Backend Architecture

Deep dive into the RustChat backend architecture.

Overview

The backend is built with:

• Framework: Axum 0.8
• Runtime: Tokio async runtime
• Database: PostgreSQL with SQLx
• Cache/Events: Redis

Module Structure

backend/src/
├── api/              # HTTP handlers
│   ├── v1/          # Native API
│   └── v4/          # Mattermost-compatible API
├── auth/            # Authentication & JWT
├── config/          # Environment configuration
├── db/              # Database connection & migrations
├── error/           # Error types
├── jobs/            # Background workers
├── mattermost_compat/  # MM compatibility utilities
├── middleware/      # Axum middleware
├── models/          # Data models
├── realtime/        # WebSocket hub
├── services/        # Business logic
├── storage/         # S3 file storage
└── telemetry/       # Logging & tracing

Request Lifecycle

Request
  ↓
Middleware (auth, rate-limit, CORS, logging)
  ↓
Router
  ↓
Handler (extracts params, calls service)
  ↓
Service (business logic)
  ↓
Database / Storage / Cache
  ↓
Response (JSON serialization)

Key Components

API Layer

Two API surfaces:

• v1: Native API for first-party clients
• v4: Mattermost-compatible API for mobile/desktop clients

Service Layer

One service per domain:

• auth_service - Authentication
• channel_service - Channel operations
• post_service - Message operations
• file_service - File uploads
• user_service - User management

Database Access

• SQLx for compile-time checked queries
• Connection pooling via sqlx::Pool
• Migrations in migrations/ directory

WebSocket Hub

• Connection management
• Event fan-out
• Redis pub/sub for clustering
• Two endpoints: v1 (native) and v4 (Mattermost-compatible)

Error Handling

pub enum AppError {
    Unauthorized,
    Forbidden,
    NotFound,
    Validation(String),
    Internal(String),
}

All errors convert to appropriate HTTP status codes.

Authentication

• JWT tokens with configurable expiry
• Argon2id password hashing
• API key support for bots/integrations
• Optional SSO via OAuth/SAML

Future Considerations

• Horizontal scaling with Redis clustering
• Read replicas for database
• CDN for file serving
• GraphQL API (v2)

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See also: System Overview