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DockNimbus

Self-hosted cloud platform for bare metal machines.

Website | Documentation | GitHub

DockNimbus turns heterogeneous bare metal machines (Raspberry Pi 4/5, x86 servers, etc.) into a cloud platform with compute instances (Docker Swarm), Kubernetes clusters (K3s), object storage (MinIO), and load balancers (EasyHAProxy) — all managed through a REST API and CLI.

Key capabilities:

  • Infrastructure as Code — Declare your entire infrastructure in a single YAML manifest: nodes, volumes, swarms, Kubernetes clusters, compute instances, and services. Idempotent apply, drift detection, and pruning of orphaned resources.
  • Zero-trust networking — All inter-node traffic is encrypted via a WireGuard mesh VPN. Agents authenticate to the control plane using mTLS with auto-issued per-node certificates.
  • Heterogeneous hardware — Mix ARM64 (Raspberry Pi) and x86 servers in the same cluster. Platform constraints route workloads to the right architecture.
  • GPU compute — NVIDIA GPU support with automatic driver installation, per-device inventory, and time-slicing. Request GPUs with --gpu N on any instance type.

Architecture​

User --> nimbus CLI (HMAC/JWT) --> nimbus-api (control plane, TLS)
User --> nimbus-gui (Web UI) -------^
                                    |
                                    +--> nimbus-agent (on each node, mTLS)
                                    |       +-- Docker Swarm
                                    |       +-- K3s clusters
                                    |       +-- MinIO (S3)
                                    |       +-- WireGuard tunnel
                                    |
                                    +--> SQLite (state)
                                    +--> WireGuard (encrypted mesh)
  • nimbus-api — Control plane REST API server (TLS, SQLite)
  • nimbus-agent — Node agent, executes tasks and reports heartbeats (mTLS)
  • nimbus — CLI client (HMAC or JWT auth)
  • nimbus-gui — Web dashboard for managing nodes, clusters, and workloads (Vue.js SPA, proxies to nimbus-api)
  • WireGuard — Encrypted mesh connecting all nodes

Documentation​

SectionDescription
Getting StartedInstallation, quick start, first workload
GuidesTask-oriented guides for compute, Kubernetes, volumes, S3, swarms, services, IAM, and manifests
ConceptsArchitecture, networking, and security model
ReferenceCLI commands, API endpoints, configuration, instance types
DevelopmentLocal setup, building, and testing

Quick Start​

# Install
sudo apt install nimbus-api nimbus    # or: sudo dnf install nimbus-api nimbus

# Bootstrap (prints credentials + connection config JSON)
nimbus bootstrap --api-url https://<API_HOST>:8443

# Configure CLI from the downloaded JSON (or use the GUI "Download Config" button)
nimbus configure --from nimbus-config.json
# Or override the API URL if connecting from outside the WireGuard mesh:
# nimbus configure --from nimbus-config.json --api-url https://<PUBLIC_IP>:8443

# Add nodes
nimbus node add --ip 192.168.1.10 --user root --api-url https://<API_HOST>:8443

# Deploy
nimbus manifest apply --file infra.yaml

See the Quick Start guide for the full walkthrough.

Technology Stack​

  • Go — Single binary, ARM64+x86 cross-compile
  • Docker Swarm — Compute clustering
  • K3s — Lightweight Kubernetes
  • MinIO — S3-compatible object storage
  • EasyHAProxy — Docker-native and K8s load balancing
  • WireGuard — Encrypted mesh networking
  • SQLite (WAL) — Embedded state store

Current Release​

v0.5.0