Introduction

Mesh Hypervisor is a streamlined system for managing diskless Linux nodes over a network. Running on Alpine Linux, it lets you boot and configure remote nodes from a single flash drive on a central orchestration node, using PXE and custom APKOVLs. Whether you’re spinning up KVM virtual machines or running bare-metal tasks, Mesh Hypervisor delivers fast, deterministic control—perfect for home labs, edge setups, or clusters.

With Mesh Hypervisor, you get a lightweight, CLI-driven toolkit: deploy nodes in minutes, tweak configs in /host0/, and connect them with VXLAN meshes. It’s built for sysadmins who want flexibility—add storage, tune networks, or script custom setups—all from one hub. This guide walks you through setup, usage, and advanced tweaks to make your cluster hum.

Mesh Hypervisor is an MVP—still growing, but rock-solid for what it does. Start with Getting Started to launch your first node.

Key features include:

• Centralized Control: A single orchestration node manages all remote nodes via a flash drive image.
• Network Resilience: Automatic network scanning and proxy DHCP ensure adaptability to complex topologies.
• Deterministic and Individually Addressable Configurations: Hardware IDs provide consistent, reproducible and individualized node setups.
• Workload Support: KVM virtual machines (workloads) run on remote nodes, extensible to other formats.
• VXLAN Networking: Mesh networking with IPv6 for isolated, scalable communication.

Who is it For?

Mesh Hypervisor is designed for Linux system administrators who need a lightweight, distributed hypervisor solution. It assumes familiarity with Linux primitives, networking concepts (e.g., DHCP, PXE), and CLI tools. If you’re comfortable managing servers via SSH and crafting configuration files, Mesh Hypervisor provides the tools to build a robust virtualization cluster with minimal overhead.

This guide will walk you through setup, usage, and advanced operations, starting with Getting Started.