r8s

A lightweight single-node Kubernetes distribution written in Rust. Designed for local development — drop an r8s.toml in your project, run sudo r8s env up, and get a working cluster with your dependencies and app deployed.

Early development. This project is under active development. APIs and behavior may change. Container leaks can occur — if you hit issues, sudo r8s env nuke will clean up.

Requirements

• Linux (x86_64)
• containerd running (sudo systemctl start containerd)
• Root access (networking setup requires it)
• Helm and kubectl on PATH (for r8s env commands)
• protoc (buildtime)

Install

cargo build --release -p r8s -p r8sd
sudo cp target/release/r8s target/release/r8sd /usr/local/bin/

The env workflow

The intended way to use r8s is with an r8s.toml at the root of your project. It declares your cluster, dependencies, and app — then a single command brings everything up.

1. Define your environment

[cluster]
name = "myproject"
namespace = "myproject"

[[dependencies]]
name = "postgresql"
chart = "bitnami/postgresql"
version = "16.0.0"
values = ["values/postgres.yaml"]
set = { "auth.postgresPassword" = "secret" }

[app]
name = "myapp"
chart = "./deployment"
values = ["values/myapp.yaml"]

2. Bring it up

sudo r8s env up
export KUBECONFIG=$(r8s kubeconfig)
kubectl get pods -A

This creates the cluster (if it doesn't exist), starts the daemon, and deploys dependencies in order followed by your app.

3. Develop

# Redeploy after changes
sudo r8s env up

# Stop the cluster (state is preserved)
sudo r8s env down

# Restart (pods resume from saved state)
sudo r8s env up

4. Clean up

# Tear down everything — cluster, containers, data
sudo r8s env nuke

r8s.toml reference

Field	Description
cluster.name	Cluster name (default: "default")
cluster.namespace	Default namespace for releases (default: "default")
dependencies[]	Helm charts installed before the app, in order
app	The main application chart, installed last

Each release (dependency or app) supports:

Field	Description
name	Release name (required)
chart	Chart path or reference (required)
version	Chart version
namespace	Override namespace for this release
values	List of values file paths (relative to r8s.toml)
set	Inline key-value overrides (--set equivalent)

Manual cluster management

You can also manage clusters directly without r8s.toml:

r8s create mycluster
sudo r8s up mycluster
export KUBECONFIG=$(r8s kubeconfig mycluster)

kubectl get nodes
kubectl apply -f manifest.yaml --validate=false

sudo r8s down mycluster
r8s delete mycluster

Other commands

r8s list                    # List all clusters
r8s status [name]           # Show cluster status
r8s kubeconfig [name]       # Print kubeconfig path
r8s stats [name]            # Show store statistics
r8s logs [name] [-f]        # Tail daemon logs

Accessing services

Services are reachable from the host via their ClusterIPs. r8s auto-assigns these when services are created. To find a service's IP:

kubectl get svc -n myproject

Then connect directly — e.g. psql -h 10.96.0.5 -U postgres.

How it works

r8s runs a single daemon (r8sd) that bundles an API server, scheduler, kubelet, controller manager, DNS server, and ingress proxy. State is stored in an embedded database. Containers are managed through containerd. Networking uses a bridge with nftables NAT rules.

License

MIT