Launching Your New Registry Server

Upon creating an account, either using an email/password or via Google Oauth, the Shipyard.rs will go to work provisioning the infrastructure for your new registry server.

Meuse

Each organization account is provisioned a Meuse instance to provide the core registry server backend, as well as a Postgresql database instance for its storage.

Meuse, an open source registry server written in Clojure, has been very solid for us.

Gitea

A registry server can't function (at least currently) without a git repository for storing its crate metadata. Just as Crates.io has a massive index at Github with hundreds of thousands of crate versions, even the smallest registry starts with providing a git repo with a list of which crates can be downloaded.

At git.shipyard.rs we provide a private Gitea server which is used almost entirely to host the crate index repositories for Shipyard.rs accounts.

When you create a Shipyard.rs account, a sub-account is created on your behalf at git.shipyard.rs. Most of your interaction with the crate-index repository will be automated, but it's possible to log into the Gitea instance if you registered with an email/password. (That is not currently possible if you signed up via Google Oauth).

Docyard: Shipyard's Docs.rs Equivalent

As soon as you publish your first crate version at the new registry, our Docyard server will receive an assignment to build the Rustdocs for you, so you can access them at Shipyard.rs anytime you need.

Since building a Rust crate entails running arbitrary code (via a build.rs script) written in a systems langague, we make significant efforts, similar to the approach of Docs.rs, to ensure those builds are sandboxed and isolated.

Shipyard.rs Web Backend: the Glue that Keeps it all Together

Orchestrating the various components is a significant job. Our web backend is on it, tracking service health, routing API requests, and ensuring the security of your source code. Although we generally route registry server requests to your Meuse backend server, an increasing number of endpoints are served directly from Shipyard.rs Web Backend.

Many excellent Rust crates are powering the backend, but some notable mentions include actix-web, used as the primary web framework, and Tantivy, used for indexing and searching each account's crates.