About

SimpleK8s is a lightweight Linux distribution whose only job is to run Kubernetes clusters effortlessly: one bootable file per board (x86-64, rpi4, rpi5), immutable by design, with signed releases you can verify before you boot them.

Principles

• Boring to operate: flash, boot, join. Day-two operations; updates, reboots, rollbacks; are explicit, observable commands, not background magic.
• Small and auditable: a minimal Buildroot-based system (~40 MB) with no bloatware and no hidden state; configuration lives in one optional simplek8s.yaml.
• Signed and open: every release is GPG-signed and checksummed; development happens in the open, driven by user needs instead of vendor roadmaps (non-profit, community-first).

Ecosystem

• nodectl; local node updates from the terminal, and the nodectl wizard web UI to install to disk and bootstrap the cluster from the browser (Web installation guide).
• SimpleK8s Controller; fleet-wide updates and supervised reboots from Kubernetes itself.

The code lives at github.com/simplek8s; issues, ideas and pull requests are welcome.