Josh Siviour
1654f98e18
* feat(daemon): live MemAvailable admission gate + fixed-services reserve scope Admission previously charged only guest -m against a flat reserve, blind to the co-located storage VMs, nbdkit, and daemon stack — so it greenlit launches that overcommit real RAM and OOM-kill guests on memory-tight hosts. Add a second admission gate that clamps the accounting-derived launch count by live /proc/meminfo MemAvailable (which already nets reclaimable cache and sees every untracked consumer): admitted = min(accounting, (MemAvailable-reserve)/ guestMem). Reads live per admission, fails open on a /proc read error so a transient fault can't wedge launches, and is disabled by SPINIFEX_ADMISSION_LIVE_MEM=0. Re-scope the host reserve to the fixed infrastructure tier only; per-instance nbdkit is no longer expected to fit inside it (explicit per-instance charge is a follow-up; the live gate covers it implicitly in the meantime). Pure helpers (liveMemCount, parseMemAvailableKB, liveMemAdmissionEnabled) are unit-tested; liveMemGate covered via an injected reader. * feat(daemon): charge nbdkit per-instance in admission accounting An instance's admission memory charge is now its guest -m plus the nbdkit processes backing its volumes (one per attached volume), not guest -m alone. The static reserve no longer has to absorb per-instance nbdkit, which was unsizable and the root of the host-memory-overcommit OOM. Per-volume charge is measured per class (main 768 MiB: 128 cache + plugin working set + in-flight I/O; aux 96 MiB: process floor, 0 cache), env-tunable via SPINIFEX_NBDKIT_MAIN_MIB / SPINIFEX_NBDKIT_AUX_MIB. Default layout is one main + two aux volumes (root + cloudinit + efi) ~= 0.94 GB/instance. Applied at every accounting site through instanceMemChargeMiB so charge and release never drift; the live MemAvailable gate backstops block-device-mapping volumes the static count misses. * feat(vm): three-tier guest OOM ladder + spinifex-guests.slice Replace the flat oom_score_adj=500 on every guest QEMU with a ManagedBy-derived ladder: user guests (ManagedBy=='') stay +500 and are reaped first under host memory pressure; system instances (ELBv2 LB-VMs, EKS control-plane nodes, ManagedBy!='') score 0, ranking above user guests but below the infra tier (-500). Killing a system instance degrades the data path or cluster control plane for many user VMs, so it must outlive them. Add spinifex-guests.slice as a sibling of spinifex-system under spinifex.slice — the parent tier for the per-instance leaves that land with RG-7. Guest QEMU placement into the slice is deferred to the per-instance work. * refactor(systemd): lean unit comments to RG-n tags + RG-9/RG-11 invariants Strip the multi-paragraph rationale novels from spinifex-daemon.service (48->7 comment lines), spinifex-vpcd.service (29->8) and spinifex.slice (15->5), replacing them with settings + terse # RG-n clause tags. Remove plan-doc, bead and CI-run references from comments (project policy). Directives are byte-for-byte unchanged — comment-only. Add RG-9/RG-11 invariant tests asserting per-tier confinement (locked-down storage/control tier drops all caps + NoNewPrivileges=yes; daemon keeps exactly CAP_SYS_ADMIN+CAP_DAC_OVERRIDE and the four-entry DeviceAllow; vpcd is the documented network-tier exception) and the lean-comment budget + no-plan-ref rule.
What is Spinifex? · Platform · Components · Architecture · Installation · Docs
Spinifex: An Open Source AWS-Compatible Stack for Bare-Metal, Edge, and On-Prem Deployments
Spinifex developed by Mulga Defense Corporation is an open source infrastructure platform that brings the core services of AWS—like EC2, VPC, EBS, and S3—to environments where running in the cloud isn't an option. Whether you're deploying to edge sites, private data-centers, or need to operate in low-connectivity or highly contested environments, Spinifex gives you AWS-style workflows on your own hardware.
What is Spinifex?
Spinifex replicates essential AWS primitives—virtual machines, block volumes, and object storage—using lightweight, self-contained components that are easy to deploy and integrate.
It's designed for developers and operators who need:
- Cloud-like infrastructure without the cloud
- Minimal dependencies, full control
- Drop-in compatibility with tools like the AWS CLI, SDKs, and Terraform
- A secure cloud environment you control and own the entire hardware, network and software stack
You can run Spinifex on a few servers in a rack, a field site, or anywhere centralized cloud services aren't feasible.
The Platform
From commodity hardware up to unmodified AWS tooling, every layer is replaceable and yours to own.
Core Components
Spinifex (Compute Service – EC2 Alternative)
Spinifex is a minimal VM orchestration layer built on top of QEMU, exposing APIs similar to EC2. It manages lifecycle operations like start, stop, and terminate, using QEMU's QMP interface. Designed to be straightforward and scriptable, Spinifex lets you launch VMs using the AWS CLI, SDKs, or Terraform—without needing Kubernetes or heavyweight orchestrators. Keep in mind, you can also setup a Kubernetes environment using Spinifex with underlying instances.
- EC2-like VM management on bare metal
- Launches with cloud-init metadata support
- Works with standard AWS tooling
Viperblock (Block Storage – EBS Alternative)
Viperblock is a high-performance, WAL-backed block storage service that replicates volumes across multiple nodes. It's built for reliability and speed, with support for snapshots, recovery, and direct connection to QEMU instances using NBD or virtio-blk.
- Fast, durable virtual disks
- Replication for resilience
- Exposed over NBD or embedded in VMs
- Supports high performance WAL logs using local NVMe drives to reduce IO traffic to S3.
- In memory read/write block cache for blazing performance.
Predastore (Object Storage – S3-Compatible)
Predastore is a fully S3-compatible object storage system. It supports the AWS S3 API, including Signature V4 authentication, multipart uploads, and Terraform provisioning. Data is chunked and distributed across nodes using Reed-Solomon erasure coding, making it fault-tolerant and ideal for large-scale or low-bandwidth scenarios.
- S3-compatible API and auth
- Multipart uploads, streaming reads/writes
- Data redundancy with Reed-Solomon encoding
Architecture at a Glance
Every AWS API call is authenticated at the gateway, published to a NATS subject, and answered by whichever daemon claims it. Daemons are stateless — scale horizontally by starting more. No etcd, no Kubernetes, no external control plane. Deep dive: docs/DESIGN.md.
Key Features
AWS-Compatible Interfaces – Provision infrastructure with awscli, Terraform, or SDKs you already use.
- Designed for Control – Run on your own terms, whether that's in a datacenter, remote site, or sensitive environment.
- Minimal Dependencies – Each service is standalone and avoids complex orchestration layers.
- Works Offline – No reliance on centralized cloud services or external networks.
- Open Source – Licensed under AGPL 3.0. Fork it, extend it, or deploy it as-is.
Installation
Installation requires an Ubuntu / Debian system. See the detailed documentation at docs.mulgadc.com for maintaining and installing Spinifex.
Bare Metal ISO
The recommended installation is a bootable x86 installer for bare-metal hardware.
curl -fLO https://iso.mulgadc.com/spinifex.iso
Follow the USB install guide to write the ISO to USB and install on your hardware. The install guide walks through the full process.
Single Node Install
The installation is straightforward to set up and running on a single node for testing purposes. Debian 13 is currently supported, additional Linux distributions are on the immediate roadmap.
Prerequisite: Linux bridge for networking.
Spinifex requires a Linux bridge configured on the host for VM networking. See the single-node install guide prerequisites for setup details.
curl -fsSL https://install.mulgadc.com | bash
sudo /usr/local/share/spinifex/setup-ovn.sh --management
sudo spx admin init --node node1 --nodes 1
sudo systemctl start spinifex.target
export AWS_PROFILE=spinifex
aws ec2 describe-instance-types
Development Setup
For a complete development environment see the Source Install documentation
Component Repositories
Spinifex coordinates these independent components:
- Predastore - S3-compatible object storage
- Viperblock - EBS-compatible block storage
Each component can be developed independently. See component-specific documentation for focused development guides.
Spinifex UI
Spinifex ships with a built-in web console — an optional alternative to the AWS CLI, SDKs, and Terraform. If you're familiar with the AWS Management Console, the Spinifex UI fills the same role: a browser-based view of your instances, volumes, buckets, VPCs, and IAM resources, without leaving your own network.
The console is served by each node on port 3000 over TLS, and becomes available as soon as spinifex.target is up:
open https://YOUR_NODE_IP:3000
- Same API, different surface. Every action in the UI is the same AWS SigV4 call the CLI makes — so RBAC, audit trails, and IAM policies apply uniformly.
- Single sign-on against your AWS credentials. Log in with the access keys from
~/.aws/credentialson the node where Spinifex is installed — no separate user database. - Self-hosted, works offline. The UI is embedded in the Spinifex binary and served from the node itself. No external CDN, no analytics calls, no cloud dependency.
For the full walkthrough — first-time TLS certificate trust, login, and feature tour — see Launching the Web UI in the cluster setup guide.
Development Philosophy
Built by Engineers, For Engineers
Spinifex is developed by experienced infrastructure engineers with deep AWS expertise, including former AWS team members who understand the intricacies of building production-grade cloud services. Our team brings decades of combined experience from AWS, enterprise infrastructure, and edge computing environments.
Real-World Experience:
- Production AWS service development and operations
- Large-scale infrastructure deployment and management
- Edge computing and resource-constrained environments
- Enterprise security and compliance requirements
AI-Assisted Development
While Spinifex is architected and implemented by experienced engineers, we leverage Claude Code (Anthropic's AI coding assistant) to accelerate certain development tasks. This approach combines human expertise with AI efficiency:
How We Use Claude Code:
- Code Generation: Boilerplate AWS API structures and handlers
- Documentation: Comprehensive development guides and API documentation
- Testing: Test case generation and validation scenarios
- Refactoring: Large-scale code restructuring and optimization
What Remains Human-Driven:
- Architecture Decisions: Core system design and scalability choices
- Security Implementation: Authentication, encryption, and threat modeling
- Performance Optimization: Real-world performance tuning and benchmarking
- Production Operations: Deployment strategies and operational procedures
This hybrid approach ensures Spinifex benefits from both proven engineering expertise and modern development acceleration, while maintaining the quality and reliability standards required for production infrastructure.
License
Spinifex is open source under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0. You're free to use, modify, and deploy it anywhere you need reliable infrastructure without depending on centralized cloud platforms.