How to Set Up a Rust Web Service on a VPS

Install Rust

curl --proto "=https" --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source $HOME/.cargo/env
rustc --version

Create a Web Service with Axum

cargo new myapi && cd myapi

Add dependencies to Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
axum = "0.7"
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
serde_json = "1"

Create src/main.rs:

use axum::{routing::get, Json, Router};
use serde::Serialize;

#[derive(Serialize)]
struct Health { status: String }

async fn health() -> Json<Health> {
    Json(Health { status: "ok".into() })
}

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let app = Router::new()
        .route("/health", get(health))
        .route("/", get(|| async { "Hello from Rust!" }));

    let listener = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind("0.0.0.0:3000").await.unwrap();
    axum::serve(listener, app).await.unwrap();
}

Build and Run

# Development
cargo run

# Production build (optimized)
cargo build --release
./target/release/myapi

Systemd Service

[Unit]
Description=Rust API
After=network.target

[Service]
User=www-data
ExecStart=/opt/myapi/myapi
Restart=on-failure
Environment=RUST_LOG=info

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Why Rust for APIs?

• Memory safety without garbage collection
• Exceptional performance (comparable to C/C++)
• Low memory footprint
• No runtime overhead