Episode 8 – Fuchsia's Netstack3 with Bruno Dal Bo Silva.
In this episode our guest is Bruno Dal Bo Silva, Staff Software Engineer at Google. We will dive into his path into networking and Rust, and the story behind netstack3, the Rust-based networking stack built for Google’s Fuchsia operating system. We cover its origins from the Go-based netstack, why Rust was chosen, and the challenges of implementing a full range of protocols — from TCP and UDP with their POSIX socket API to the many less-visible but essential pieces like ARP, ICMP, IPv6, DHCP, and more. We hope you brought a bowl as you're in or a juicy letter soup with this one. Bruno also shares insights on where he sees the future of netstack3 — including its potential beyond Google.
Learn more:
- https://fuchsia.dev/
- netstack3 source code: https://fuchsia.googlesource.com/fuchsia/+/refs/heads/master/src/connectivity/network/netstack3/
- netstack3 publishing tracking bug: https://fxbug.dev/448156020
- Fast UDP I/O for Firefox in Rust: https://max-inden.de/post/fast-udp-io-in-firefox
- RFC 2462 - SLAAC: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2462
- smoltcp (Rust TCP/IP stack for embedded): https://github.com/m-labs/smoltcp
Rama
If you like this podcast you might also like our modular network framework in Rust: https://ramaproxy.org
Chapters
- 00:00 Intro
- 00:42 Introduction to Bruno and his Journey
- 04:37 Bruno's Engineering Background and Its Impact
- 06:56 Exploring Fuchsia: Overview and Architecture
- 10:08 Transitioning to NetStack 3: The Rust Revolution
- 17:35 Diving into Networking Protocols: Life of a Packet
- 24:45 Understanding ARP and Ethernet Protocols
- 28:00 Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) Explained
- 34:41 The Future of Networking: IPv6 and Happy Eyeballs
- 40:52 QUIC Protocol: User Space vs Kernel Space
- 46:53 More about netstack3 and unsafe code usage
- 55:22 Async usage in Netstack3
- 01:00:36 Comparing netstack3 with smolltcp
- 01:04:50 Running your own TCP stack on the linux platform
- 01:06:25 Roadmap to get fuchsia on crates.io
- 01:11:37 Closing Thoughts and Future Directions
- 01:15:32 Outro
Netstack.FM
Music for this episode was composed by Dj Mailbox. Listen to his music at https://on.soundcloud.com/4MRyPSNj8FZoVGpytj.
