Getting Started

Welcome to rsbinder! This guide will help you get started with Binder IPC development using Rust.

Learning Path

If you are new to Binder IPC, we recommend following this learning path:

Overview and Architecture - Start here to understand Binder IPC fundamentals
- Learn about the core concepts and components
- Understand the relationship between services and clients
- See how AIDL generates Rust code
Installation - Set up your development environment
- Install required dependencies
- Set up binder devices and service manager
- Configure your Rust project
Hello World - Build your first Binder service
- Create a simple echo service
- Learn AIDL basics
- Understand service registration and client communication
AIDL Guide - Dive deeper into AIDL language features:
- Data Types - How AIDL types map to Rust types
- Parcelable - Custom data structures for IPC
- Enum and Union - Enum and union type support
- Annotations - Code generation annotations
Service Development - Build production-quality services:
- Service Patterns - Advanced service patterns and best practices
- Async Service - Non-blocking services with tokio
- Callbacks and Interfaces - Bidirectional communication
- ParcelFileDescriptor - File descriptor passing
- Error Handling - Error types and handling strategies
- Service Manager (HUB) - Service registration and discovery
Platform-specific Setup - Choose your target platform:
- Linux Setup - For Linux development
- Android Development - For Android integration

Platform Requirements

rsbinder requires a Linux kernel with Binder IPC support. It runs on:

Linux: Requires kernel 4.17+ with binderfs enabled (disabled by default in most distributions)
Android: Binder is available natively; no kernel modification needed

Note: macOS and Windows are not supported as runtime environments. You can use macOS for cross-compiling to Android targets, but running Binder services requires Linux.

Quick Start Checklist

Before diving into development, ensure you have:

Rust 1.85+ installed
Linux kernel with binder support enabled (or an Android device/emulator)
Created binder device using rsb_device (Linux only)
Service manager (rsb_hub) running (Linux only)
Basic understanding of AIDL syntax (covered in the Hello World tutorial)

Key Concepts to Understand

Services: Server-side implementations that provide functionality
Clients: Applications that consume services through proxies
AIDL: Interface definition language for describing service contracts
Service Manager: Central registry for service discovery
Parcels: Serialization format for data exchange
Binder Objects: References that enable cross-process communication

Common Development Workflow

Define your service interface in an .aidl file
Use rsbinder-aidl to generate Rust code
Implement your service logic
Register the service with the service manager
Create clients that discover and use your service