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Uncloud - Tool for deploying containerised apps across servers without k8s

(uncloud.run)
152 points rgun | 2 comments | 04 Dec 25 06:02 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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psviderski ◴[04 Dec 25 06:53 UTC] No.46144570[source]▶
Hey, creator here. Thanks for sharing this!

Uncloud[0] is a container orchestrator without a control plane. Think multi-machine Docker Compose with automatic WireGuard mesh, service discovery, and HTTPS via Caddy. Each machine just keeps a p2p-synced copy of cluster state (using Fly.io's Corrosion), so there's no quorum to maintain.

I’m building Uncloud after years of managing Kubernetes in small envs and at a unicorn. I keep seeing teams reach for K8s when they really just need to run a bunch of containers across a few machines with decent networking, rollouts, and HTTPS. The operational overhead of k8s is brutal for what they actually need.

A few things that make it unique:

- uses the familiar Docker Compose spec, no new DSL to learn

- builds and pushes your Docker images directly to your machines without an external registry (via my other project unregistry [1])

- imperative CLI (like Docker) rather than declarative reconciliation. Easier mental model and debugging

- works across cloud VMs, bare metal, even a Raspberry Pi at home behind NAT (all connected together)

- minimal resource footprint (<150MB ram)

[0]: https://github.com/psviderski/uncloud

[1]: https://github.com/psviderski/unregistry

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zbuttram ◴[04 Dec 25 08:02 UTC] No.46144978[source]▶
Very cool! I think I'll have some opportunity soon to give it a shot, I have just the set of projects that have been needing a tool like this. One thing I think I'm missing after perusing the docs however is, how does one onboard other engineers to the cluster after it has been set up? And similarly, how does deployment from a CI/CD runner work? I don't see anything about how to connect to an existing cluster from a new machine, or at least not that I'm recognizing.
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1. jabr ◴[04 Dec 25 08:39 UTC] No.46145191[source]▶
There isn't a cli function for adding a connection (independently of adding a new machine/node) yet, but they are in a simple config file (`~/.config/uncloud/config.yaml`) that you can copy or easily create manually for now. It looks like this:

    current_context: default
    contexts:
      default:
        connections:
          - ssh: admin@192.168.0.10
            ssh_key_file: ~/.ssh/uncloud
          - ssh: admin@192.168.0.11
            ssh_key_file: ~/.ssh/uncloud
          - ssh: administrator@93.x.x.x
            ssh_key_file: ~/.ssh/uncloud
          - ssh: sysadmin@65.x.x.x
            ssh_key_file: ~/.ssh/uncloud
And you really just need one entry for typical use. The subsequent entries are only used if the previous node(s) are down.
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2. psviderski ◴[04 Dec 25 10:44 UTC] No.46146082[source]▶
For CI/CD, check out this GitHub Action: https://github.com/thatskyapplication/uncloud-action.

You can either specify one of the machine SSH target in the config.yaml or pass it directly to the 'uc' CLI command, e.g.

uc --connect user@host deploy