How to write an actually working Linux kernel module in Rust?

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1

I've been trying to write a simple hello world kernel module in Rust, but none of the examples available on GitHub appear to be working.
Could somebody write a simple hello world. module that actually compiles and works?

2

Have you compiled your kernel with rust support enabled? If so GitHub - Rust-for-Linux/rust-out-of-tree-module: Basic template for an out-of-tree Linux kernel module written in Rust. should work. If that doesn't work can you post the error? If you haven't enabled CONFIG_RUST when compiling the kernel, the crates that will be used by the rust kernel module are not compiled and linked into the kernel and as such it doesn't work.

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3

Thanks for the tip.
If I compile a bare bones version of the kernel module and don't use any specific kernel API, would I be able to successfully load that kernel module into older versions of the kernel on other systems?

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Not really. All rust code depends on libcore, which rust-for-linux links into the kernel, not the kernel module. As such you will get an error about missing symbols if you try to load the kernel module in a kernel not compiled with rust support. There have been demos of rust kernel modules that are fully out-of-tree and thus would work without a rust enabled kernel, but I don't recall where to find those and I believe they aren't getting updated anymore.

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