📃 Overview

An attempt to illustrate…

The idea for this project is to build a set of clusters that are completely source controlled and can be reproduced via automation where possible.

Infrastructure & Naming Conventions

I’ve used Greek, Hindu and Norse naming conventions in the past so this time I opted for a different kind of mythos The naming theme leans on Tolkien: Ilúvatar creates the world, the Ainur shape it, and everyone else keeps the music going.

Ilúvatar (Project)

The Git repository is the single source of truth for infrastructure, Talos/Kubernetes manifests, and bootstrap automation. Every environment derives from this definition.

Eä (Environment / Network)

“The World That Is” covers physical racks, VLANs, DNS zones, DHCP, and the rest of the homelab plumbing that hosts both clusters.

Ainur (Bootstrap Cluster)

A Raspberry Pi cluster providing dnsmasq, TFTP, HTTP artefact hosting, Git mirrors, and the Argo CD seed. Without the Ainur, nothing else comes online.

• Valar (Bootstrap Primary Nodes)

  Primary Pis responsible for keeping PXE, Git, and Argo CD seed services available. They are the first stop for any new hardware joining the network.

• Maiar (Bootstrap Secondary Nodes)

  Supporting Pis that add resilience, host auxiliary services, or soak up background tasks so the Valar can focus on bootstrap duties.

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Arda (Main Cluster)

The Talos-powered x86 fleet that actually runs workloads. Once Talos nodes join Arda, Kubernetes schedules everything from GitOps controllers to long-term services here.

• Valinor (Control Plane Nodes)

  Talos control-plane machines maintaining etcd, the Kubernetes API server, and cluster-wide reconciliation loops.

• Istari (Worker Nodes)

  General-purpose Talos workers that run application workloads, persistent storage, and the majority of day-to-day services.

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