secbuf

Secure, high-performance buffer management for Rust with automatic memory zeroing and aggressive cleanup.

secbuf provides memory-safe buffers that automatically zero their contents on drop, preventing sensitive data from lingering in memory. Inspired by Dropbear SSH's buffer management patterns, it's designed for security-critical applications like network servers, cryptographic systems, and protocol implementations.

✨ Features

• 🔒 Automatic Secure Zeroing - All buffers use compiler-resistant memory clearing via zeroize
• ⚡ High Performance - Lock-free buffer pools with thread-local caching (~5ns allocation)
• 🎯 Zero-Copy Operations - Efficient circular buffers for streaming data
• 🧹 Aggressive Memory Management - Detect and reclaim idle buffers automatically
• 🔄 Connection Lifecycle - Built-in connection-scoped buffer management
• 🚀 SIMD Acceleration - Optional AVX2 support for bulk operations (x86_64)
• 📊 Memory Diagnostics - Detailed statistics and waste detection

🚀 Quick Start

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
secbuf = "0.1"

Basic Usage

use secbuf::prelude::*;

fn main() -> Result<(), BufferError> {
    // Create a buffer
    let mut buf = Buffer::new(1024);
    
    // Write data
    buf.put_u32(42)?;
    buf.put_string(b"Hello, secure world!")?;
    
    // Read data back
    buf.set_pos(0)?;
    assert_eq!(buf.get_u32()?, 42);
    assert_eq!(buf.get_string()?, b"Hello, secure world!");
    
    // Buffer is automatically and securely zeroed on drop
    Ok(())
}

Buffer Pooling

use secbuf::prelude::*;
use std::sync::Arc;

// Create a buffer pool
let pool = Arc::new(BufferPool::new(PoolConfig {
    buffer_size: 8192,
    max_pool_size: 100,
    min_pool_size: 10,
}));

// Acquire buffers (automatically returned on drop)
let mut buf1 = pool.acquire();
buf1.put_bytes(b"pooled buffer")?;

// Buffers are reused, not reallocated
let mut buf2 = pool.acquire();

// Check pool statistics
let stats = pool.stats();
println!("Pool hit rate: {:.1}%", stats.hit_rate());

Circular Buffers for Streaming

use secbuf::CircularBuffer;

// Create a circular buffer with lazy allocation
let mut ring = CircularBuffer::new(4096);

// Write data
ring.write(b"chunk 1")?;
ring.write(b"chunk 2")?;

// Read data
let mut output = vec![0u8; 14];
ring.read(&mut output)?;

assert_eq!(&output, b"chunk 1chunk 2");

Connection Management

use secbuf::{ConnectionBuffers, ConnectionBufferConfig};

// Create connection-scoped buffers
let mut conn = ConnectionBuffers::with_config(ConnectionBufferConfig {
    max_packet_queue_size: 100,
    max_packet_queue_bytes: 10_485_760, // 10MB
    idle_timeout_secs: 60,
    enable_aggressive_shrinking: true,
});

// Initialize buffers as needed
conn.init_read_buf(8192);
conn.init_write_buf(8192);
conn.add_stream_buf(4096);

// Automatic cleanup on drop with secure zeroing

🏗️ Architecture

Buffer Types

Memory Management Levels

1. Automatic - Secure zeroing on drop (always enabled)
2. Periodic - Idle detection and shrinking (configurable)
3. Aggressive - Force cleanup on memory pressure

📖 Examples

SSH-Style Protocol Buffer

use secbuf::Buffer;

// Write an SSH-style packet
let mut buf = Buffer::new(1024);
buf.put_string(b"ssh-userauth")?;      // Method name
buf.put_string(b"alice")?;              // Username
buf.put_string(b"ssh-connection")?;     // Service
buf.put_string(b"password")?;           // Auth type
buf.put_byte(0)?;                       // Password change flag
buf.put_string(b"secret123")?;          // Password

// Read it back
buf.set_pos(0)?;
let method = buf.get_string()?;
let username = buf.get_string()?;
// ... process packet

// Password is automatically zeroed when buf drops

High-Performance Server

use secbuf::{FastBufferPool, PoolConfig};
use std::sync::Arc;
use std::thread;

let pool = Arc::new(FastBufferPool::new(PoolConfig {
    buffer_size: 8192,
    max_pool_size: 1000,
    min_pool_size: 50,
}));

// Spawn worker threads
let handles: Vec<_> = (0..8).map(|_| {
    let pool = Arc::clone(&pool);
    thread::spawn(move || {
        for _ in 0..10_000 {
            let mut buf = pool.acquire(); // ~5ns from thread-local cache
            buf.put_u32(42).unwrap();
            // Automatically returned to pool on drop
        }
    })
}).collect();

for h in handles {
    h.join().unwrap();
}

// Check performance stats
let stats = pool.stats();
println!("Cache hit rate: {:.1}%", stats.cache_hit_rate());
println!("Pool hit rate: {:.1}%", stats.pool_hit_rate());

Memory Diagnostics

use secbuf::ConnectionBuffers;

let mut conn = ConnectionBuffers::new();
conn.init_read_buf(65536);

// Check memory usage
let stats = conn.memory_usage();
println!("Total: {} bytes", stats.total_bytes);
println!("Used: {} bytes", stats.total_used);
println!("Wasted: {} bytes", stats.total_wasted);
println!("Efficiency: {:.1}%", stats.efficiency() * 100.0);

if stats.is_problematic() {
    println!("Warning: Inefficient memory usage detected!");
    conn.force_shrink(); // Reclaim wasted memory
}

🔒 Security Guarantees

Automatic Memory Zeroing

All buffers are zeroed on drop using the zeroize crate:

{
    let mut buf = Buffer::new(1024);
    buf.put_string(b"sensitive data")?;
} // <- Memory is securely zeroed here (compiler can't optimize it away)

Explicit Cleanup

For extra control:

let mut buf = Buffer::new(1024);
buf.put_bytes(b"secret")?;

// Immediate secure zeroing
buf.burn();

// Or zero + free memory
buf.burn_and_free_memory();

Connection Cleanup

let mut conn = ConnectionBuffers::new();
conn.init_read_buf(8192);
// ... use buffers

// Secure cleanup
conn.burn(); // Zero all data
conn.aggressive_cleanup(); // Zero + free all memory

⚡ Performance

Buffer Pool Comparison

SIMD Acceleration

On x86_64 with AVX2:

// Automatically uses AVX2 if available
buf.put_bytes_fast(&large_data)?; // 2-3x faster for 1KB+ data

🧪 Testing

Run the test suite:

cargo test

Run with all features:

cargo test --all-features

Benchmark:

cargo bench

📚 Documentation

• API Documentation
• Examples

🛠️ Feature Flags

Currently, all features are enabled by default. Future versions may add:

• simd - SIMD acceleration (planned)
• anyhow - Error conversion support (planned)

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Add tests for new functionality
4. Ensure cargo test passes
5. Submit a pull request

Contribution

Unless you explicitly state otherwise, any contribution intentionally submitted for inclusion in the work by you, as defined in the Apache-2.0 license, shall be dual licensed as above, without any additional terms or conditions.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• Inspired by Dropbear SSH's secure buffer management
• Built on the excellent zeroize crate by RustCrypto
• Lock-free queues via crossbeam

🔗 Related Projects

• bytes - General-purpose buffer management
• zeroize - Secure memory zeroing
• buffer-pool - Simple buffer pooling

Made with ❤️ for the Rust community