8caa5a9476
* Spice up the project README, fill out more docs This is an attempt to spruce up wasmtime's README.md file as well as fill out more of the missing documentation in the `docs/` folder. There's still a long way to go but I hoped here to mostly move around existing information and add new information. As always happy to have feedback! * Tweak CLI wording * Remove no-longer relevant clause * Update sandboxing docs * Handle comments
63 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
63 lines
2.3 KiB
Markdown
# Welcome to WASI!
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WASI stands for WebAssembly System Interface. It's an API designed by
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the [Wasmtime] project that provides access to several operating-system-like
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features, including files and filesystems, Berkeley sockets, clocks, and
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random numbers, that we'll be proposing for standardization.
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It's designed to be independent of browsers, so it doesn't depend on
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Web APIs or JS, and isn't limited by the need to be compatible with JS.
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And it has integrated capability-based security, so it extends
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WebAssembly's characteristic sandboxing to include I/O.
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See the [WASI Overview](WASI-overview.md) for more detailed background
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information, and the [WASI Tutorial](WASI-tutorial.md) for a walkthrough
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showing how various pieces fit together.
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Note that everything here is a prototype, and while a lot of stuff works,
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there are numerous missing features and some rough edges. For example,
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networking support is incomplete.
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## How can I write programs that use WASI?
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The two toolchains that currently work well are the Rust toolchain and
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a specially packaged C and C++ toolchain. Of course, we hope other
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toolchains will be able to implement WASI as well!
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### Rust
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To install a WASI-enabled Rust toolchain, see the [online section of the
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guide](https://bytecodealliance.github.io/wasmtime/wasm-rust.html)
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### C/C++
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To install a WASI-enabled C/C++ toolchain, see the [online section of the
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guide](https://bytecodealliance.github.io/wasmtime/wasm-c.html)
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## How can I run programs that use WASI?
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Currently the options are [Wasmtime] and the [browser polyfill], though we
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intend WASI to be implementable in many wasm VMs.
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[Wasmtime]: https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime
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[browser polyfill]: https://wasi.dev/polyfill/
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### Wasmtime
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[Wasmtime] is a non-Web WebAssembly engine which is part of the
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[CraneStation project](https://github.com/CraneStation/). To build
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it, download the code and build with `cargo build --release`. It can
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run WASI-using wasm programs by simply running `wasmtime foo.wasm`,
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or `cargo run --bin wasmtime foo.wasm`.
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### The browser polyfill
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The polyfill is online [here](https://wasi.dev/polyfill/).
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The source is [here](https://github.com/bytecodealliance/wasmtime/tree/master/crates/wasi-c/js-polyfill).
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## Where can I learn more?
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Beyond the [WASI Overview](WASI-overview.md), take a look at the
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various [WASI documents](WASI-documents.md).
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