µbox core

Microbox (aka µbox, mu-box, or mi-box, depending on who you talk to) is an open source clone of Nanobox, focusing initially on feature-parity with Nanobox v1 (boxfiles), then on adding features and maintaining the boxfile approach moving forward. Doing this will require making some changes to some of the tooling and Docker images used, for example to switch package managers to something that will take less time to maintain when new package versions are released. More information on this process will be added to the project documentation (check the docs/ directory) as it gets fleshed out.

For now, just getting the basic Nanobox features implemented will go a long way in getting the project up and running.

• Dashboard
  • Accounts
    • Registration
    • Login
    • Social Login
    • 2FA *
    • Settings Management
      • Connected Social Accounts *
      • Hosting Accounts (#4)
      • Teams (#3)
        • Membership (#3)
        • Apps (#5)
        • Permissions *
      • Plans and Billing
  • Apps
    • Import from Nanobox *
    • Create (#5)
    • Manage
      • Servers (#5)
        • Reboot
        • Console
      • Components (#5, #8)
        • Restart
        • Rebuild
        • Move (#6)
        • Console
      • Ownership
      • Settings
      • Evars (#9)
      • SSL (#9)
    • Monitor
      • Logs
      • Stats
    • Deploy (#8)
    • Migrate *
    • Scale (#6)
    • Destroy (#7)
• Hosting Provider API (#4, #5, #6, #7, #9)
• MicroAgent API (#5, #6, #7)
• DNS API (shaman) (#5, #6, #7)
• CLI API (#8)
• Platform Component APIs (#5, #9)
  • Portal (load balancer)
  • Pulse (monitor)
  • Hoarder (warehouse)
  • Mist (message bus)
  • LogVac (logger)

* Items in italics are not supported by Nanobox, but are seen as essential to an initial release, for ensuring the most buy-in from folks looking for Nanobox alternatives.

Project Setup

Local

If you're setting up Microbox Core in your own development environment, the easiest (and only supported) way to do it is with the Nanobox CLI. Setting that up is beyond the scope of this document, but once it's in place, you only need to do a couple of things to get started.

In the directory where you've cloned the Core's code:

nanobox dns add local microbox.local
nanobox run node-start mix phx.server

And you should be off and running!

Deployed

The section below outlines what Microbox uses. Folks installing and running their own copies are free to use whatever works best for them.

Domains

Root

• microbox is the canonical domain, with mubox, mibox, mu-box, and mi-box redirecting back to it (get µbox too, if the two-scripts thing can be worked out/around)
• xn-box-wyc is for staging and testing before deploying to microbox (from an intentional typo of xn--box-wyc, the punycode of µbox, which we can't actually register because it's a mixed-script name)

TLDs

• .co/.com/.io/.space/.site/.website redirect to .cloud
• .rocks for community things

SLDs

• microbox.cloud for onboarding (explain, register, etc)
• dashboard.microbox.cloud for the account and app management dashboard
• api.microbox.cloud for the API documented in docs/core-api.yaml
• ...

FQDs

• :guid.:user.microbox.dev for exposing local dev instances to the Internet (not currently supported by Nanobox)
• :app.:user.microbox.app for apps
• :instance.:app.:team.microbox.team for team apps
• :app.:team.microbox.live for HA, A/B, etc

Sponsors!

Giacomo Trezzi (@G3z)