Mastering Systems Programming with Rust: A hands-on guide to building High-Performance CLIs, System Daemons, and Low-Level Libraries

If you're a developer who has felt the trade-off between performance and safety, a programmer who wants to build fast, low-level software without the constant fear of memory errors, or a C/C++ veteran looking for a modern toolchain, this book is your definitive guide to mastering Rust for systems programming.

Mastering Systems Programming with Rust is a practical, hands-on guide that goes beyond the basics. It builds on your existing programming knowledge to show you, step-by-step, how to architect and build the three pillars of systems software-no fluff, no unnecessary theory, just the essential skills you need to build like a professional.

By the end of this book, you won't just understand advanced systems concepts; you will have used them to build a complete portfolio of production-grade projects from scratch, including a high-performance CLI, a robust background daemon, and a C-compatible parsing library, proving you have the skills to tackle complex, real-world systems development.
Inside, You'll Build and Master:

• A High-Performance Command-Line Tool: Move beyond simple scripts to build a fast, ergonomic CLI application. You'll master argument parsing with clap, manage layered configuration, and handle I/O streams efficiently.
• A Production-Ready System Daemon: Learn the complete lifecycle of a background service. You will implement the correct daemonization process, set up robust, structured logging, handle system signals for graceful shutdowns and configuration reloads, and apply security best practices like dropping privileges.
• A C-Compatible Parsing Library: Master the Foreign Function Interface (FFI) to make your Rust code available to other languages. You'll learn to design an ergonomic API, safely manage memory across the FFI boundary, and automate C header generation.
• Fearless Concurrent and Parallel Code: Go beyond basic threads to understand and use modern async/await with tokio for high-throughput I/O, and leverage rayon for effortless data parallelism to maximize CPU performance.
• Performance Analysis and Optimization: Learn to use professional benchmarking and profiling tools like criterion and flamegraph to find and eliminate bottlenecks, ensuring your applications are as fast as they can be.

Why Choose This Hands-On Guide?

• It offers a learn-by-building approach. You will write production-quality code and see tangible results in every chapter, solidifying your understanding of advanced concepts and building your confidence.
• It is written for the practicing programmer. This book respects your time and experience. It assumes you know programming fundamentals and focuses on solving the unique challenges of systems development in Rust.
• It focuses on professional, real-world skills. You will learn the architectural patterns and efficient workflows-like creating secure daemons and reusable FFI libraries-that are used by experienced systems programmers in the industry today.

If you want a clear, direct, and rewarding path to becoming a confident, professional Rust systems developer, this is the book you've been waiting for.