ClusterOps - Easily install and manage your personal kubernetes cluster
an invention by andreabenini
Description
ClusterOps is a Kubernetes installer and operator designed to streamline the initial configuration
and ongoing maintenance of kubernetes clusters. The focus of this project is primarily on personal
or local installations. However, the goal is to expand its use to encompass all installations of
Kubernetes for local development purposes.
It simplifies cluster management by automating tasks and providing just one user-friendly YAML-based
configuration config.yml.
Overview
- Simplified Configuration: Define your desired cluster state in a simple YAML file, and ClusterOps will handle the rest.
- Automated Setup: Automates initial cluster configuration, including network settings, storage provisioning, special requirements (for example GPUs) and essential components installation.
- Ongoing Maintenance: Performs routine maintenance tasks such as upgrades, security updates, and resource monitoring.
- Extensibility: Easily extend functionality with custom plugins and configurations.
- Self-Healing: Detects and recovers from common cluster issues, ensuring stability, idempotence and reliability. Same operation can be performed multiple times without changing the result.
- Discreet: It works only on what it knows, if you are manually configuring parts of your kubernetes and this configuration does not interfere with it you can happily continue to work on several parts and use this tool only for what is needed.
Features
- distribution and engine independence. Install your favorite kubernetes engine with your package
manager, execute one script and you'll have a complete working environment at your disposal.
- Basic config approach. One single
config.ymlfile with configuration requirements (add/remove features): human readable, plain and simple. All fancy configs managed automatically (ingress, balancers, services, proxy, ...). - Local Builtin ContainerHub. The default installation provides a fully configured ContainerHub available locally along with the kubernetes installation. This configuration allows the user to build, upload and deploy custom container images as they were provided from external sources. Internet public sources are still available but local development can be kept in this localhost server. Builtin ClusterOps operator will be fetched from this ContainerHub registry too.
- Kubernetes official dashboard installed as a plugin, others planned too (k9s for example).
- Kubevirt plugin installed and properly configured. Unleash the power of classic virtualization (KVM+QEMU) on top of Kubernetes and manage your entire system from there, libvirtd and virsh libs are required.
- One operator to rule them all. The installation script configures your machine automatically during installation and adds one kubernetes operator to manage your local cluster. From there the operator takes care of the cluster on your behalf.
- Clean installation and removal. Just test it, when you are done just use the same program to uninstall everything without leaving configs (or pods) behind.
Planned features (Wishlist / TODOs)
- Containerized Data Importer (CDI). Persistent storage management add-on for Kubernetes to provide a declarative way of building and importing Virtual Machine Disks on PVCs for Kubevirt VMs.
- Source2Image utility. Transform your favorite program (python, go, bash, ...) in a container in a matter of minutes, kubectl apply and create it as a Pod or a Deployment quickly.
- Kubevirt VMs startup management. Since your personal cluster might not be up and running all the time this feature will provide basic startup, shutdown, order list commands; it resembles other VM bare metal configuration suites from the past.
- Lightweight k9s console automatically installed as a plugin from the configuration file
- Add other distributions: suse, debian, rocky/rhel, gentoo, MacOS
- Add other kubernetes engines: minicube, KIND, vanilla k8s, CRC
- Monitoring and observation features, alerting with IM notifications (telegram, signal)
- Remote storage, LAN network volumes, S3 buckets, object storage (CEPH, Longhorn)
- Automatic configuration and support for: Nvidia CUDA, Vulkan drivers. Containers downloaded from Nvidia ContainerHub and relative websites should be used directly without additional configuration.
- Cloud Controller Manager (CCM). A Kubernetes control plane component that embeds cloud specific control logic. This component with a specific automation tool easily allows to migrate local working environment to external (private | hybrid | public) clouds.
Project Resources
- github project repository: clusterops
- @andreabenini @SUSE
- complete README.md (document from where this description has been extracted)
- feel free to reach me on slack, email, submit issues, MR, ...
Looking for hackers with the skills:
kubernetes k3s kubevirt kvm operator personal development webui easy containers pods go golang python
This project is part of:
Hack Week 24
Activity
Comments
-
about 1 year ago by andreabenini | Reply
Day one
Project established. github presence in place, hackweek README project created. Basic libraries in place for the installer/removal utility. I'm now considering k3s because it's easy to manage locally, other engines will be added once main results will be achieved.
Adding SUSE OSes will surely be trivial and I can barely add them all in one shot. I'm now focusing on the k8s operator in order to have minimal functionalities available from it: kubevirt, Web UI, network setup, traefik setup (on local lan, not just localhost).
I'm now using kubebuilder for managing kubernetes operator, its first task will be around adding the default kubernetes dashboard to the system -
about 1 year ago by andreabenini | Reply
Day two
Created user's ContainerHub, now you can easily create your images locally and upload them, the hub is also used from kubernetes for fetching images.
First dummy (but working) operator has been created and uploaded to localhost ContainerHub and it can be installed directly in the k3s installation at startup. ContainerHub has been created as a systemd service and automatically configured from the same clusterops installation script.
Forced k3s dependency makes also easy to have them loaded at startup when required.> systemctl enable clusterops # Start clusterops (with ContainerHub) and k3s on startup
> systemctl start clusterops # Start ClusterOps+ContainerHub+k3s manually -
about 1 year ago by andreabenini | Reply
Day three
Finally Kubevirt has joined the group and now represents one of the important pillars of this software collection, it relies on community made vanilla Operator and it just works as it's supposed to be. System's requirements are basically QEMU+KVM and libvirt on which libvirtd is built. After a simple test withvirt-host-validateyou can easily have it at your disposal. Full integration with basic components and builtin clusterops Operator is not stable yet but results are promising.
YAML example files are ready and they can be customized by users to easily create or import virtual machines on top of kubernetes in literally a matter of minutes. -
about 1 year ago by andreabenini | Reply
Day Four, integration mashup
Here's an update on the progress:
- I've modified the installer to seamlessly integrate the ContainerHub service, which is now a legitimate systemd service. This service will be automatically created and updated during installation to ensure consistency.
- Dashboard configuration and Kubevirt settings will also be automatically set during installation, streamlining the process and centralizing these components.
- The Kubernetes Operator will utilize the same configuration file and maintain a stable state across changes, even in cases where parts of a working system are intentionally deleted (excluding the operator itself, of course!).
- Final step will be to unify all external yaml files and enable their automatic use based on user requests. -
about 1 year ago by andreabenini | Reply
Day Five, final thoughts,
All day has been spent refining these addons: ContainerHub, KubeVirt. Removing pending tasks and tidying up the code in the python installer was important too. I finally have a working environment and installation/setup/removal procedures can now be considered stable with K3S.
OS configuration: the installer is now reduced to the minimum and porting between different distributions should be rather easy. I'll start now with all SUSE related linux distro porting: SLES, Tumbleweed, OpenSUSE. It's already working on a low spec laptop (company laptop) but I'm trying to collect more data before declaring it stable.
I'll add all RHEL related distros (Rocky, Alma, Fedora, RHEL) after it and Debian at the end to mark my interest on all these platforms. Minor changes should be applied but from what I've seen there's no real deal on adding platforms. Questions might be tricky with Security Enhanced libraries (selinux and apparmor mostly) but until I keep installation and configurations on user's profiles it won't hurt Security Roles or Domains that much.
I'll surely stick on k3s for a while because I'm mostly interested in refining my builtin operator, it's barely working but I'll now add new features to autorecover intentional (or unintentional) misconfigurations or removing pods, namespaces, features. Final goal is keeping the kubernetes installation healthy from the inside and it should survive to everything but intentionally removing the operator from the inside (but in that case the external setup should recover it too !). -
about 1 year ago by andreabenini | Reply
Installation process is now stable and it's fully working.
I have added all SUSE related OSes: Tumbleweed, SLES, OpenSUSE and I'm heavily testing them all in order to avoid typos or gross errors; considering where this project came from it's a relevant topic as you might understand. Apparmor might be noisy so I'm also taking some extra care with it.
I'll surely add the platform named 'suse' to the installer in the next few days to ensure everything works as expected, I don't have a real test bed and I'm applying tests on snapshotted images. I'll consider it as Beta RC for a couple of days before release.
Quickly after that I'll surely add a few interesting platforms to me: Rocky/Alma/Fedora based distros and Debian based before adding new engines (minicube will probably be the next one).
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Project Description
Harvester CLI is a command line interface tool written in Go, designed to simplify interfacing with a Harvester cluster as a user. It is especially useful for testing purposes as you can easily and rapidly create VMs in Harvester by providing a simple command such as:
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Description
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Resources
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SUSE/SAP/KVM Best Practices
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- SUSECon24: [TUTORIAL-1253] Virtualizing SAP workloads with SUSE KVM || https://youtu.be/PTkpRVpX2PM
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Description
The Mission: Decentralized & Sovereign Messaging
FYI: If you have never heard of "Chatmail", you can visit their site here, but simply put it can be thought of as the underlying protocol/platform decentralized messengers like DeltaChat use for their communications. Do not confuse it with the honeypot looking non-opensource paid for prodect with better seo that directs you to chatmailsecure(dot)com
In an era of increasing centralized surveillance by unaccountable bad actors (aka BigTech), "Chat Control," and the erosion of digital privacy, the need for sovereign communication infrastructure is critical. Chatmail is a pioneering initiative that bridges the gap between classic email and modern instant messaging, offering metadata-minimized, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communication that is interoperable and open.
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Why This Matters
A simple, host agnostic, reproducible deployment lowers the entry cost for anyone wanting to run a privacy‑preserving, decentralized messaging relay. In an era of perpetually resurrected chat‑control legislation threats, EU digital‑sovereignty drives, and many dangers of using big‑tech messaging platforms (Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Google Messages, etc...) for any type of communication, providing an easy‑to‑use alternative empowers:
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- Surveillance mitigation - End‑to‑end OpenPGP encryption ensures relay operators never see plaintext.
- Digital sovereignty - Communities can host their own infrastructure under local jurisdiction, aligning with national data‑policy goals.
By turning the Chatmail relay into a plug‑and‑play container stack, we enable broader adoption, foster a resilient messaging fabric, and give developers, activists, and hobbyists a concrete tool to defend privacy online.
Goals
As I indicated earlier, this project aims to drastically simplify the deployment of Chatmail relay. By converting this architecture into a portable, containerized stack using Podman and OpenSUSE base container images, we can allow anyone to deploy their own censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving communications node in minutes.
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- Utilize Enhanced Security with SELinux by using purpose built utilities such as udica we can quickly generate custom SELinux policies for the container stack, ensuring strict confinement superior to standard/typical Docker deployments.
- Allow the use of bind or remote mounted volumes for shared data (
/var/vmail, DKIM keys, TLS certs, etc.). - Replace the local DNS server requirement with a remote DNS‑provider API for DKIM/TXT record publishing.
By delivering a turnkey, host agnostic, reproducible deployment, we lower the barrier for individuals and small communities to launch their own chatmail relays, fostering a decentralized, censorship‑resistant messaging ecosystem that can serve DeltaChat users and/or future services adopting this protocol
Resources
- The links included above
- https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/
- https://delta.chat/en/help
- Project repo -> https://codeberg.org/EndShittification/containerized-chatmail-relay
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Description
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For now, the scope is limited to Spanish universities, since we already have the contacts and have started some conversations.
Goals
- Technical Skill Development: equip students with the fundamental knowledge and skills to build, deploy, and manage containerized applications using open-source tools like Kubernetes.
- Open-Source Mindset: foster a passion for open-source software, encouraging students to contribute to open-source projects and collaborate with the global developer community.
- Career Readiness: prepare students for industry-relevant roles by exposing them to real-world use cases, best practices, and open-source in companies.
Resources
- Instructors: experienced open-source professionals with deep knowledge of containerization and Kubernetes.
- SUSE Expertise: leverage SUSE's expertise in open-source technologies to provide insights into industry trends and best practices.
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Description
Rewriting Distrobox in Go.
Main benefits:
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- Adapter pattern for different container backends (LXC, systemd-nspawn, etc.)
Goals
- Build a minimal starting point with core commands
- Keep the CLI interface compatible: existing users shouldn't notice any difference
- Use a clean Go architecture with adapters for different container backends
- Keep dependencies minimal and binary size small
- Benchmark against the original shell script
Resources
- Upstream project: https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/
- Distrobox site: https://distrobox.it/
- ArchWiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Distrobox
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Description
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Goals
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- Create my own library for HTTP Range Requests.
- Complete portability with Unix.
- Benchmarks.
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Resources
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Background
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Originally, I started developing such an interface in Go, utilizing https://github.com/google/nftables. The conversion of string networks to nftables set elements was problematic (unfortunately no record of details), and I started a second attempt in Python, which made interaction much simpler thanks to native nftables Python bindings.
Goals
- Find and track the issue with google/nftables
- Revisit and polish the Python code, primarily the server component
- Finish functionality to interact with nftables sets (retrieving and updating elements), which are of interest for the originating issue
- Align test suite
- Packaging
Resources
- https://git.netfilter.org/nftables/tree/py/src/nftables.py
- https://git.com.de/Georg/nftables-http-api (to be moved to GitHub)
- https://build.opensuse.org/package/show/home:crameleon:containers/pytest-nftables-container
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Description
Rewriting Distrobox in Go.
Main benefits:
- Easier to maintain and to test
- Adapter pattern for different container backends (LXC, systemd-nspawn, etc.)
Goals
- Build a minimal starting point with core commands
- Keep the CLI interface compatible: existing users shouldn't notice any difference
- Use a clean Go architecture with adapters for different container backends
- Keep dependencies minimal and binary size small
- Benchmark against the original shell script
Resources
- Upstream project: https://github.com/89luca89/distrobox/
- Distrobox site: https://distrobox.it/
- ArchWiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Distrobox
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Description
The Mission: Decentralized & Sovereign Messaging
FYI: If you have never heard of "Chatmail", you can visit their site here, but simply put it can be thought of as the underlying protocol/platform decentralized messengers like DeltaChat use for their communications. Do not confuse it with the honeypot looking non-opensource paid for prodect with better seo that directs you to chatmailsecure(dot)com
In an era of increasing centralized surveillance by unaccountable bad actors (aka BigTech), "Chat Control," and the erosion of digital privacy, the need for sovereign communication infrastructure is critical. Chatmail is a pioneering initiative that bridges the gap between classic email and modern instant messaging, offering metadata-minimized, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communication that is interoperable and open.
However, unless you are a seasoned sysadmin, the current recommended deployment method of a Chatmail relay is rigid, fragile, difficult to properly secure, and effectively takes over the entire host the "relay" is deployed on.
Why This Matters
A simple, host agnostic, reproducible deployment lowers the entry cost for anyone wanting to run a privacy‑preserving, decentralized messaging relay. In an era of perpetually resurrected chat‑control legislation threats, EU digital‑sovereignty drives, and many dangers of using big‑tech messaging platforms (Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Google Messages, etc...) for any type of communication, providing an easy‑to‑use alternative empowers:
- Censorship resistance - No single entity controls the relay; operators can spin up new nodes quickly.
- Surveillance mitigation - End‑to‑end OpenPGP encryption ensures relay operators never see plaintext.
- Digital sovereignty - Communities can host their own infrastructure under local jurisdiction, aligning with national data‑policy goals.
By turning the Chatmail relay into a plug‑and‑play container stack, we enable broader adoption, foster a resilient messaging fabric, and give developers, activists, and hobbyists a concrete tool to defend privacy online.
Goals
As I indicated earlier, this project aims to drastically simplify the deployment of Chatmail relay. By converting this architecture into a portable, containerized stack using Podman and OpenSUSE base container images, we can allow anyone to deploy their own censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving communications node in minutes.
Our goal for Hack Week: package every component into containers built on openSUSE/MicroOS base images, initially orchestrated with a single container-compose.yml (podman-compose compatible). The stack will:
- Run on any host that supports Podman (including optimizations and enhancements for SELinux‑enabled systems).
- Allow network decoupling by refactoring configurations to move from file-system constrained Unix sockets to internal TCP networking, allowing containers achieve stricter isolation.
- Utilize Enhanced Security with SELinux by using purpose built utilities such as udica we can quickly generate custom SELinux policies for the container stack, ensuring strict confinement superior to standard/typical Docker deployments.
- Allow the use of bind or remote mounted volumes for shared data (
/var/vmail, DKIM keys, TLS certs, etc.). - Replace the local DNS server requirement with a remote DNS‑provider API for DKIM/TXT record publishing.
By delivering a turnkey, host agnostic, reproducible deployment, we lower the barrier for individuals and small communities to launch their own chatmail relays, fostering a decentralized, censorship‑resistant messaging ecosystem that can serve DeltaChat users and/or future services adopting this protocol
Resources
- The links included above
- https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/
- https://delta.chat/en/help
- Project repo -> https://codeberg.org/EndShittification/containerized-chatmail-relay
Contribute to terraform-provider-libvirt by pinvernizzi
Description
The SUSE Manager (SUMA) teams' main tool for infrastructure automation, Sumaform, largely relies on terraform-provider-libvirt. That provider is also widely used by other teams, both inside and outside SUSE.
It would be good to help the maintainers of this project and give back to the community around it, after all the amazing work that has been already done.
If you're interested in any of infrastructure automation, Terraform, virtualization, tooling development, Go (...) it is also a good chance to learn a bit about them all by putting your hands on an interesting, real-use-case and complex project.
Goals
- Get more familiar with Terraform provider development and libvirt bindings in Go
- Solve some issues and/or implement some features
- Get in touch with the community around the project
Resources
- CONTRIBUTING readme
- Go libvirt library in use by the project
- Terraform plugin development
- "Good first issue" list
Create a go module to wrap happy-compta.fr by cbosdonnat
Description
https://happy-compta.fr is a tool for french work councils simple book keeping. While it does the job, it has no API to work with and it is tedious to enter loads of operations.
Goals
Write a go client module to be used as an API to programmatically manipulate the tool.
Writing an example tool to load data from a CSV file would be good too.
Play with the userfaultfd(2) system call and download on demand using HTTP Range Requests with Golang by rbranco
Description
The userfaultfd(2) is a cool system call to handle page faults in user-space. This should allow me to list the contents of an ISO or similar archive without downloading the whole thing. The userfaultfd(2) part can also be done in theory with the PROT_NONE mprotect + SIGSEGV trick, for complete Unix portability, though reportedly being slower.
Goals
- Create my own library for userfaultfd(2) in Golang.
- Create my own library for HTTP Range Requests.
- Complete portability with Unix.
- Benchmarks.
- Contribute some tests to LTP.
Resources
- https://docs.kernel.org/admin-guide/mm/userfaultfd.html
- https://www.cons.org/cracauer/cracauer-userfaultfd.html
Q2Boot - A handy QEMU VM launcher by amanzini
Description
Q2Boot (Qemu Quick Boot) is a command-line tool that wraps QEMU to provide a streamlined experience for launching virtual machines. It automatically configures common settings like KVM acceleration, virtio drivers, and networking while allowing customization through both configuration files and command-line options.
The project originally was a personal utility in D, now recently rewritten in idiomatic Go. It lives at repository https://github.com/ilmanzo/q2boot
Goals
Improve the project, testing with different scenarios , address issues and propose new features. It will benefit of some basic integration testing by providing small sample disk images.
Updates
- Dec 1, 2025 : refactor command line options, added structured logging. Released v0.0.2
Resources
Updatecli Autodiscovery supporting WASM plugins by olblak
Description
Updatecli is a Golang Update policy engine that allow to write Update policies in YAML manifest. Updatecli already has a plugin ecosystem for common update strategies such as automating Dockerfile or Kubernetes manifest from Git repositories.
This is what we call autodiscovery where Updatecli generate manifest and apply them dynamically based on some context.
Obviously, the Updatecli project doesn't accept plugins specific to an organization.
I saw project using different languages such as python, C#, or JS to generate those manifest.
It would be great to be able to share and reuse those specific plugins
During the HackWeek, I'll hang on the Updatecli matrix channel
https://matrix.to/#/#Updatecli_community:gitter.im
Goals
Implement autodiscovery plugins using WASM. I am planning to experiment with https://github.com/extism/extism
To build a simple WASM autodiscovery plugin and run it from Updatecli
Resources
- https://github.com/extism/extism
- https://github.com/updatecli/updatecli
- https://www.updatecli.io/docs/core/autodiscovery/
- https://matrix.to/#/#Updatecli_community:gitter.im
terraform-provider-feilong by e_bischoff
Project Description
People need to test operating systems and applications on s390 platform.
Installation from scratch solutions include:
- just deploy and provision manually
(with the help of ftpbootscript, if you are at SUSE) - use
s3270terminal emulation (used byopenQApeople?) - use
LXCfrom IBM to start CP commands and analyze the results - use
zPXEto do some PXE-alike booting (used by theorthosteam?) - use
tessiato install from scratch using autoyast - use
libvirtfor s390 to do some nested virtualization on some already deployed z/VM system - directly install a Linux kernel on a LPAR and use
kvm+libvirtfrom there
Deployment from image solutions include:
- use
ICICweb interface (openstackin disguise, contributed by IBM) - use
ICICfrom theopenstackterraformprovider (used byRancherQA) - use
zvm_ansibleto controlSMAPI - connect directly to
SMAPIlow-level socket interface
IBM Cloud Infrastructure Center (ICIC) harnesses the Feilong API, but you can use Feilong without installing ICIC, provided you set up a "z/VM cloud connector" into one of your VMs following this schema.
What about writing a terraform Feilong provider, just like we have the terraform libvirt provider? That would allow to transparently call Feilong from your main.tf files to deploy and destroy resources on your system/z.
Other Feilong-based solutions include:
- make
libvirtFeilong-aware - simply call
Feilongfrom shell scripts withcurl - use
zvmconnectorclient python library from Feilong - use
zthinpart of Feilong to directly commandSMAPI.
Goal for Hackweek 23
My final goal is to be able to easily deploy and provision VMs automatically on a z/VM system, in a way that people might enjoy even outside of SUSE.
My technical preference is to write a terraform provider plugin, as it is the approach that involves the least software components for our deployments, while remaining clean, and compatible with our existing development infrastructure.
Goals for Hackweek 24
Feilong provider works and is used internally by SUSE Manager team. Let's push it forward!
Let's add support for fiberchannel disks and multipath.
Goals for Hackweek 25
Modernization, maturity, and maintenance: support for SLES 16 and openTofu, new API calls, fixes...
Enhance git-sha-verify: A tool to checkout validated git hashes by gpathak
Description
git-sha-verify is a simple shell utility to verify and checkout trusted git commits signed using GPG key. This tool helps ensure that only authorized or validated commit hashes are checked out from a git repository, supporting better code integrity and security within the workflow.
Supports:
- Verifying commit authenticity signed using gpg key
- Checking out trusted commits
Ideal for teams and projects where the integrity of git history is crucial.
Goals
A minimal python code of the shell script exists as a pull request.
The goal of this hackweek is to:
- Add more unit tests
- Make the python code modular
- DONE: Add code coverage if possible
Resources
- Link to GitHub Repository: https://github.com/openSUSE/git-sha-verify
Help Create A Chat Control Resistant Turnkey Chatmail/Deltachat Relay Stack - Rootless Podman Compose, OpenSUSE BCI, Hardened, & SELinux by 3nd5h1771fy
Description
The Mission: Decentralized & Sovereign Messaging
FYI: If you have never heard of "Chatmail", you can visit their site here, but simply put it can be thought of as the underlying protocol/platform decentralized messengers like DeltaChat use for their communications. Do not confuse it with the honeypot looking non-opensource paid for prodect with better seo that directs you to chatmailsecure(dot)com
In an era of increasing centralized surveillance by unaccountable bad actors (aka BigTech), "Chat Control," and the erosion of digital privacy, the need for sovereign communication infrastructure is critical. Chatmail is a pioneering initiative that bridges the gap between classic email and modern instant messaging, offering metadata-minimized, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) communication that is interoperable and open.
However, unless you are a seasoned sysadmin, the current recommended deployment method of a Chatmail relay is rigid, fragile, difficult to properly secure, and effectively takes over the entire host the "relay" is deployed on.
Why This Matters
A simple, host agnostic, reproducible deployment lowers the entry cost for anyone wanting to run a privacy‑preserving, decentralized messaging relay. In an era of perpetually resurrected chat‑control legislation threats, EU digital‑sovereignty drives, and many dangers of using big‑tech messaging platforms (Apple iMessage, WhatsApp, FB Messenger, Instagram, SMS, Google Messages, etc...) for any type of communication, providing an easy‑to‑use alternative empowers:
- Censorship resistance - No single entity controls the relay; operators can spin up new nodes quickly.
- Surveillance mitigation - End‑to‑end OpenPGP encryption ensures relay operators never see plaintext.
- Digital sovereignty - Communities can host their own infrastructure under local jurisdiction, aligning with national data‑policy goals.
By turning the Chatmail relay into a plug‑and‑play container stack, we enable broader adoption, foster a resilient messaging fabric, and give developers, activists, and hobbyists a concrete tool to defend privacy online.
Goals
As I indicated earlier, this project aims to drastically simplify the deployment of Chatmail relay. By converting this architecture into a portable, containerized stack using Podman and OpenSUSE base container images, we can allow anyone to deploy their own censorship-resistant, privacy-preserving communications node in minutes.
Our goal for Hack Week: package every component into containers built on openSUSE/MicroOS base images, initially orchestrated with a single container-compose.yml (podman-compose compatible). The stack will:
- Run on any host that supports Podman (including optimizations and enhancements for SELinux‑enabled systems).
- Allow network decoupling by refactoring configurations to move from file-system constrained Unix sockets to internal TCP networking, allowing containers achieve stricter isolation.
- Utilize Enhanced Security with SELinux by using purpose built utilities such as udica we can quickly generate custom SELinux policies for the container stack, ensuring strict confinement superior to standard/typical Docker deployments.
- Allow the use of bind or remote mounted volumes for shared data (
/var/vmail, DKIM keys, TLS certs, etc.). - Replace the local DNS server requirement with a remote DNS‑provider API for DKIM/TXT record publishing.
By delivering a turnkey, host agnostic, reproducible deployment, we lower the barrier for individuals and small communities to launch their own chatmail relays, fostering a decentralized, censorship‑resistant messaging ecosystem that can serve DeltaChat users and/or future services adopting this protocol
Resources
- The links included above
- https://chatmail.at/doc/relay/
- https://delta.chat/en/help
- Project repo -> https://codeberg.org/EndShittification/containerized-chatmail-relay
Improve chore and screen time doc generator script `wochenplaner` by gniebler
Description
I wrote a little Python script to generate PDF docs, which can be used to track daily chore completion and screen time usage for several people, with one page per person/week.
I named this script wochenplaner and have been using it for a few months now.
It needs some improvements and adjustments in how the screen time should be tracked and how chores are displayed.
Goals
- Fix chore field separation lines
- Change screen time tracking logic from "global" (week-long) to daily subtraction and weekly addition of remainders (more intuitive than current "weekly time budget method)
- Add logic to fill in chore fields/lines, ideally with pictures, falling back to text.
Resources
tbd (Gitlab repo)
Update M2Crypto by mcepl
There are couple of projects I work on, which need my attention and putting them to shape:
Goal for this Hackweek
- Put M2Crypto into better shape (most issues closed, all pull requests processed)
- More fun to learn jujutsu
- Play more with Gemini, how much it help (or not).
- Perhaps, also (just slightly related), help to fix vis to work with LuaJIT, particularly to make vis-lspc working.
Testing and adding GNU/Linux distributions on Uyuni by juliogonzalezgil
Join the Gitter channel! https://gitter.im/uyuni-project/hackweek
Uyuni is a configuration and infrastructure management tool that saves you time and headaches when you have to manage and update tens, hundreds or even thousands of machines. It also manages configuration, can run audits, build image containers, monitor and much more!
Currently there are a few distributions that are completely untested on Uyuni or SUSE Manager (AFAIK) or just not tested since a long time, and could be interesting knowing how hard would be working with them and, if possible, fix whatever is broken.
For newcomers, the easiest distributions are those based on DEB or RPM packages. Distributions with other package formats are doable, but will require adapting the Python and Java code to be able to sync and analyze such packages (and if salt does not support those packages, it will need changes as well). So if you want a distribution with other packages, make sure you are comfortable handling such changes.
No developer experience? No worries! We had non-developers contributors in the past, and we are ready to help as long as you are willing to learn. If you don't want to code at all, you can also help us preparing the documentation after someone else has the initial code ready, or you could also help with testing :-)
The idea is testing Salt and Salt-ssh clients, but NOT traditional clients, which are deprecated.
To consider that a distribution has basic support, we should cover at least (points 3-6 are to be tested for both salt minions and salt ssh minions):
- Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)
- Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap scritp, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)
- Package management (install, remove, update...)
- Patching
- Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)
- Salt remote commands
- Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement
- Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)
- Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)
- Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)
If something is breaking: we can try to fix it, but the main idea is research how supported it is right now. Beyond that it's up to each project member how much to hack :-)
- If you don't have knowledge about some of the steps: ask the team
- If you still don't know what to do: switch to another distribution and keep testing.
This card is for EVERYONE, not just developers. Seriously! We had people from other teams helping that were not developers, and added support for Debian and new SUSE Linux Enterprise and openSUSE Leap versions :-)
Pending
Debian 13
The new version of the beloved Debian GNU/Linux OS
[ ]Reposync (this will require using spacewalk-common-channels and adding channels to the .ini file)W]Onboarding (salt minion from UI, salt minion from bootstrap script, and salt-ssh minion) (this will probably require adding OS to the bootstrap repository creator)[ ]Package management (install, remove, update...)[ ]Patching (if patch information is available, could require writing some code to parse it, but IIRC we have support for Ubuntu already). Probably not for Debian as IIRC we don't support patches yet.[ ]Applying any basic salt state (including a formula)[ ]Salt remote commands[ ]Bonus point: Java part for product identification, and monitoring enablement[ ]Bonus point: sumaform enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/sumaform)[ ]Bonus point: Documentation (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni-docs)[ ]Bonus point: testsuite enablement (https://github.com/uyuni-project/uyuni/tree/master/testsuite)