LwRustIP: Memory-safe and efficient embedded networking stack with ownership semantics

Guangyong Shang; Guangpeng Qi; Jianing Ren; Xianqi Jin; Wanjiang Shen; Junchao Li; Xiuzhen Cheng; Runyu Pan

doi:10.1016/j.hcc.2025.100351

High-Confidence Computing ›› 2026, Vol. 6 ›› Issue (1) :100351 DOI: 10.1016/j.hcc.2025.100351

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LwRustIP: Memory-safe and efficient embedded networking stack with ownership semantics

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Abstract

As modern embedded systems are increasingly network connected, their protocol stacks expose themselves as a surface that is frequently attacked. While C-based implementations such as LwIP are efficient, their lack of memory safety induces critical vulnerabilities such as buffer overflows, dangling pointers, and use-after-free, leading to remote code execution or privilege escalation. In this paper, we present LwRustIP, a memory-safe embedded networking stack reimplemented in Rust and compatible with LwIP. We also share our development experience. LwRustIP replaces unsafe linked-list memory management with a custom allocator that honors the Rust ownership semantics, leverages zero-copy techniques for inter-layer packet handoffs, and applies lock-free object pools for concurrent buffer management. These design choices ensure memory safety while maintaining performance comparable to traditional C-based implementations. We deploy LwRustIP on ARM-based embedded platforms and evaluate its correctness, performance, and memory safety. Experimental results show that LwRustIP achieves memory safety without incurring measurable performance overhead compared to the original C-based implementation. Our experience highlights the practical challenges and benefits of using Rust for low-level system components and offers guidance for future efforts in memory-safe reengineering of legacy C codebases.

Keywords

Embedded network protocol stack / Memory safety / Zero-copy architecture / Rust ownership semantics

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Guangyong Shang, Guangpeng Qi, Jianing Ren, Xianqi Jin, Wanjiang Shen, Junchao Li, Xiuzhen Cheng, Runyu Pan. LwRustIP: Memory-safe and efficient embedded networking stack with ownership semantics. High-Confidence Computing, 2026, 6(1): 100351 DOI:10.1016/j.hcc.2025.100351

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CRediT authorship contribution statement

Guangyong Shang: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Validation, Software, Resources, Project adminis-tration, Methodology, Investigation, Data curation, Conceptualiza-tion. Guangpeng Qi: Supervision, Project administration, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Jianing Ren: Method-ology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Xianqi Jin: Writing - review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Data cu-ration, Conceptualization. Wanjiang Shen: Validation, Software, Project administration, Methodology, Investigation. Junchao Li: Writing - review & editing, Software, Resources, Investigation, Data curation. Xiuzhen Cheng: Writing - review & editing, Val-idation, Software, Resources, Investigation. Runyu Pan: Writing - review & editing, Writing - original draft, Validation, Software, Data curation, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

The author is an Editorial Board Member/Editor-in-Chief/Associate Editor/Guest Editor for this journal and was not involved in the editorial review or the decision to publish this article.

Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No.2022YFB4502001), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 62402291, 62302265, U23A20332), and Shandong Province Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. ZR2023QF172, 2024HWYQ-020).

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