A Docker orchestrator for a handful of machines
ProxDock runs Docker applications on hosts with ZFS, and takes over the parts normally left to
a pile of scripts: picking something to deploy, where its data lives, what address it answers
on, and how you get it all back. It does not replace Docker; it writes the files and runs docker compose. It is not trying to be Kubernetes either. It is for the person
running a few machines who wants deployment and backup to be boring.
Built for a cluster, not tied to one
It was written for a handful of Debian VMs on Proxmox, and that is what it runs on daily. Packages are built and tested for Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04. But nothing about it is tied to those: any Linux host with ZFS and Docker will do, and only the packaging is distribution-specific.
What pre-1.0 means here
It means the version number can move under you, not that the software is a sketch. The full lifecycle runs on a live three-node cluster and has done for months. What pre-1.0 buys is the freedom to change a schema or a name without a deprecation cycle.
Working today
- Deploy, update and roll back an application
- Snapshot before every configuration change, with one-click rollback
- Back up, verify and restore, including under a new name and address
- Migrate an application between nodes, address and all
- Raft-replicated cluster state, any node serving the whole API
- Scheduled backups with per-kind retention
- Cluster-wide storage locations and network zones
- Per-node HTTPS over ACME DNS-01, and certificates you manage yourself
- Packages for Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04, from a signed apt repository
Not yet
- Remote backup upload
- S3-compatible targets can be configured and probed for real connectivity, but nothing is uploaded yet. This is the next major piece.
- arm64
- Planned, including clusters mixing arm and x86 nodes. Only amd64 is built today.
- Distributions beyond three
- Debian 13 and Ubuntu 24.04 and 26.04 are built, tested and published. Nothing in ProxDock is tied to those or to Proxmox. Only the packaging is, so more targets are a packaging job, not a port.
One upgrade rule. Schema migrations are append-only and ship inside the binary, so upgrade every node in a cluster together when a release adds one. The changelog says which releases do.
Licence
ProxDock is licensed under the Elastic License 2.0 (ELv2). The source is available and you may read it, modify it, and run it, including commercially, inside your own organisation.
What ELv2 does not allow
- Providing ProxDock to others as a hosted or managed service.
- Circumventing its licence-key functionality, or removing or obscuring any licensing, copyright or other notice.
That summary is a summary. The licence text is what governs, and it ships in the
repository as LICENSE. ELv2 is not an OSI-approved open source licence, and
this site does not describe it as one.
Versioning
x.y.z: x major, sometimes breaking; y features and significant updates; z fixes and incremental changes. The current release is 0.67.0.