VirtKick wraps awkard virtualization technology in a convenient, usable panel. VirtKick does to open source what DigitalOcean did to SaaS. Simplicity and privacy are our core goals. We're currently alpha and the code is on GitHub.
VPS providers can read your data without you noticing that. Disk encryption won't help, since the key is stored in memory and they can read it as well. VirtKick lets you take cloud back and become your own VPS provider.
Data center is probably the best place for VirtKick. Dedicated servers are very reliable and cost-effective. They also offer an acceptable level of privacy as long as you encrypt your disks and type your passphrase on boot.
Sure dedicated servers won't protect you from server implants. Police could also hot replug and take your server to their lab to retrieve the encryption key from the memory. Install VirtKick on your computer or home server to get the highest level of privacy. It's no longer a cloud, but it's all yours and secure.
Imagine you don't need any previous knowledge to play with virtualization on your desktop or real servers. That's what VirtKick is all about. All the required components are already bundled, or automatically installed in your system. VirtKick requires little knowledge to start- you're just one click ahead!
The technologies involved are just an implementation detail. KVM and OpenVZ run virtual machines, whereas libvirt is an abstraction layer to these two. Docker lets us make use of great images in Registry Hub. And Ansible is here to auto-configure hypervisors. We combine them all together to deliver an amazing cloud panel that does the job.
We didn't forget about regular users without bare metal servers. VirtKick ships with optional e-commerce features, so VPS providers can use them to sell machines. This way we ensure VirtKick goodies are available for anyone. What's most important, you'll be able to migrate your machines between VPS providers.
Users deserve a cool, open source, privacy-enabled cloud panel for the modern Internet. VirtKick is a very ambitious but doable plan. Thanks for your support!
A Bonus is a complete set of features that integrates with third party services. That makes VirtKick a complete solution for professionals and businesses.
For every $20,000 raised we'll implement one Bonus. $75+ backers decide which by voting!
Spread the word about VirtKick and get packages for more than only 2 Linux distros. Each 1000 stars, followers or likes is one extra Linux distro!
Development process goespublic onGitHub. VirtKick is licensed under GNUAGPL. Anybody is able to download it and use for free - even commercially.
Additionally, $199+ backers will receive a non-copyleft licensefor the sources. This may be useful for companies that want to develop their own modules and keep them secret. Most companies should be fine with the default license.
There will be a testing deployment of VirtKick. We'll grant access to every $25+ backer. There won't be any specific releases - the development will be continuous. A new version will be deployed any time the automated tests pass,
Our $99+ backers will get exclusive access to pre-releases of Linux packages and virtual appliances. They will go public after one month. Still, package sources will be public at all times. 100% open source - remember.
A lot of real code is already written and published on GitHub. But don't take our word for it - just have a look at the hosted alpha and give it a try! It offers a limited set of features, but is a great proof that VirtKick really works.
Technically, it's a server-side generated Rails web-application with some alive parts in AngularJS. On the backend there's WebVirtMgr that acts as a RESTful proxy to libvirt (we'll later replace it with Fog.io). Background tasks are ran with Delayed::Job, though we might switch do Sidekiq in future (it's no effort thanks to ActiveJob abstraction introduced in Rails 4.2 beta). Instead of relying on Apache or nginx, we make use of http-master, a web server implemented in node.js. It's also used to serve VNC on websockets (Websockify and noVNC are involved).
One-click install & auto-configuration is one of our core features. At the moment, we almost achieved it on desktop environments, where the local machine is the hypervisor. All you need is to execute virtkick-start command and type your password when asked for sudo. But we don't mess with your OS very much - we only create a new user, install a few packages and configure libvirt. Crucial parts of VirtKick we depend on are either installed in the system (Python) or in VirtKick directory (Ruby from RVM, Node.js from NVM). After you open VirtKick in your browser, we create a network, initialize storage pools and download ISO images of most popular Linux distros. VirtKick doesn't run as root.
Additionally, we've got a static prototype with most planned features. The user interface is already prototyped and designed. Click through the application yourself at demo.virtkick.io and get familiar with all planned features.
Here's what VirtKick will let you do after we implement Basic Bundle:
create accounts for users and administrators
create and start using a VM in no more than 59 seconds
manage your VM - start, stop, restart, mount ISO, create disk, etc.
let other users manage your VM
everything with a simple, lightweight and comfortable UI
Next Bundles add more and more features on top of it. One thing remains the same - all is still simple!
This is what you should expect from VirtKick once we implement Basic Bundle:
support for KVM through libvirt
distros available by default: Ubuntu, Debian, CentOS, CoreOS, Arch, FreeBSD
ready to use appliance with SSH key copied onto the VM
mount ISO as CD and install yourself
one-click install with reasonable default values
auto-configure hypervisors
import existing libvirt domains
IP reservation, clean-traffic nwfilter applied to every VM
add additional disks
access console with noVNC
packages for 2+ Linux distributions (see Social Stretch Goals for more)
appliances or images for Docker, VirtualBox and Qemu-KVM
Facebook integration ;-)
Other Bundles should be pretty self-explanatory, but drop us a line if in doubt!
For the service fees and hardware maintenance:
For hardware to actually test VirtKick on. As part of release process we want to run automated infrastructure tests. We'll test VirtKick against multiple distros and multiple virtualization technologies. We'll need at least 10 cheap bare metal servers, which is around $600 a month.
For Amazon EC2 account to test VirtKick on. If we reach the stretch goal, we'll need it to test the APIs and run integration tests. It will be around $300 a month.
For our own servers. We currently have two bare metal servers in collocation - these servers run the hosted instance. We need it to catch unhandled exceptions, spot performance problems and analyze what features people use. It costs us $100 a month.
Forinfrastructure monitoring. We need to know its state and be notified about alerts and problems. New Relic, Pingdom and PubNub will cost us up to $100 a month.
For 3rd party services. Since we will be integrating with many external APIs (e.g. helpdesk, transactional e-mails, etc), we will have to subscribe for their paid plans. Depending on how many Bonuses will be implemented, it will cost us from $20 to $200 a month.
For placing bounties on BountySource. We'll do that to get some features implemented in 3rd party open source projects that we are not able to handle. Usually $100-$500 for a bounty, but not sure about how many of them there'll be a need to post.
And for the team:
For Damian N., the Ruby developer, who codes the Rails webapp, Ruby backend and makes it all speak virtualization.
For Damian K., the node.js developer, who codes node.js parts of the project, and who will soon contribute to libvirt project.
For Wojtek, the graphic designer,who designs a clean and usable user interface and a lot of artwork for media.
For Mateusz, the experienced sysops, who manages our infrastructure and helps us tackle the nasty parts of networks, storage and provisioning.
For Mirek, the copywriter, who makes the texts more understandable. ;-)
The more we raise, the longer we can work on VirtKick and other related projects.
Damian Nowak, or Nowaker, has been a software developer for 5 years. He spent last 3 years working in hosting-related businesses. He not only knows virtualization from inside-out but also has great ideas on how to simplify it. He adapted "Howdy partner" as his primary greeting and you could easily mistake him for a true cowboy. Husband and father of two kids. Soon three.
Damian Kaczmarek, or Rush, has been coding embedded devices for 5 years, but found his second calling in node.js. He worked on a big AngularJS project for a year and develops http-master, a node.js HTTP server. After hours he codes various stuff for Unreal Tournament community. The only social website he uses is GitHub. Indiegogo is the first place he has uploaded his real photo. Still, with sunglasses on.
All funds received here count towards the stretch goals.
Donate with DogeCoin: DLNiai6QZDbAt7n6iUG7pwz842MxE1MTvd
Donate with PayPal:
Tip us weekly on Gratipay:
Have a question, suggestion or just want to say hello? Leave a comment or drop an e-mail at team@virtkick.io. We'll be happy to answer!
If you like the idea for VirtKick, please consider spreading a word about the project. Letting your geeky friends know on IRC will probably work best. :) These links may be useful:
We'd like to thank the open source community for supporting our efforts. Thank you for spreading the word, testing alpha version, deploying on your servers, finding bugs and encouraging us to run the fundraising!
These folks gave us a whole lot of valuable feedback on our Indiegogo campaign. Without your help it wouldn't look like this. Thank you very much!
Jamey Stegmaier, an author of Kickstarter Lessons, without him knowing that ;)
Credit goes to early supporters. They supported us financially from the very beginning - no matter the only thing we could show was static HTML prototype and our passion.
Finally, we'd like to thank companies that provide us with free services. Thanks to them we can develop VirtKick, maintain Hosted Alpha infrastructure or keep in touch with fans. Kudos for open source supporters!
Looking for more information?Check the project
FAQ
You will receive the source code of VirtKick... Well, since it's open source right from the start, anybody will receive it anyway! Thanks for supporting free software movement.
Estimated Shipping
November 2014
7 claimed
Contributor
$15 USD
Your name will appear on the contributor list on the project's website and in the BACKERS.md file in source code. It will be a clickable link to your personal blog, Twitter or Indiegogo account.
Estimated Shipping
November 2014
24 claimed
Account 256 MB
$25 USD
You'll get an account in an always up-to-date testing deployment of VirtKick and 256 MB RAM for your testing virtual machines. You will also receive a $15 reward.
Estimated Shipping
November 2014
21 claimed
Account 512 MB
$49 USD
Extra 256 MB for your machines in a testing deployment of VirtKick. You will also receive a $25 reward.
Estimated Shipping
November 2014
5 claimed
Priority+ Bugs
$75 USD
I will add you to the VirtKick organization account on GitHub as "Sponsor", so we can treat your bug reports with higher priority. You will also decide in voting which Bonuses will be implemented. In addition you will receive a $49 reward.
Estimated Shipping
November 2014
5 claimed
Linux packages
$99 USD
You'll get access to the fresh VirtKick packages for at least two Linux distributions. You'll choose the supported distributions by voting. You will also receive a $75 reward.
Estimated Shipping
January 2015
2 claimed
Appliance
$149 USD
You'll gain access to a ready-to-use virtual appliance (image) of VirtKick. Run in VirtualBox for testing or with Docker or Qemu-KVM in production and get started immediately. You will also receive a $99 reward.
Estimated Shipping
January 2015
2 claimed
Copyright
$199 USD
You'll be granted a non-copyleft license for the sources, compared to the default AGPL. Choose this if you want to keep secret the source code of your custom modules. We'll treat your bug reports with highest priority. You also receive a $149 reward.
Estimated Shipping
November 2014
6 claimed
Pick a Distro
$399 USD
Make sure we'll provide packages for the Linux distribution of your choice. You also receive a $199 reward.
