Prepare wasmCloud on your AWS Graviton-based server

What wasmCloud is

wasmCloud is a cloud platform that you can use to host small, independently packaged applications within a shared runtime.

The applications are comprised of WebAssembly components. A WebAssembly component is a compiled application artifact, typically a .wasm file. A compatible host runs a component in a sandbox and provides the interfaces that it needs. The component provides an HTTP request handler. wasmCloud provides the network listener and invokes the handler.

What you’ll build with wasmCloud

You’ll build a small HTTP application from Rust source and run it on AWS Graviton with wasmCloud. Then, you’ll collect response time and throughput to measure how it responds to individual and concurrent requests. The application returns a greeting.

WebAssembly separates the component package from the host executable built for a particular processor architecture. On Graviton, a Linux aarch64 host runs the component.

The flow of the application is as follows:

    

        
        
HTTP client → wasmCloud HTTP listener → WebAssembly handler → HTTP response

    

Check the server and install build tools

Connect to your Ubuntu 24.04 Graviton-based instance using SSH. Run all Linux commands on that server.

The Learning Path was tested on a c7g.2xlarge instance with 8 vCPUs and 16 GiB of RAM, with at least 16 GiB of free disk space. Other Graviton-based instance sizes work. Your measurements will be slightly different if you use a different size.

Check the architecture, available processors, and memory:

    

        
        
uname -m
nproc
free -h

    

Ensure that the architecture is aarch64.

Record the processor information for your later measurements:

    

        
        
mkdir -p ~/wasmcloud-learning-path/results
lscpu > ~/wasmcloud-learning-path/results/cpu.txt
uname -a > ~/wasmcloud-learning-path/results/kernel.txt

    

Install the application build tools and HTTP test utilities:

    

        
        
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install build-essential ca-certificates curl pkg-config wrk -y

    

Install wash

Install and verify wash, and add wash to your PATH. For installation instructions, see the wasmCloud install guide .

Prepare the Rust application toolchain

Install Rust if it’s not already available. For installation instructions, see the Rust install guide .

Then, load the Rust environment and install the pinned toolchain and WebAssembly target:

    

        
        
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"
rustup target add wasm32-wasip2

    

The application targets WASI Preview 2, also called WASI 0.2 or P2. WASI defines interfaces that a component can use to interact with its host, including HTTP.

What you’ve accomplished and what’s next

You’ve installed the wash CLI and the Rust toolchain with the WebAssembly target.

Next, you’ll inspect the HTTP handler and build its component.