ferros VS hubris

My company, https://www.auxon.io. We created https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros originally to enable a customer project early in the company's life cycle.

Some time later we had another customer interested in using it and having us add some features to it (e.g. some device drivers and a persistence layer utilizing https://docs.rs/tickv/latest/tickv/). It was becoming a massive pain in the neck to work out source code sharing agreements with them, so we decided to just open source it.

There are quite a number of things that we would do differently if we had to build it again, and at some point will likely do that work to revise it. The biggest one of those is root task synthesis. The other is to build and bring in facilities for running tasks that are compiled to WASM.

When we add WASM support to https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros it'll sorta be like what you're angling at there in your description.

We've built things on seL4 (https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros). We like to joke that it's the most perfect piece of nearly featureless software ever made.

There's... A LOT... of work to do before seL4 is going to be anywhere near usability parity with something like Linux, unfortunately.

Rather than make a general purpose OS, we decided to use it more like a unikernel or "library OS" where you're trying to make a well defined kind of "appliance" image to deploy to specific hardware rather than try to fake being a POSIX-y shaped OS.

For what it's worth, here's FerrOS's repo as well as the underlying selfe repo

That's basically what we did with https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros, Bundle Rust programs together as tasks to run atop the formally verified seL4 microkernel.

We also built a Rust framework called FerrOS (https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros) atop the formally-verified seL4 microkernel.

It has a similar set of usage idioms to Hubris it looks like in terms of trying to setup as much as possible ahead of time to assemble what's kind of an application specific operating system where everything your use case needs is assembled at build-time as a bunch of communicating tasks running on seL4.

We recently added a concise little persistence interface that pulls in TicKV (https://docs.tockos.org/tickv/index.html) from the Tock project you referenced above, and some provisions are being added for some more dynamic task handling based on some asks from an automotive OEM.

We built a thing to enable combining Rust applications together to be hosted on the seL4 microkernel. The developer experience is more akin to that of something like an RTOS where the OS and your applications are built and deployed together. The whole premise of it is decidedly non-POSIX-like. The current point is for assembling software for use-case-specific/appliance computing, not general purpose computing. (https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros)

We're looking both for contributors and also actively hiring for a couple engineering positions for the above and for or mainline product.

I tried and failed to bring unikernels to my former work when I was at Visa. Specifically, LING.

At my current company, Auxon, we recently open sourced[1] some work we did a couple years back which is more or less an attempt at the basic foundations for blending the seL4 microkernel with fairly normal no_std Rust application development and assembling them all together to make a purpose built OS/application to deploy directly to hardware or within a VM. We have some work to do to keep building it up as a foundation for broader use, but we're looking into partnering with the seL4 Foundation (now under the Linux Foundation) to iterate on it further with some of our other mutual partners. The developer experience is much closer to that of developing for an RTOS than it is like typical general purpose computing development.

I'm of course biased, but I think there's a lot of room to innovate in the space of use case specific software stacks where the domain and constraints are well understood and too many degrees of freedom are actually a hindrance and a liability, not an advantage.

[1] https://github.com/auxoncorp/ferros

On top of that is ferros (no relation to to ferrous-systems), a higher-level userland of unreasonably strong types for compile-time resource tracking. No more discovering you need more memory, or capability slots or IPC rights at runtime. These types help you fit the right seL4 screw to the right seL4 screwdriver.

> The CPUs in Oxide racks are AMD, so, presumably AMD-based compute rather than ARM.

These don’t run Hubris though; based on the chips directory in the repo [0], they’re targeting a mix of NXP and ST parts, which are Arm, and the user isn’t likely to see them or care what firmware they’re running: they’re really pretty “boring”.

[0] : https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/tree/020d014880382d8...

I wouldn't put this comment here. It's not just some detail of this function; it's an invariant of the field that all writers have to respect (maybe this is the only one now but still) and all readers can take advantage of. So I'd add it to the `TaskDesc::regions` docstring. [1]

[1] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/commit/b44e677fb39cd...

With respect to Hubris, the build badge was, in turns out, pointing to a stale workflow. (That is, the build was succeeding, but the build badge was busted.) This comment has been immortalized in the fix.[0]

With respect to Humility, I am going to resist the temptation of pointing out why one of those directories has a different nomenclature with respect to its delimiter -- and just leave it at this: if you really want to find some filthy code in Humility, you can do much, much better than that!

[0] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/commit/651a9546b20ce...

A lot of questions in there! Taking these in order:

1. We aren't making standalone servers: the Oxide compute sled comes in the Oxide rack. So are not (and do not intend to be) a drop in replacement for extant rack mounted servers.

2. We have taken a fundamentally different approach to firmware, with a true root of trust that can attest to the service processor -- which can turn attest to the system software. This prompts a lot of questions (e.g., who attests to the root of trust?), and there is a LOT to say about this; look for us to talk a lot more about this

3. In stark contrast (sadly) to nearly everyone else in the server space, the firmware we are developing is entirely open source. More details on that can be found in Cliff Biffle's 2021 OSFC talk and the Hubris and Humility repos.[0][1][2]

4. Definitely not vaporware! We are in the process of shipping to our first customers; you can follow our progress in our Oxide and Friends podcast.[3]

[0] https://www.osfc.io/2021/talks/on-hubris-and-humility-develo...

[1] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

[2] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/humility

[3] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/

everywhere, for example in https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris/search?q=dyn

Is Box really allocating here? Is the "Rust By Example" text incomplete?

Then I had to stop learning Rust for other reasons, but this doubt really hit me at the time.

I work on an embedded OS in Rust (Hubris) that has a very bespoke build system. As part of the build system, it has to set environmental variables based on (1) the target device and (2) the specific "task"; this is an OS with task-level isolation, so tasks are compiled as individual Rust crates.

Oxide Computer told some storied about the difficulty of bring up of a new motherboard, and mentioned a lot of gotcha details and hack solutions for managing their AMD chip.

They talked about their bring up sequence, boot chain verification on their motherboard, and designing / creating / verifying their hardware root of trust.

I heard mention of this on a podcast recently, trying to find the reference.

I'm pretty sure it was [S3]

- "Tales from the Bringup Lab" https://lnns.co/FBf5oLpyHK3

- or "More Tales from the Bringup Lab" https://lnns.co/LQur_ToJX9m

But I found again these interesting things worth sharing on that search. https://oxide.computer/blog/hubris-and-humility, https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris

Search 1 [S1], Trammell Hudson ep mentioning firmware (chromebook related iirc) https://lnns.co/pystdPm0QvG.

Search 2 [S2], Security, Cryptography, Whatever podcast episode mentioning Oxide and roots of trust or similar. https://lnns.co/VnyTvdhBiGC

Search links:

[S1]: https://www.listennotes.com/search/?q=oxide+tpm

[S2]: https://www.listennotes.com/search/?q=oxide%20and%20friends%...

[S3]: https://www.listennotes.com/search/?q=oxide%20and%20friends%...

When we started the company, we knew it would be a three year build -- and indeed, our first product is in the final stages of development (i.e. EMC/safety certification). We have been very transparent about our progress along the way[0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7] -- and our software is essentially all open source, so you can follow along there as well.[8][9][10]

If you are asking "does anyone want a rack-scale computer?" the (short) answer is: yes, they do. The on-prem market has been woefully underserved -- and there are plenty of folks who are sick of Dell/HPE/VMware/Cisco, to say nothing of those who are public cloud borne and wondering if they should perhaps own some of their own compute rather than rent it all.

[0] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/holistic-bo...

[1] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-oxide-s...

[2] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/bringup-lab...

[3] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/more-tales-...

[4] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/another-lpc...

[5] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-pragmat...

[6] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/tales-from-...

[7] https://oxide-and-friends.transistor.fm/episodes/the-sidecar...

[8] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/omicron

[9] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/propolis

[10] https://github.com/oxidecomputer/hubris