Deploy a Rust App

Rust apps deliver incredible performance and reliability. Runix detects your Cargo.toml, builds your project in a multi-stage Docker build, and deploys a tiny, optimized binary.

Prerequisites#

• A Rust project with a Cargo.toml file
• A Runix account (sign up free at runixcloud.dev)

Example: Axum App#

Here's a simple Axum web server. Runix works with any Rust HTTP framework — Actix-web, Axum, Rocket, Warp, or even a raw hyper server.

[package]
name = "my-rust-app"
version = "0.1.0"
edition = "2021"

[dependencies]
axum = "0.8"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }

use axum::{routing::get, Router};
use std::env;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let port = env::var("PORT").unwrap_or_else(|_| "8080".to_string());
    let addr = format!("0.0.0.0:{}", port);

    let app = Router::new()
        .route("/", get(|| async { "Hello from Runix!" }));

    println!("Server running on {}", addr);
    let listener = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind(&addr).await.unwrap();
    axum::serve(listener, app).await.unwrap();
}

Configuration#

name: my-rust-app
services:
  - name: api
    type: web-service
    repo: https://github.com/yourname/my-rust-app
    branch: main

How It Works#

1. 1.Runix detects Rust from your Cargo.toml
2. 2.It generates a multi-stage Dockerfile: a build stage with the full Rust toolchain and a runtime stage with just your binary
3. 3.Your app is compiled in release mode with optimizations
4. 4.The final image contains only the compiled binary — typically 10-30MB
5. 5.Your app is deployed with a public HTTPS URL

Environment Variables#

Common Issues#

Binary name mismatch#

Runix looks for a binary name matching your package name in Cargo.toml. If your [package] name uses hyphens (e.g., my-rust-app), Cargo produces a binary named my_rust_app (with underscores). The generated Dockerfile accounts for this, but if you use a custom [[bin]] target, make sure the name is correct.

# If you have a custom binary name, Runix will detect it:
[[bin]]
name = "server"
path = "src/main.rs"

Not listening on 0.0.0.0#

Like other languages, your Rust app must listen on 0.0.0.0, not 127.0.0.1. Binding to 127.0.0.1 inside a container means nothing outside the container can reach it.

// Good
let addr = format!("0.0.0.0:{}", port);

// Bad - container-only access
let addr = format!("127.0.0.1:{}", port);