Modern Web Development with Rust and Axum

Building Production-Grade APIs and Services

Introduction

1. What You Will Learn
2. The Running Example: Taskflow API
3. How This Book Is Structured
4. Prerequisites and Versions
5. How to Read This Book

Chapter 1: Why Rust for Web Development

1. The Case for Rust in Web Services
2. Landscape of Rust Web Frameworks
3. Why Axum Stands Out
4. Introducing Our Running Example: A Task Management API
5. How to Read This Book
6. Summary

Chapter 2: Project Setup and Architecture

1. Rust Toolchain and Edition Selection
2. Cargo Configuration and Dependency Management
3. Directory Layout for Scalable Projects
4. Our First Axum Server: Hello World with Structure
5. Environment Configuration Strategy
6. Summary

Chapter 3: Tokio and Asynchronous Rust

1. How async/await Works in Rust
2. The Tokio Runtime: Multithreaded vs Current Thread
3. Tasks, Spawning and Joining
4. Channels and Concurrent Communication
5. Timeouts, Sleeps and Scheduling Control
6. Summary

Chapter 4: Tower, Hyper and Axum’s Architecture

1. The Tower Service Trait: Composable Asynchronous Services
2. Middleware as Service Layers
3. Hyper: The Low-Level HTTP Engine
4. How Axum Fits Into the Stack
5. Understanding the Type-Driven Design Philosophy
6. Summary

Chapter 5: Routing and Extractors

1. Defining Routes with the Router Combinator
2. Path Parameters and Their Types
3. Query Parameters and Structured Extraction
4. Application State and the State Extractor
5. Nested Routers and Modular Route Organization
6. Summary

Chapter 6: Request and Response Handling

1. Response Types and Status Codes
2. JSON Serialization with serde_json
3. Form Data and URL-Encoded Bodies
4. Headers: Reading and Writing
5. Cookies and Session Identifiers
6. Content Negotiation Patterns
7. Summary

Chapter 7: Error Handling and Validation

1. Designing Application Error Types
2. The IntoResponse Trait for Error Conversion
3. Centralized Error Handlers
4. Input Validation with Validator Crates
5. Separating Internal Errors from Client-Facing Messages
6. Summary

Chapter 8: Authentication and Authorization

1. Password Hashing with Argon2
2. Session-Based Authentication
3. JWT Authentication Flow
4. Extractors for Authenticated Requests
5. Role-Based Authorization Patterns
6. Summary

Chapter 9: Web Security Practices

1. Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) Configuration
2. Security Headers and Helmet-Like Middleware
3. CSRF Protection Strategies
4. Rate Limiting and Abuse Prevention
5. Secure Configuration and Secrets Management
6. Summary

Chapter 10: Database Integration with SQLx

1. Choosing a Database Driver
2. Connection Pooling with SQLx Pools
3. Running Queries and Mapping Results
4. Database Migrations with sqlx-migrate
5. Transactions and Atomic Operations
6. Summary

Chapter 11: Repository and Service Patterns

1. The Repository Pattern in Rust
2. Service Layer Design
3. Dependency Injection Through Application State
4. Domain Modeling and Type Safety
5. Structuring Large Applications
6. Summary

Chapter 12: Real-Time Communication with WebSockets

1. WebSocket Upgrade Flow
2. Handling Bidirectional Messages
3. Connection State and Broadcast Patterns
4. Scaling WebSocket Applications
5. Server-Sent Events as an Alternative
6. Summary

Chapter 13: File Handling and Static Assets

1. Serving Static Files Efficiently
2. File Uploads with Multipart Forms
3. Streaming Large Responses
4. File Validation and Security Considerations
5. Summary

Chapter 14: RESTful API Design and Documentation

1. REST Principles in Practice
2. Pagination, Filtering and Sorting Patterns
3. API Versioning Strategies
4. Generating OpenAPI/Swagger Documentation
5. Request/Response Schema Design
6. Summary

Chapter 15: Testing Strategies

1. Unit Testing Handlers and Services
2. Integration Testing with axum_test or reqwest
3. Database Testing Strategies
4. Mocking External Dependencies
5. Test Organization for Large Projects
6. Summary

Chapter 16: Observability and Performance

1. Structured Logging with Tracing
2. Distributed Tracing in Microservices
3. Metrics Collection and Export
4. Profiling and Identifying Bottlenecks
5. Caching Strategies: In-Memory and Distributed
6. Summary

Chapter 17: Deployment and Operations

1. Building Optimized Docker Images
2. Reverse Proxies: Nginx and Caddy
3. TLS Termination and Certificate Management
4. Graceful Shutdown and Health Checks
5. CI/CD Pipelines for Rust Services
6. Production Monitoring and Alerting
7. Summary

Conclusion: The Path Forward

1. What Makes This Stack Special
2. Key Principles to Remember
3. Where to Go From Here
4. Continuing Your Rust Journey
5. Final Thoughts

References

1. Official Documentation
2. Axum Repository and Examples
3. Axum Announcements and Blog Posts
4. Rust Web Framework Comparisons
5. Authentication and Security
6. Database and SQLx
7. Testing
8. OpenAPI and Documentation
9. Observability
10. Deployment and Docker
11. Tokio Runtime
12. Additional Resources
13. Community and Learning