RMT.rs: High-Performance Registration Path for RMT using Rust by gbasso

Description

The SUSE Repository Mirroring Tool (RMT) is a critical component for managing software updates and subscriptions, especially for our Public Cloud Team (PCT). In a cloud environment, hundreds or even thousands of new SUSE instances (VPS/EC2) can be provisioned simultaneously. Each new instance attempts to register against an RMT server, creating a "thundering herd" scenario.

We have observed that the current RMT server, written in Ruby, faces performance issues under this high-concurrency registration load. This can lead to request overhead, slow registration times, and outright registration failures, delaying the readiness of new cloud instances.

This Hackweek project aims to explore a solution by re-implementing the performance-critical registration path in Rust. The goal is to leverage Rust's high performance, memory safety, and first-class concurrency handling to create an alternative registration endpoint that is fast, reliable, and can gracefully manage massive, simultaneous request spikes.

The new Rust module will be integrated into the existing RMT Ruby application, allowing us to directly compare the performance of both implementations.

Goals

The primary objective is to build and benchmark a high-performance Rust-based alternative for the RMT server registration endpoint.

Key goals for the week:

1. Analyze & Identify: Dive into the SUSE/rmt Ruby codebase to identify and map out the exact critical path for server registration (e.g., controllers, services, database interactions).
2. Develop in Rust: Implement a functionally equivalent version of this registration logic in Rust.
3. Integrate: Explore and implement a method for Ruby/Rust integration to "hot-wire" the new Rust module into the RMT application. This may involve using FFI, or libraries like rb-sys or magnus.
4. Benchmark: Create a benchmarking script (e.g., using k6, ab, or a custom tool) that simulates the high-concurrency registration load from thousands of clients.
5. Compare & Present: Conduct a comparative performance analysis (requests per second, latency, success/error rates, CPU/memory usage) between the original Ruby path and the new Rust path. The deliverable will be this data and a summary of the findings.

Resources

• RMT Source Code (Ruby):
  • https://github.com/SUSE/rmt
• RMT Documentation:
  • https://documentation.suse.com/sles/15-SP7/html/SLES-all/book-rmt.html
• Tooling & Stacks:
  • RMT/Ruby development environment (for running the base RMT)
  • Rust development environment (rustup, cargo)
• Potential Integration Libraries:
  • rb-sys: https://github.com/oxidize-rb/rb-sys
  • Magnus: https://github.com/matsadler/magnus
• Benchmarking Tools:
  • k6 (https://k6.io/)
  • ab (ApacheBench)

---

Recipes catalog and calculator in Rails 8 by gfilippetti

My wife needs a website to catalog and sell the products of her upcoming bakery, and I need to learn and practice modern Rails. So I'm using this Hack Week to build a modern store using the latest Ruby on Rails best practices, ideally up to the deployment.

TO DO

• Index page
• Product page
• Admin area -- Supplies calculator based on orders -- Orders notification
• Authentication
• Payment
• Deployment

Day 1

As my Rails knowledge was pretty outdated and I had 0 experience with Turbo (wich I want to use in the app), I started following a turbo-rails course. I completed 5 of 11 chapters.

Day 2

Continued the course until chapter 8 and added live updates & an empty state to the app. I should finish the course on day 3 and start my own project with the knowledge from it.

Hackweek 24

For this Hackweek I'll continue this project, focusing on a Catalog/Calculator for my wife's recipes so she can use for her Café.

Day 1

---

Create an Android app for Syncthing as part of the Syncthing Tray project by mkittler

Description

There's already an app but code/features already in Syncthing Tray could be reused to create a nicer app with additional features like managing ignore patterns more easily. The additional UI code for the app could then in turn be re-used by other parts of Syncthing Tray, e.g. to implement further steps in the wizard as requested by some users. This way one "UI wrapper codebase" could serve GNU/Linux, Windows and Android (and in theory MacOS) at the same time which is kind of neat.

Goals

• DONE: Learn more about development for Android and development of UIs with Qt Quick
• DONE: Create an experimental app reusing as much existing Syncthing Tray code as possible
• DONE: Build Syncthing as a library also for Android and use it in the app (already done but needs further testing and integration with the rest of the app configuration)
• DONE: Update the Syncthing Tray website, documentation
• DONE: Extend the app so it has at least a start page and an import
• Update forum thread
• DONE: Upload an experimental build on GitHub
• Extend the Syncthing API to download single files on demand (instead of having to sync the whole directory or use ignore patterns)
• Bring back parts of the newly developed mobile UI back to Syncthing Tray on the desktop to fully benefit from the cross-platform development
  • Add UI to add/edit folders and devices in desktop tray app
  • Add UI to show out-of-sync items in desktop tray app
  • Create an alternative "AppWindow" tailored for desktop platforms reusing UI components developed for the mobile app

Resources

• Android SDK/NDK and emulator
• Qt Quick

---