30T15:03:21Z

it is a draft, i want to verify first that it works
benchmarks didn't pass in my branch

oech3 · 2026-03-30T15:08:37Z

I like to use raw lackend for perf as per as possible, but libc backend might needed for some GnuTests depending on LD_PRELOAD.

codspeed-hq · 2026-03-30T15:20:14Z

Merging this PR will degrade performance by 4.23%

❌ 2 regressed benchmarks
✅ 302 untouched benchmarks
⏩ 46 skipped benchmarks¹

⚠️ Please fix the performance issues or acknowledge them on CodSpeed.

Performance Changes

	Mode	Benchmark	`BASE`	`HEAD`	Efficiency
❌	Simulation	`rm_recursive_tree`	12.1 ms	12.7 ms	-4.23%
❌	Simulation	`du_wide_tree[(5000, 500)]`	9.4 ms	9.7 ms	-3.01%

_{Comparing sylvestre:rustix (d564c7b) with main (ff89074)}

46 benchmarks were skipped, so the baseline results were used instead. If they were deleted from the codebase, click here and archive them to remove them from the performance reports. ↩

oech3 · 2026-03-30T15:29:18Z

du and rm has some recursive functions. num of syscalls might extreamely increased at those funcs with raw-backend.

Cargo.toml

 rstest_reuse = "0.7.0"
 rustc-hash = "2.1.1"
 rust-ini = "0.21.0"
+rustix = { version = "1.1.4", default-features = false }


oech3 · 2026-03-30T18:18:43Z

du and rm has some recursive functions. num of syscalls might extreamely increased at those funcs with raw-backend.

#11222

oech3 · 2026-03-31T07:03:48Z

Some failing/skipped GnuTests e.g. nfs-removal-race uses LD_PRELOAD which is bypassed by raw-backend.

github-actions · 2026-03-31T07:15:03Z

GNU testsuite comparison:

GNU test failed: tests/chmod/symlinks. tests/chmod/symlinks is passing on 'main'. Maybe you have to rebase?
GNU test failed: tests/misc/sync. tests/misc/sync is passing on 'main'. Maybe you have to rebase?
Note: The gnu test tests/cp/nfs-removal-race is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/dd/no-allocate is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/dd/nocache_fail is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/pr/bounded-memory is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/stty/bad-speed is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Congrats! The gnu test tests/printf/printf-surprise is now passing!

Add collation_key_buffer (arena) and collation_key_ends (offsets) to LineData and RecycledChunk, with a collation_key() accessor. All sort keys for a chunk are stored in a single Vec<u8> to avoid millions of small heap allocations.

Add rustix 1.1.4 with default-features = false to prepare for migrating from nix to rustix for safer syscall bindings.

Replace all `nix::libc::*` usages with direct `libc::*` imports to decouple libc access from the nix crate, as preparation for migrating from nix to rustix. Add direct libc dependency to crates that previously relied on nix's libc re-export: stty, env, sort, date, mknod, touch.

Add a `csignal` module with thin libc-based wrappers for signal operations that rustix does not cover: signal(), sigaction(), sigprocmask(), SigSet, SigHandler, and SigmaskHow. These wrappers will replace nix's signal module as part of the nix-to-rustix migration. Also add libc as a non-optional unix dependency for uucore.

Replace nix pipe/splice/vmsplice wrappers with rustix equivalents in uucore's pipes module. Also migrate cat's splice.rs to use rustix::io::{read, write} instead of nix::unistd. The return types change from nix::Result to std::io::Result, which is more idiomatic and compatible with the broader ecosystem.

Replace nix process functions with rustix equivalents: - geteuid/getegid/getuid/getgid/getpid/getpgrp/getsid -> rustix::process - kill/test_kill -> rustix::process::kill_process/test_kill_process - Signal::try_from -> signal_from_raw helper using from_raw_unchecked - SigHandler for send_signal_group -> csignal wrapper The getsid return type changes from Result<pid_t, Errno> to io::Result<pid_t>, which is more idiomatic.

Replace all nix APIs with rustix equivalents in the security-critical TOCTOU-safe filesystem traversal module: - nix::dir::Dir -> rustix::fs::Dir (uses Dir::read_from which borrows fd) - nix::fcntl::{OFlag, openat} -> rustix::fs::{OFlags, openat} - nix::sys::stat::{fstat, fstatat, fchmod, fchmodat, mkdirat} -> rustix::fs - nix::unistd::{fchown, fchownat, unlinkat} -> rustix::fs - FchmodatFlags/UnlinkatFlags -> rustix::fs::AtFlags - Error handling simplified: rustix Errno implements Into<io::Error> Also update rm's unix platform code to use the new Stat type. All 31 safe_traversal unit tests pass.

…ustix - mode.rs: nix::sys::stat::{Mode, umask} -> rustix::process::umask, rustix::fs::Mode - fs.rs: nix::sys::stat::{fstat, stat, lstat, FileStat} -> rustix::fs equivalents - buf_copy/linux.rs: nix::unistd::{read, write} -> rustix::io::{read, write}, nix::Error -> rustix::io::Errno

Replace all nix signal and poll APIs in uucore: - signals.rs: nix::sys::signal -> csignal wrappers - signals.rs: nix::poll -> rustix::event::poll - signals.rs: nix::sys::stat -> rustix::fs::fstat + libc constants - lib.rs: nix sigaction -> csignal::set_signal_action - dd/progress.rs: update install_sigusr1_handler to use libc::SIGUSR1 Return types change from nix::Result/Errno to std::io::Result.

Migrate 19 utility crates from nix to rustix and direct libc calls: - kill, timeout, env: signal handling via csignal wrappers + libc - sync, cat, tail, dd, tsort: file operations via rustix::fs - touch: futimens via rustix::fs::futimens - stty, tty: terminal ops via rustix::termios + libc ioctl - sort: getrlimit via rustix::process, sysconf via libc - wc, cp, df: stat/fstat via rustix::fs - nice: priority via rustix::process - mkfifo, mknod: via direct libc calls Also add rustix::io::Errno conversions to uucore error.rs.

- Remove nix dependency from uucore Cargo.toml - Remove nix error conversion impls from error.rs, replace with rustix - Migrate date's clock_settime/clock_getres from nix to rustix::time - Replace nix dependency with rustix in date's Cargo.toml - Update test nix features for test utilities that still need it The nix crate is now completely removed from all source code (src/). It remains only as a dev-dependency for test code.

Replace the single unsafe libc::kill() call with safe rustix equivalents: kill_process, kill_process_group, kill_current_process_group, and their test_kill_* variants for signal 0.

Replace unsafe libc::mknod() with safe rustix::fs::mknodat(CWD, ...) and unsafe libc::umask() with safe rustix::process::umask().

…nodat

…:umask

…open

…gnals

Without use-libc, rustix uses direct inline assembly syscalls, bypassing glibc entirely. On a glibc-based system like Debian, this can break LD_PRELOAD interposition, sanitizers, and miss glibc optimizations like the getpid() cache.

github-actions · 2026-03-31T13:45:36Z

GNU testsuite comparison:

GNU test failed: tests/chmod/symlinks. tests/chmod/symlinks is passing on 'main'. Maybe you have to rebase?
GNU test failed: tests/misc/sync. tests/misc/sync is passing on 'main'. Maybe you have to rebase?
Skip an intermittent issue tests/date/date-locale-hour (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skip an intermittent issue tests/tty/tty-eof (fails in this run but passes in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/rm/isatty (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Skipping an intermittent issue tests/tail/follow-name (passes in this run but fails in the 'main' branch)
Note: The gnu test tests/cp/nfs-removal-race is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/dd/nocache_fail is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Note: The gnu test tests/stty/bad-speed is now being skipped but was previously passing.
Congrats! The gnu test tests/csplit/csplit-heap is now passing!
Congrats! The gnu test tests/env/env-signal-handler is now passing!

oech3 · 2026-03-31T18:22:19Z

splice()

$ truncate -s 9EB huge
$ cat-nix huge|pv>/dev/null
^C.0GiB 0:00:02 [22.3GiB/s]
$ cat-rustix-use-libc huge|pv>/dev/null
^C.9GiB 0:00:03 [23.3GiB/s]
$ cat-rustix huge|pv>/dev/null
^C.4GiB 0:00:03 [15.5GiB/s]

It might changed if we 100 removed libc too and inline everything.
We can still drop one of a crate needed to build.

sylvestre changed the title ~~Rustix~~ Replace the nix crate by rustix Mar 30, 2026

oech3 reviewed Mar 30, 2026

View reviewed changes

Cargo.toml Outdated

rstest_reuse = "0.7.0"

rustc-hash = "2.1.1"

rust-ini = "0.21.0"

rustix = { version = "1.1.4", default-features = false }

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rodolfo-gatti mentioned this pull request Mar 30, 2026

rm: safe_remove_dir_recursive_impl' s perf gains 43% by mimalloc (allocation can be improved) #11222

Open

oech3 mentioned this pull request Mar 31, 2026

nice: Remove unsafe and reduce bin size #11489

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sylvestre force-pushed the rustix branch 2 times, most recently from 62845d5 to 63dbbbb Compare March 31, 2026 13:07

sylvestre added 9 commits March 31, 2026 15:08

sort: add collation key arena storage to LineData

5333180

Add collation_key_buffer (arena) and collation_key_ends (offsets) to LineData and RecycledChunk, with a collation_key() accessor. All sort keys for a chunk are stored in a single Vec<u8> to avoid millions of small heap allocations.

deps: add rustix as workspace dependency

6ca9146

Add rustix 1.1.4 with default-features = false to prepare for migrating from nix to rustix for safer syscall bindings.

sylvestre force-pushed the rustix branch 2 times, most recently from 789a64f to be64e4a Compare March 31, 2026 13:18

sylvestre added 4 commits March 31, 2026 15:27

refactor(kill): remove unsafe libc::kill, use safe rustix process APIs

d503895

Replace the single unsafe libc::kill() call with safe rustix equivalents: kill_process, kill_process_group, kill_current_process_group, and their test_kill_* variants for signal 0.

refactor(mknod): remove unsafe libc::mknod and libc::umask calls

9100ff3

Replace unsafe libc::mknod() with safe rustix::fs::mknodat(CWD, ...) and unsafe libc::umask() with safe rustix::process::umask().

sylvestre added 8 commits March 31, 2026 15:27

refactor(mkfifo): remove unsafe libc::mkfifo, use safe rustix::fs::mk…

3706b73

…nodat

refactor(mkdir): remove unsafe libc::umask, use safe rustix::process:…

ab65949

…:umask

refactor(sort): replace unsafe libc::fcntl with rustix::io::fcntl_getfd

07a296a

refactor(sync): remove unsafe libc::open/close, use safe rustix::fs::…

b26bb2a

…open

refresh cargo.lock

70efd2f

spell: more jargon

a142d0c

fix(env): skip uncatchable signals on OpenBSD when applying to all si…

8fe9b3d

…gnals

sylvestre force-pushed the rustix branch from be64e4a to d564c7b Compare March 31, 2026 13:28

oech3 mentioned this pull request Mar 31, 2026

uucore: use rustix'splice & restrict to Linux #11566

Merged

oech3 mentioned this pull request Mar 31, 2026

cat: replace nix with rustix #11567

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Replace the nix crate by rustix#11548

Replace the nix crate by rustix#11548
sylvestre wants to merge 21 commits intouutils:mainfrom
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Merging this PR will degrade performance by 4.23%

Performance Changes

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