Introducing the Clan project

I would like to present a funded opensource project that @lassulus @a-kenji @Luis-Hebendanz, @DavHau, @hsjobeki and me are working on for the last year.
clan is a toolkit that makes it easier to manage networks of VPN-connected NixOS machines.
The ultimate goal is to lower the barrier to self-host services massively to allow anyone to achieve this without special hardware. As of now using clan still requires NixOS knowledge but already
nicely combines a bunch of our open-source project that you may know (nixos-anywhere, sops-nix, nixos-generators, disko, …) in a uniform CLI.
Read the announcement blog post to learn more about the project: Introducing Clan: Full-Stack Computing Redefined - cLAN

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Looks amazing :tada::tada::tada:

I think the Matrix link on the site might be acting a little weird though — it says I can’t join because I wasn’t invited.

ah we forgot to switch the channel to open, that should now be fixed :slight_smile:

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The project looks great. I’m looking forward to using it.

Slightly off-topic, but can you talk about the process of obtaining funding for open source work? I have a few ideas related to open-source projects and I also don’t have a job right now, so this would be a win-win. I realise the process of obtaining financing might take a while, so I’ll likely still need to get a job in the meantime, but I’m still interested to know more about.

Checkout https://nlnet.nl/. If you have a good idea it is quite easy process.

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I don’t think I have a good recipe to share for that. I just used to work on opensource projects on my own and people started to approach me. But I know nlnet works if you want to work on opensource projects for a few month.

Today we start doing weekly office hours at 15:30 UTC (17:30 CEST). If you are interested in the project, you can join our jitsi. We will show what we worked on and answer questions.

I understand. In your case, the funding came to you thanks to your reputation. Since I don’t have that asset, I’ll look more into NLNet.

I am interested to join, but I can’t make it sooner than 15:45.

that’s fine, we plan to be there for at least an hour.

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Lately I’ve been trying to puzzle out how exactly I can implement some kind of high-level “service” abstraction in my own NixOS modules. By the description, this sounds like almost exactly what I am looking for! Very excited to learn more about this

This project was announced on the Nix Foundation’s social channels on April 9, 2024.
mastodon
linkedin
x/twitter

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Some small status update:
Last week, we added a new documentation hub for clan at docs.clan.lol. We are still working on improving the installation procedures, so stay tuned.
We also invite people again to hangout and ask questions in our weekly office hours. They are every Wednesday 15:30 UTC (17:30 CEST) in our jitsi.

We also have a blog at Blog - cLAN where we plan to post regularly :slight_smile: