šŸŖ“ Jisang Yun

ROS2 for Rust (rclrs) - System-wide Installation

2 min read

ROS2 for Rust (rclrs)

Write ROS2 applications in Rust

Basic Installation Method from GitHub

# Install Rust, e.g. as described in https://rustup.rs/
# Install ROS 2 as described in https://docs.ros.org/en/humble/Installation.html
# Assuming you installed the minimal version of ROS 2, you need these additional packages:
sudo apt install -y git libclang-dev python3-pip python3-vcstool # libclang-dev is required by bindgen
 
# Install these plugins for cargo and colcon:
pip install git+https://github.com/colcon/colcon-cargo.git
pip install git+https://github.com/colcon/colcon-ros-cargo.git
 
mkdir -p workspace/src && cd workspace
git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/ros2_rust.git src/ros2_rust
vcs import src < src/ros2_rust/ros2_rust_humble.repos
source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
colcon build

The Question: Should We Build This in Every Workspace?

What if we could apply this system-wide?

Looking at the ROS installation:

$ cd /opt
$ ls
    ros

The ROS system folder is here, so why donā€™t we clone the ā€˜ros2_rustā€™ folder here as well?

System-wide Installation Steps

1. Create the system directory

cd /opt
sudo mkdir -p rust_ros2/src && cd rust_ros2

2. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/ros2-rust/ros2_rust.git src/ros2_rust

If you encounter a permission error:

fatal: could not create work tree dir 'src/ros2_rust': Permission denied

3. Fix permissions

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER .

4. Import dependencies and build

vcs import src < src/ros2_rust/ros2_rust_humble.repos
colcon build --symlink-install

Source System-wide

Edit your shell configuration file:

vim ~/.bashrc  # for bash
# or
vim ~/.zshrc   # for zsh

Add these lines:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.zsh        # Original ROS2
source /opt/rust_ros2/install/setup.zsh # ROS2 Rust

Benefits of System-wide Installation

  • No need to rebuild for each workspace
  • Consistent environment across all projects
  • Reduced disk usage by avoiding duplicate builds
  • Easier maintenance with a single installation point

Adding Custom Message Types

If you want to use additional message types (like Ackermann messages), you can add them to the system-wide installation:

cd /opt/rust_ros2/src/ros2_rust/common_interfaces
git clone https://github.com/ros-drivers/ackermann_msgs.git -b ros2

Then rebuild the system-wide installation:

cd /opt/rust_ros2
colcon build --symlink-install

This will make the new message types available system-wide for all your ROS2 Rust projects.

Usage

After completing the system-wide installation and sourcing the setup files, you can use ROS2 Rust in any workspace without additional setup steps. Simply create your Rust ROS2 packages and build them with colcon build as usual.

Graph View

Backlinks