andrewp2 / nexus

Leptos Axum Starter Template

This is a template for use with the Leptos web framework and the cargo-leptos tool using Axum.

Creating your template repo

If you don't have cargo-leptos installed you can install it with

cargo install cargo-leptos

Then run

cargo leptos new --git leptos-rs/start-axum

to generate a new project template.

cd nexus

to go to your newly created project.
Feel free to explore the project structure, but the best place to start with your application code is in src/app.rs.
Addtionally, Cargo.toml may need updating as new versions of the dependencies are released, especially if things are not working after a cargo update.

Running your project

cargo leptos watch

Installing Additional Tools

By default, cargo-leptos uses nightly Rust, cargo-generate, and sass. If you run into any trouble, you may need to install one or more of these tools.

1. rustup toolchain install nightly --allow-downgrade - make sure you have Rust nightly
2. rustup target add wasm32-unknown-unknown - add the ability to compile Rust to WebAssembly
3. cargo install cargo-generate - install cargo-generate binary (should be installed automatically in future)
4. npm install -g sass - install dart-sass (should be optional in future

Compiling for Release

cargo leptos build --release

Will generate your server binary in target/server/release and your site package in target/site

Testing Your Project

cargo leptos end-to-end

cargo leptos end-to-end --release

Cargo-leptos uses Playwright as the end-to-end test tool.
Tests are located in end2end/tests directory.

Executing a Server on a Remote Machine Without the Toolchain

After running a cargo leptos build --release the minimum files needed are:

1. The server binary located in target/server/release
2. The site directory and all files within located in target/site

Copy these files to your remote server. The directory structure should be:

nexus
site/

Set the following environment variables (updating for your project as needed):

LEPTOS_OUTPUT_NAME="nexus"
LEPTOS_SITE_ROOT="site"
LEPTOS_SITE_PKG_DIR="pkg"
LEPTOS_SITE_ADDR="127.0.0.1:3000"
LEPTOS_RELOAD_PORT="3001"

Finally, run the server binary.

Deploying Your Project

To build and deploy your project to AWS, you'll need cargo-lambda. They provide installation instructions on their site.

Let's start by building the project with cargo-leptos:

cargo leptos build --release

We won't use the server binary that it builds, since the Lambda function requires a particular architecture that cargo-lambda will handle for us. If you'd rather not build the server twice, you'll have to manage the wasm build and optimization yourself.

Next, let's build the production server binary:

LEPTOS_OUTPUT_NAME=aws-lambda cargo lambda build --no-default-features --features=ssr --release

This should produce a binary at target/lambda/aws-lambda/bootstrap. Cargo.toml exposes all the required environment variables to cargo-lambda so that the server can run in production.

Finally, we can deploy the project to AWS:

cargo lambda deploy --include target/site --enable-function-url

After a few seconds, cargo-lambda should print out the URL of your deployed function!

Notes

Credentials

You'll need AWS credentials with some permissions for IAM and Lambda operations. cargo-lambda provides the minimum requirements here.

Setting up permissions can be a bit onerous if this is your first time working with AWS. For a quick and dirty setup, you can:

1. Create a new user in the IAM service (Access Management > Users)
2. Click "Attach policies directly" on the "Set permissions" page
3. Add the "AWSLambda_FullAccess" and "IAMFullAccess" policies, and complete the user creation
4. Create an access key for the user (don't worry about the warning)
5. Place the access key and secret key in ~/.aws/credentials (or wherever the appropriate location is for your system):

[default]
aws_access_key_id = AKIAQYLPMN5HCTNK35FD
aws_secret_access_key = rbWHpaI/lJnXdLteWHNnTVZpQztMB2+pdbb+KVgr

Optimizations

Serving static files from a lambda function is not the best approach. Ideally, you should upload your files to a CDN and configure your project to serve them from that location. AWS has an article on deploying React with SSR.

It's also pretty easy to set up edge compute with Lambda@Edge, which should improve latency.