blog: WASI support in Go
Change-Id: Id140b87d77accf36be641c34c1692cb245b87608
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/c/website/+/508895
Reviewed-by: Cherry Mui <cherryyz@google.com>
Reviewed-by: Eli Bendersky <eliben@google.com>
TryBot-Result: Gopher Robot <gobot@golang.org>
Run-TryBot: Johan Brandhorst-Satzkorn <johan.brandhorst@gmail.com>
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+---
+title: WASI support in Go
+date: 2023-09-13
+by:
+- Johan Brandhorst-Satzkorn, Julien Fabre, Damian Gryski, Evan Phoenix, and Achille Roussel
+summary: Go 1.21 adds a new port targeting the WASI preview 1 syscall API
+---
+
+Go 1.21 adds a new port targeting the WASI preview 1 syscall API through the
+new `GOOS` value `wasip1`. This port builds on the existing WebAssembly
+port introduced in Go 1.11.
+
+## What is WebAssembly?
+
+[WebAssembly (Wasm)](https://webassembly.org/) is a binary instruction format
+originally designed for the web. It represents a standard that allows
+developers to run high-performance, low-level code directly in web browsers at
+near-native speeds.
+
+Go first added support for compiling to Wasm in the 1.11 release, through the
+`js/wasm` port. This allowed Go code compiled using the Go compiler to be
+executed in web browsers, but it required a JavaScript execution environment.
+
+As the use of Wasm has grown, so have use cases outside of the browser. Many
+cloud providers are now offering services that allow the user to execute Wasm
+executables directly, leveraging the new
+[WebAssembly System Interface (WASI)](https://wasi.dev/) syscall API.
+
+## The WebAssembly System Interface
+
+WASI defines a syscall API for Wasm executables, allowing them to interact with
+system resources such as the filesystem, the system clock, random data
+utilities, and more. The latest release of the WASI spec is called
+`wasi_snapshot_preview1`, from which we derive the `GOOS` name `wasip1`. New
+versions of the API are being developed, and supporting them in the Go
+compiler in the future will likely mean adding a new `GOOS`.
+
+The creation of WASI has allowed a number of Wasm runtimes (hosts) to
+standardize their syscall API around it. Examples of Wasm/WASI hosts include
+[Wasmtime](https://wasmtime.dev), [Wazero](https://wazero.io/),
+[WasmEdge](https://wasmedge.org/), [Wasmer](https://wasmer.io/), and
+[NodeJS](https://nodejs.org). There are also a number of cloud providers
+offering hosting of Wasm/WASI executables.
+
+## How can we use it with Go?
+
+Make sure that you have installed at least version 1.21 of Go. For this demo,
+we’ll use [the Wasmtime host](https://docs.wasmtime.dev/cli-install.html) to
+execute our binary. Let’s start with a simple `main.go`:
+
+```go
+package main
+
+import "fmt"
+
+func main() {
+ fmt.Println("Hello world!")
+}
+```
+
+We can build it for `wasip1` using the command:
+
+```shell
+$ GOOS=wasip1 GOARCH=wasm go build -o main.wasm main.go
+```
+
+This will produce a file, `main.wasm` which we can execute with `wasmtime`:
+
+```shell
+$ wasmtime main.wasm
+Hello world!
+```
+
+That’s all it takes to get started with Wasm/WASI! You can expect almost all
+the features of Go to just work with `wasip1`. To learn more about the details
+of how WASI works with Go, please see
+[the proposal](https://go.dev/issue/58141).
+
+## Running go tests with wasip1
+
+Building and running a binary is easy, but sometimes we want to be able to run
+`go test` directly without having to build and execute the binary manually.
+Similar to the `js/wasm` port, the standard library distribution included
+in your Go installation comes with a file that makes this very easy. Add the
+`misc/wasm` directory to your `PATH` when running Go tests and it will
+run the tests using the Wasm host of your choice. This works by `go test`
+[automatically executing](https://pkg.go.dev/cmd/go#hdr-Compile_and_run_Go_program)
+`misc/wasm/go_wasip1_wasm_exec` when it finds this file in the `PATH`.
+
+```shell
+$ export PATH=$PATH:$(go env GOROOT)/misc/wasm
+$ GOOS=wasip1 GOARCH=wasm go test ./...
+```
+
+This will run `go test` using Wasmtime. The Wasm host used can be controlled
+using the environment variable `GOWASIRUNTIME`. Currently supported values
+for this variable are `wazero`, `wasmedge`, `wasmtime`, and `wasmer`. This
+script is subject to breaking changes between Go versions. Note that Go
+`wasip1` binaries don’t execute perfectly on all hosts yet (see
+[#59907](https://go.dev/issue/59907) and
+[#60097](https://go.dev/issue/60097)).
+
+This functionality also works when using `go run`:
+
+```shell
+$ GOOS=wasip1 GOARCH=wasm go run ./main.go
+Hello world!
+```
+
+## Wrapping Wasm functions in Go with go:wasmimport
+
+In addition to the new `wasip1/wasm` port, Go 1.21 introduces a new compiler
+directive: `go:wasmimport`. It instructs the compiler to translate calls to
+the annotated function into a call to the function specified by the host
+module name and function name. This new compiler functionality is what allowed
+us to define the `wasip1` syscall API in Go to support the new port, but it
+isn’t limited to being used in the standard library.
+
+For example, the wasip1 syscall API defines the
+[`random_get` function](https://github.com/WebAssembly/WASI/blob/a51a66df5b1db01cf9e873f5537bc5bd552cf770/legacy/preview1/docs.md#-random_getbuf-pointeru8-buf_len-size---result-errno),
+and it is exposed to the Go standard library through
+[a function wrapper](https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.21.0:src/runtime/os_wasip1.go;l=73-75)
+defined in the runtime package. It looks like this:
+
+```go
+//go:wasmimport wasi_snapshot_preview1 random_get
+//go:noescape
+func random_get(buf unsafe.Pointer, bufLen size) errno
+```
+
+This function wrapper is then wrapped in
+[a more ergonomic function](https://cs.opensource.google/go/go/+/refs/tags/go1.21.0:src/runtime/os_wasip1.go;l=183-187)
+for use in the standard library:
+
+```go
+func getRandomData(r []byte) {
+ if random_get(unsafe.Pointer(&r[0]), size(len(r))) != 0 {
+ throw("random_get failed")
+ }
+}
+```
+
+This way, a user can call `getRandomData` with a byte slice and it will
+eventually make its way to the host-defined `random_get` function. In the same
+way, users can define their own wrappers for host functions.
+
+To learn more about the intricacies of wrapping Wasm functions in Go, please
+see [the `go:wasmimport` proposal](https://go.dev/issue/59149).
+
+## Limitations
+
+While the `wasip1` port passes all standard library tests, there are some
+notable fundamental limitations of the Wasm architecture that may surprise
+users.
+
+Wasm is a single threaded architecture with no parallelism. The scheduler can
+still schedule goroutines to run concurrently, and standard in/out/error is
+non-blocking, so a goroutine can execute while another reads or writes, but any
+host function calls (such as requesting random data using the example above)
+will cause all goroutines to block until the host function call has returned.
+
+A notable missing feature in the `wasip1` API is a full implementation of
+network sockets. `wasip1` only defines functions that operate on already opened
+sockets, making it impossible to support some of the most popular features of
+the Go standard library, such as HTTP servers. Hosts like Wasmer and WasmEdge
+implement extensions to the `wasip1` API, allowing the opening of network
+sockets. While these extensions are not implemented by the Go compiler, there
+exists a third party library,
+[`github.com/stealthrocket/net`](https://github.com/stealthrocket/net), which
+uses `go:wasmimport` to allow the use of `net.Dial` and `net.Listen` on
+supported Wasm hosts. This enables the creation of `net/http` servers and other
+network related functionality when using this package.
+
+## The future of Wasm in Go
+
+The addition of the `wasip1/wasm` port is just the beginning of the Wasm
+capabilities we would like to bring to Go. Please keep an eye out on
+[the issue tracker](https://github.com/golang/go/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aissue+label%3Aarch-wasm)
+for proposals around exporting Go functions to Wasm (`go:wasmexport`), a 32-bit
+port and future WASI API compatibility.
+
+## Get involved
+
+If you are experimenting with and want to contribute to Wasm and Go, please get
+involved! The Go issue tracker tracks all in-progress work and the #webassembly
+channel on [the Gophers Slack](https://invite.slack.golangbridge.org/) is a
+great place to discuss Go and WebAssembly. We look forward to hearing from you!
