[svsm-devel] [RFC] moving libstpm bindings and safe abstractions into a separate repository

[Carlos López]

Hi everyone,

I'd like to suggest that we move both the `libstpm` bindings (currently
in `libstpm/`) and safe abstractions (currently in
`kernel/src/vtpm/mstpm/`) to a separate repository.

This new repository would contain two crates `libstpm-sys` (raw
bindings) and `libstpm` (safe abstractions). This follows the official
the recommendation in the Cargo Book [0], and mirrors the development of
other C-based crates. A few examples, among many:

* libgit2-sys and git2 [1]
* curl-sys and curl [2]
* openssl-sys and openssl [3]
* libssh2-sys and ssh2 [4]

Currently we do have a separate crate for the raw bindings in our
ever-growing monorepo, but the safe abstractions are in the SVSM kernel
crate.

This change would improve the reusability of the safe abstractions for
other projects, and also make it easier for third parties to find our
implementation.

I'd like to take opinions from the SVSM community to see if others think
it's a positive change or not before starting any work. It's perhaps
something that could be discussed in the next SVSM call as well.

[0] 
https://doc.rust-lang.org/cargo/reference/build-scripts.html#-sys-packages
[1] https://github.com/rust-lang/git2-rs
[2] https://github.com/alexcrichton/curl-rust
[3] https://github.com/sfackler/rust-openssl
[4] https://github.com/alexcrichton/ssh2-rs

-- 
Carlos López
Security Engineer
SUSE Software Solutions