bink

A CLI tool for creating Kubernetes dev clusters from bootc images.

Its primary audience is K8s developers who want a "real enough" Kubernetes cluster running on real bootc hosts for hacking and CI. It's easy to use, fast, and runs unprivileged. It includes a local OCI registry for sharing images with the cluster, networking for seamless cross-node communications, and HAProxy for the API server.

Prerequisites

Bink uses the Podman client API. Make sure you have a Podman socket (e.g. systemctl --user start podman.socket) or remote connection available (via CONTAINER_HOST).

Installation

go install ./cmd/bink

(We're working on making bink run as a container as well!)

Running via Container

Instead of building the binary locally, you can run bink directly from a container image:

# Start a cluster (mount host Podman socket)
podman run --rm -ti --network=host --security-opt label=disable \
  -v $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/podman/podman.sock:/run/podman/podman.sock \
  -e CONTAINER_HOST=unix:///run/podman/podman.sock \
  -v $(pwd):/output \
  ghcr.io/alicefr/bink/bink:latest \
  cluster start

# Expose the API (kubeconfig is written to the mounted directory)
podman run --rm -ti --network=host --security-opt label=disable \
  -v $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/podman/podman.sock:/run/podman/podman.sock \
  -e CONTAINER_HOST=unix:///run/podman/podman.sock \
  -v $(pwd):/output \
  ghcr.io/alicefr/bink/bink:latest \
  api expose

For convenience, create a shell alias:

alias bink='podman run --rm -ti --network=host --security-opt label=disable \
  -v $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/podman/podman.sock:/run/podman/podman.sock \
  -e CONTAINER_HOST=unix:///run/podman/podman.sock \
  -v $(pwd):/output \
  ghcr.io/alicefr/bink/bink:latest'

Then use it like the native binary: bink cluster start, bink api expose, etc.

Nested containerization (no socket mount)

If you don't want to mount the host podman socket, bink can run podman inside the container. The container starts a podman service and all bink commands are run via podman exec:

# Start the bink container (runs podman service in the background)
podman run -d --name bink --privileged \
  --device /dev/kvm \
  -v bink-storage:/var/lib/containers \
  -v $(pwd):/output \
  ghcr.io/alicefr/bink/bink:latest

# Wait for podman service to be ready inside the container
until podman exec bink podman info &>/dev/null; do sleep 0.5; done

# Run bink commands
podman exec bink bink cluster start
podman exec bink bink api expose
podman exec bink bink cluster list

# Use kubectl from inside the bink container
podman exec bink kubectl --kubeconfig /output/kubeconfig-podman get nodes

# Stop and remove when done
podman exec bink bink cluster stop --remove-data
podman rm -f bink

The bink-storage volume persists container images across runs so they don't need to be re-downloaded each time.

Note: In nested mode the cluster and its API ports live inside the bink container. Use kubectl from inside the container, or use the socket-mount mode for host-level access.

Create a Cluster

# Create cluster with control plane
bink cluster start

# Access the cluster
bink api expose
export KUBECONFIG=$PWD/kubeconfig-podman
kubectl get pods -A

# Add worker nodes (optional)
bink node add node2
bink node add node3
kubectl get nodes

List Clusters

# List all running clusters
bink cluster list

Delete a Cluster

# Stop and remove all nodes
bink cluster stop

# Stop and also remove persistent data (SSH keys, kubeconfig)
bink cluster stop --remove-data