DevConf.US 2022

FetchIt is a research project with the aim of remotely managing fleets of small devices. There are plenty of GitOps tools such as ArgoCD that allow for lifecycle management of containers running on Kubernetes. Wouldn’t it be great if there was a GitOps tool for the lifecycle management of containers on systems without the need for Kubernetes? Sometimes, Kubernetes is so much more than what is needed! Sometimes, all you need is a single pod to run your critical applications and anything else is overkill! What if your system lacks the resources to run Kubernetes! Or, what if your devices require remote-only management?

Enter FetchIt. FetchIt is a tool for remotely managing workloads with Git and Podman, and without requiring Kubernetes. Podman provides a socket to deploy, stop, and remove containers. This socket can be enabled for regular users without the need for privilege escalation. Combining Git, Podman, and Systemd, FetchIt offers a complete solution for remotely managing machines and automatically updating systems and applications. Since the instructions for FetchIt can also be managed through a Git repository, a system running harpoon can be remotely managed from the start. This session will walk the audience through the different features of FetchIt. The audience will learn how to manage containers, pods, and other files on remote machines with FetchIt and a periodic push to Git repositories.