Tinkerbell

Spec sheet

Purpose

Tinkerbell is a bare-metal provisioning engine maintained by the Tinkerbell Community.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Support

The community page directs users to documentation, GitHub for bugs and feature ideas, and the CNCF Slack #tinkerbell channel for discussion.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

BMC management

Rufio manages baseboard management controllers and can execute one-off actions to bring physical machines to a desired state.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Cluster API integration

Tinkerbell provides a Cluster API infrastructure provider that lets it serve as a bare-metal provider for Cluster API.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Community support

The project directs users to its documentation, GitHub organization, and the #tinkerbell channel in the CNCF Slack workspace for help and participation.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Core stack

The core stack consists of Smee, Tootles, Hook, and Tink.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Custom actions

Actions can use any container image available to the worker.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Deployment options

The installation guide documents Kubernetes, a standalone binary, and Docker Compose; Kubernetes is recommended for production use.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Kubernetes integration

The Cluster API provider lets Tinkerbell act as a bare metal provider for Kubernetes cluster creation and management.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Metadata

Tootles exposes hardware metadata over HTTP and can provide it in an AWS EC2 compatible format.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Minimum resources

The architecture page lists minimum stack resources of 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM, and 300 MB disk.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Network boot

Smee provides DHCP and TFTP services and serves iPXE and the initial installation image.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Network requirement

The stack requires Layer 2 networking for its DHCP server, or a DHCP relay configured to forward traffic to the stack.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Optional hardware management

Optional PBnJ and Rufio services communicate with baseboard management controllers.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Production setup

The documentation recommends Kubernetes for production and specifies Kubernetes 1.26 or later as a prerequisite.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Provisioning model

It uses an API-centric, declarative configuration and automation approach inspired by the Kubernetes community.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Resource requirements

The documented minimum stack resources are 2 vCPUs, 4 GB RAM, and 300 MB disk, and target worker machines must support iPXE network boot.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Setup limitation

The quick-start guide says its Vagrant and Libvirt path requires public internet and does not support air-gapped or proxied environments.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Stack components

The core stack includes Tink, Smee, Tootles, and Hook, with optional power and boot services and a Cluster API provider.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Target hardware

A target worker must support iPXE network boot and needs about 2 GB RAM to load HookOS and run a workflow; actual memory needs depend on action container images.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Templates

Templates contain sequential tasks and actions, including actions such as streaming an image to disk, writing files, and partitioning disks.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Workflow execution environment

HookOS is a lightweight in-memory operating system used to run Tink Worker and execute workflows.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Workflow management

Workflows combine hardware and a template, are defined as Kubernetes custom resources, and are managed by tink-controller.Read 10 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Workflow model

A workflow combines hardware and a template for execution and is managed as a Kubernetes custom resource.Read 5 Oct 2026 · tinkerbell.org

Where Specifiction places it

• OS Deployment Software#23 of 297.1
• Bare Metal Provisioning Software#25 of 287.1
• Bare Metal as a Service (BMaaS) Software#11 of 127.1