oxidecomputer / oxidecomputer/propolis
Split serial ports into devices/backends to distinguish between default and SoftNPU backends
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- Dominant language
- Rust
- Stars
- 270
- Forks
- 42
- Avg merge
- 4d 5h
- Merged PRs (30d)
- 6
Description
Once #243 lands, COM4 can be used either as an "externally-facing" serial port (where we want bytes to be written to/read from some process external to Propolis) or as a communications channel for a SoftNPU device. This creates a sort of device/backend model for serial ports: the device is the UART emulation, and the backend is either the "pipe these bytes externally" widget or the SoftNPU code.
It's been long enough since I've looked at the UART code that I'm not sure how hard it would be to create this split in Propolis. This also requires some instance spec work to change how serial ports are defined.
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First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start by reading the UART code and the instance-spec definitions for serial ports. Trace how the current externally facing serial-port backend is connected, then determine how the SoftNPU backend should be represented. Done means serial ports distinguish the UART device from either backend and the instance specification supports both uses.
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Assessment
- Tech stack
- rust
- Domain
- operating-systems
- Issue type
- Feature
- Difficulty
- 4/5
- Estimated time
- 3-5 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 35/100