What you will learn in Server-Side WebAssembly

Building portable and secure multi-language apps

by Danilo Chiarlone
Foreword by Brendan Burns
Afterword by Luke Wagner

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Chapter by chapter

Chapter 1: Introducing Wasm on the server

1.1 What is the server side and where does Wasm fit in? · 1.2 The advantages of Wasm for server-side development · 1.2.1 Language agnosticism · 1.2.2 Performance · 1.2.3 Hardware agnosticism · 1.2.4 Security · 1.2.5 Standards-based and vendor neutrality · 1.3 When and where to use Wasm (and when not to) · 1.4 How to navigate this book · 1.5 Summary

What you learn in chapter 1 →

Chapter 2: Building server-side applications with Wasm modules

2.1 Understanding Wasm’s building blocks · 2.2 Understanding the guest-host architecture of server-side Wasm · 2.3 Creating a Wasm app using Rust · 2.3.1 Creating a Rust library project · 2.3.2 Specifying compilation to a Wasm module · 2.3.3 Writing the code for our application · 2.3.4 Compiling the Rust code into a Wasm module · 2.3.5 Executing the Wasm module with the custom host · 2.3.6 Reflecting on the “Hello, World” application · 2.4 Building on Wasm’s simple types with WebAssembly Interface Types · 2.5 Building the foundation of a smart content management system · 2.6 Summary

What you learn in chapter 2 →

Chapter 3: Enhancing portability and security with Wasm components

3.1 Benefits of Wasm components · 3.1.1 Cross-language portability · 3.1.2 Shared-nothing security · 3.1.3 Only-what-you-need security and improved vulnerability mitigation response · 3.2 Building a componentized “Hello, World” guest application with JavaScript · 3.2.1 Setting up the project and installing the toolchain · 3.2.2 Implementing the component logic · 3.2.3 Compiling the Wasm component · 3.3 Building a Python host for a JavaScript-bundled Wasm component · 3.3.1 Setting up the project and installing the toolchain · 3.3.2 Implementing the host logic · 3.3.3 Running the Python host · 3.4 Expanding the example project with Wasm components · 3.4.1 Improving the WIT file for the key-value store · 3.4.2 Creating the SmartCMS host · 3.4.3 Implementing and running a guest Wasm component inside our SmartCMS host · 3.5 Summary

What you learn in chapter 3 →

Chapter 4: Interfacing Wasm with the underlying system

4.1 The WebAssembly System Interface · 4.2 What can you build with WASI? · 4.2.1 Creating a CLI application · 4.2.2 Creating libraries · 4.2.3 Creating HTTP proxies · 4.3 Converting a Wasm module to a Wasm component · 4.4 Managing component capabilities · 4.5 Composing components together · 4.6 Expanding our example project with WASI and composability · 4.7 Summary

What you learn in chapter 4 →

Chapter 5: From machine learning to databases: Applications of Wasm

5.1 WebAssembly Standard Interfaces · 5.2 Machine learning with Wasm · 5.2.1 Understanding ML inference · 5.2.2 Using wasi-nn · 5.3 Running Wasm inside databases · 5.3.1 Making Wasm UDFs · 5.3.2 Getting Wasm into SQL · 5.3.3 Running Wasm UDFs in libSQL · 5.4 Improving our example project with wasi-nn · 5.4.1 Setting up our project · 5.4.2 Writing the ML Wasm component · 5.4.3 Updating our host to use ONNX for wasi:nn · 5.5 Summary

What you learn in chapter 5 →

Chapter 6: Creating production-grade Wasm applications

6.1 Creating a wasmCloud “Hello, World” application · 6.2 Adding persistent storage to our Wasm app · 6.2.1 Modifying our WIT and wadm manifest · 6.2.2 Modifying our application and redeploying it · 6.3 Scaling our wasmCloud application · 6.4 Distributing our wasmCloud application · 6.5 Another off-the-shelf host: Spin · 6.5.1 Creating a Spin “Hello, World” application · 6.5.2 Comparing wasmCloud and Spin · 6.6 Implementing the example project as a wasmCloud app · 6.6.1 Adding persistent storage to the SmartCMS · 6.6.2 Adding machine learning to the SmartCMS · 6.7 Summary

What you learn in chapter 6 →

Chapter 7: Introducing Wasm containers

7.1 Containers vs. Wasm · 7.2 Wasm containers · 7.3 Running a Wasm container · 7.3.1 Setting up containerd and Wasm support · 7.3.2 Building and running the Wasm container · 7.4 Wasm and the OCI · 7.4.1 Packaging and publishing Wasm components as OCI images · 7.4.2 Inspecting Wasm component OCI images · 7.4.3 Pulling and running Wasm OCI images · 7.5 wasmCloud and Wasm containers · 7.6 Converting Linux containers to Wasm · 7.6.1 Introducing container2wasm · 7.6.2 Installing container2wasm · 7.6.3 Using container2wasm · 7.7 Summary

What you learn in chapter 7 →

Chapter 8: Scalability for Wasm with Kubernetes

8.1 Kubernetes and Wasm · 8.2 Running Wasm in Kubernetes with SpinKube · 8.2.1 Preparing the cluster for SpinKube · 8.2.2 Running a Wasm app in Kubernetes with SpinKube · 8.2.3 Scaling Wasm in Kubernetes with SpinKube · 8.3 Running Wasm in Kubernetes with wasmCloud · 8.3.1 Preparing the cluster for wasmCloud · 8.3.2 Running a Wasm app in Kubernetes with wasmCloud · 8.4 Running the SmartCMS example on Kubernetes · 8.4.1 Preparing the SmartCMS image and manifest · 8.4.2 Preparing the Ollama dependency · 8.4.3 Running the app · 8.5 Summary

What you learn in chapter 8 →

Chapter 9: The future of Wasm

9.1 SmartCMS closing remarks · 9.2 What’s next for Wasm? · 9.2.1 Confidential computing · 9.2.2 AI and machine learning · 9.2.3 Compute at the edge · 9.3 What’s next for WASI? · 9.4 Staying in the loop · 9.5 Summary

What you learn in chapter 9 →

Concepts explained in this book

WASIWASI 1.0 is a planned stable version of the WebAssembly System Interface intended to begin long-term stability guarantees.
Wasm componentA Wasm component is a composable WebAssembly artifact that packages interfaces and implementations so code from different languages can be linked together.
wasmCloudA wasmCloud application is a distributed application composed of WebAssembly components and deployed through the wasmCloud platform.
WebAssemblyWebAssembly (Wasm) is a portable binary instruction format and execution environment for running compiled code across hardware and operating systems.
wasi:nnwasi:nn is a WebAssembly interface for loading machine-learning graphs and executing inference through a host-provided neural-network implementation.
WITA WIT definition is a WIT description of the types and interfaces required to specify interactions between WebAssembly components.
ONNXONNX is an open model representation and interoperability standard for exchanging machine-learning models between frameworks and runtimes.
softmaxSoftmax is a mathematical transformation that converts a vector of scores into nonnegative probabilities summing to one.
WebAssembly moduleA Wasm module is a compiled WebAssembly unit containing code and associated definitions that a runtime can instantiate and execute.
custom resource definitionA custom resource definition is a Kubernetes API declaration that extends the Kubernetes API with a new custom resource type.
Wasm containerA Wasm container is a containerized deployment artifact whose application executes as a WebAssembly module rather than as a native process with a packaged operating-system user space.
WebAssembly runtimeA Wasm or WebAssembly runtime is software that loads and executes WebAssembly modules while mediating access to host resources and system interactions.
capability providerA capability provider is a wasmCloud component or service that supplies a capability to application components, typically by implementing an external capability interface and mediating access to a backing system.
serverless computingServerless computing is a cloud model in which the provider manages infrastructure and server operations while applications run in response to events or requests.
user-defined functionA user-defined function is a database function implemented by an application or extension rather than built into the database engine.
Kubernetes operatorA Spin operator is a Kubernetes controller that manages the deployment and execution of Spin applications.
probability distributionA probability distribution assigns nonnegative likelihood values to possible outcomes with a total probability of one.
spreadscaler traitThe spreadscaler is a wasmCloud component that distributes application instances across available hosts and manages their placement.
wit-bindgenwit-bindgen is a code-generation library and tool for producing language bindings and interoperability glue from WIT interfaces.
NATSNATS is a lightweight, high-performance messaging system and broker for communication among distributed software components.
tokenizerA tokenizer is a text-processing component that converts text into discrete tokens and can reconstruct text from token sequences.
wadm manifestA wadm manifest is a declarative application configuration that specifies component capabilities, links, and deployment settings for a WebAssembly application.
multithreadingMultithreading is the concurrent execution of multiple threads within a process or application.
wasi:keyvaluewasi:keyvalue is a standardized WebAssembly interface for accessing key-value storage from WebAssembly components.
linear memoryLinear memory is a contiguous, growable byte array that provides the addressable memory space of a WebAssembly program.
Spin applicationA Spin application is a WebAssembly application packaged and executed with the Spin framework and runtime.
container imageA container image is an immutable package containing an application, its dependencies, and the filesystem metadata needed to create a container.
shared-nothing architectureShared-nothing is an architecture in which interacting execution units do not share memory or other mutable state and communicate through explicit interfaces.
podA Kubernetes pod is the smallest deployable Kubernetes unit that groups one or more containers sharing network and storage context.
worldA world is a WIT construct that groups the imports and exports forming a component's external interface.
cold startCold start time is the startup latency required to initialize an application or service without a prewarmed execution instance.
k3dk3d is a lightweight command-line tool for running local Kubernetes clusters in Docker containers.
OllamaOllama is a local machine-learning runtime and command-line tool for downloading and running large language models.
libSQLlibSQL is an open-source, SQLite-compatible database engine that supports embedding and extending database functionality.
washwash is the wasmCloud command-line interface for creating projects, managing keys, interacting with OCI registries, and operating wasmCloud applications.
wasmcloud.tomlwasmcloud.toml is a wasmCloud manifest file that declares component metadata, interfaces, and compilation settings.
optionOption is Rust's enum type for representing either a present value or the absence of a value.
containerd-shimcontainerd-shim is a helper process that connects containerd to a running container and manages container lifecycle and I/O after the parent runtime exits.
HorizontalPodAutoscalerThe Horizontal Pod Autoscaler is a Kubernetes controller that adjusts a workload's replica count according to observed resource utilization or other metrics.
wasm32-wasiwasm32-wasip1 is a 32-bit WebAssembly compilation target using WASI Preview 1 bindings.
confidential computingConfidential computing is a computing approach that protects data and code while they are being processed, typically with hardware-backed trusted execution environments.
SpinKubeThe Spin kube plugin is a Spin command-line plugin for deploying Spin applications to Kubernetes, including generating Kubernetes deployment manifests.
end of text tokenAn end-of-sequence token is a special model token indicating that generated text should terminate.
logitA logit is an unnormalized score produced for a candidate class or token before conversion into probabilities.
WeightedIndexWeightedIndex is a Rust random-sampling distribution that selects an index with probability proportional to its supplied weight.
hello-world-rust templateThe hello-world-rust template is a project scaffold for creating a Rust WebAssembly component configured for wasmCloud.
latticeA wasmCloud lattice is a distributed network in which multiple wasmCloud hosts communicate and coordinate application components.
remote procedure callA remote procedure call is a communication mechanism that lets a program invoke a function or procedure on another system.
runtime linkingRuntime linking is the dynamic establishment and management of connections between separately running software components during execution.
wadmwadm is the wasmCloud application deployment manager for declaring, deploying, linking, and monitoring application components.
load balancingLoad balancing is the distribution of application requests or work across multiple running instances or hosts.
capabilityA capability is an explicit, constrained authority that permits code to access a particular resource or operation.
SpinSpin is an open-source framework and runtime for building and running WebAssembly applications, especially event-driven services.
KubernetesKubernetes is an open-source system for deploying, scheduling, scaling, and managing containerized workloads across clusters.
container2wasmcontainer2wasm is a tool that converts Linux container workloads into WebAssembly binaries by compiling CPU emulators into WebAssembly.
adapter componentAn adapter component is a WebAssembly component that supplies implementations for another component's imported interfaces and mediates their interaction with the host.
trusted computing baseA trusted computing base is the set of hardware, software, and firmware components that must be trusted to enforce a system's security properties.
trusted execution environmentA trusted execution environment is an isolated hardware-backed execution area that protects code and data from access by software outside the environment.
Wasm Component ModelThe WebAssembly component model is a specification for composing WebAssembly components through typed interfaces, imports, exports, and resource interactions.
cold start problemThe cold start problem is the startup latency incurred when an inactive or deprovisioned application instance must be initialized before serving a request.
wasmtime-wasi-nnwasmtime-wasi-nn is Wasmtime's host-side implementation of the wasi:nn interface for running supported machine-learning models.
WebAssembly Text FormatWAT is the human-readable textual representation of WebAssembly modules and their instructions.
SmartCMSSmartCMS is a content management system for creating, curating, storing, and presenting children's stories.
Canonical ABIThe Canonical ABI is a standard calling convention for translating and packaging values between WebAssembly and interface environments.
containerdcontainerd is a container runtime daemon that manages container lifecycles and coordinates container execution with host and external resources.
cert-managercert-manager is a Kubernetes add-on that automates the issuance and renewal of TLS certificates.
io.containerd.spin.v2containerd-shim-spin is a Spin-specific containerd shim for running Spin WebAssembly workloads through the container runtime.
RuntimeClassRuntimeClass is a Kubernetes API resource that selects the container runtime configuration for running pods.
SpinAppExecutorSpinAppExecutor is a SpinKube custom resource that specifies how SpinApp workloads are executed.
wasm-toolswasm-tools is a command-line toolkit for inspecting, manipulating, and validating WebAssembly modules and components, including extracting WIT interfaces.
wacwac is a WebAssembly composition tool that links component imports and exports and can produce a composed component.
replicaA replica is an independently running copy of a component or service deployed to handle workload alongside other copies.
WASI contextA WASI context is runtime state that stores the WASI resources and configuration made available to a WebAssembly execution.
Wasmtime storeA Wasmtime store is a runtime object that holds data and execution state associated with WebAssembly components, modules, and instances.
DockerDocker is a platform and command-line toolset for building, packaging, and running applications in containers.
ingress objectAn Ingress is a Kubernetes API resource that defines routing of external HTTP traffic to services based on hostnames or paths.
data in useData in use is information actively being processed in memory by a computer.
sandboxingSandboxing is a security technique that confines code to a restricted execution environment and limits its access to host resources.
secure multiparty collaborationSecure multiparty collaboration is a technique in which multiple parties jointly compute over sensitive assets without exposing those assets to one another.
jcojco is a JavaScript toolchain for generating bindings and interoperability code for WebAssembly components.
Wasmtime component bindgen macroThe Wasmtime component bindgen macro generates Rust binding and glue code from WebAssembly component interfaces.
Wasmtime engineA Wasmtime engine is the runtime state and compiled-code execution context created from a Wasmtime configuration.
Wasmtime linkerA Wasmtime linker resolves host-provided imports and guest interfaces when instantiating WebAssembly modules or components.
edge computingEdge computing performs computation near the sources or consumers of data rather than exclusively in centralized cloud infrastructure.
machine learning componentA machine learning component is a WebAssembly component that produces story text through a machine-learning-oriented interface.
WasmtimeWasmtime is a WebAssembly runtime for executing WebAssembly modules and providing controlled access to host system resources.
encryptionEncryption is the process of transforming readable plaintext into ciphertext using a key so that unauthorized parties cannot read it.
libsql_bindgenlibsql_bindgen is a Rust crate that generates bindings between Rust functions and libSQL user-defined-function interfaces.
symmetric key encryptionSymmetric encryption is encryption in which the same secret key is used for both encryption and decryption.
binary componentA binary component is a WebAssembly component packaged as a compiled binary artifact.
library componentA library component is a WebAssembly component that provides functions or interfaces for use by other components.
handleA handle is an indirect integer-like value used to refer to a non-copyable resource managed through a resource table.
userspace environmentA userspace environment is the collection of user-space libraries, utilities, files, and supporting runtime components in an operating system environment.
Docker ComposeDocker Compose is a tool for defining and managing applications composed of multiple Docker containers.
wasm-optwasm-opt is a WebAssembly binary optimizer that applies transformations to reduce size and improve execution performance.
CDNA content delivery network is a geographically distributed network of servers that caches and delivers content close to end users.
edge locationAn edge node is a geographically distributed computing location that processes requests near the users who generate them.
tokenizationTokenization is the process of dividing text into discrete tokens suitable for processing by a machine-learning model.
key-value bucketA key-value bucket is a named storage collection containing values addressed by unique keys.
interface definition languageAn interface definition language is a language for specifying software interfaces independently of implementation programming languages.
interface-level typeAn interface-level type is a data type specified at an interface boundary for representing values exchanged between software components.
resourceA resource is a non-copyable WIT value that is passed and managed through a handle.
serializationSerialization is the transformation of structured data into a representation suitable for storage or transmission.
importAn import is a component dependency that supplies a function, resource, or other interface element from an external module, component, or host.

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