Project Ilúvatar

… the music and the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void

What is it?

Project Ilúvatar documents the design and automation of a self-hosting Kubernetes platform. Utilizing netboot, a single script can bootstrap a Raspberry Pi based cluster, which in turn provisions x86 workload clusters over PXE, with everything managed via GitOps - a complete bare-metal, immutable infrastructure built from scratch.

Core Concepts

Bare-Metal Automation

End-to-end provisioning across mixed ARM and x86 hardware. PXE-booted nodes self-install, configure, and join the cluster without imaging or SSH.

PXE Bootstrapping

Automated network boot via TFTP/HTTP. Bootstrap nodes host the infrastructure stack for self-replicating cluster creation.

GitOps

All infrastructure and workloads defined declaratively in Git. Argo CD ensures consistent, auditable cluster state.

Immutable Infrastructure

Workload clusters run on Talos Linux - secure, immutable, API-driven. Bootstrap services operate on ARM64 with k3s.

Distributed Storage & Backups

Longhorn provides replicated block storage; Velero handles scheduled and on-demand backups.

Documentation

Architecture, process, and lessons learned documented with Starlight for reproducible workflows.