1.0.4 released · Kubernetes on ZFS · Cilium eBPF
Pick your distro. It assembles the platform.
Assembles your custom packed distribution with ZFS on root, WireGuard, and eBPF baked in. Nine distros. Offline. Free.
CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Rocky, Arch, or FreeBSD — your choice. kldload pulls from vendor repos and bakes kernel modules into golden images at build time. What comes out is your userland, not ours. Consume it with Packer, deploy it with Terraform, or build your own.
kldload 1.0.4 — Kubernetes on ZFS
One USB. One command. Six nodes. Cilium eBPF + WireGuard + ZFS instant clones. Production Kubernetes in under 20 minutes.
Desktop · Server · KVM · Kubernetes · Core profiles. 8 distros. Complete offline darksite.
BSD-3-Clause · free forever · ~9.2 GB · AMD64
git clone https://github.com/kldload/kldload.git && ./deploy.sh build
Web UI installer — 8 distros, 5 profiles including Kubernetes. Point, click, deploy.
kldload is a re-packer.
Instead of downloading an ISO from your vendor, kldload uses the vendor's own CDNs and package repositories to assemble the OS of your choice — CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, RHEL, Rocky, Arch, or FreeBSD — with ZFS on root, WireGuard, eBPF, and the tools that should have been there from the start. Nothing is patched. Nothing is forked. Nothing is modified. Every package is stock, verified, and pulled directly from your vendor's repos.
The result can be deployed as a bootable USB image for bare metal installs, an in-place deployment tool for existing systems, or a remote/mass deployment pipeline for fleet provisioning. The ISO also carries offline package mirrors (RPM + APT) so you can install in air-gapped environments with zero internet.
What comes out the other side is your distro — not ours. Whatever userland you like.
Whatever package manager you prefer. kldload just makes sure the foundation — ZFS, WireGuard,
eBPF, boot environments — is done right. Updates come from your vendor, not from us.
kldload delivers the OS tuned to the current OpenZFS stable branch. After that, it's your system —
dnf update, apt upgrade, pacman -Syu, whatever you normally do. Fill your boots.
Every script is readable bash. No compiled binaries. No vendor SDK. No magic.
cat any file and read what it does. Point it at any apt, dnf, or pacman repo
and the tool will most likely already work — it's distro-agnostic by design.
What's Included
Kernel modules & tools — bundled on first boot.
✓ ZFS on Root
Checksummed, compressed, snapshot-capable root filesystem. Boot environments via ZFSBootMenu. Self-healing on mirrors.
✓ WireGuard
Kernel-level encrypted networking. Built as a DKMS module alongside ZFS. Available on first boot for VPNs, site-to-site links, or mesh overlays.
✓ NVIDIA Drivers
GPU drivers baked into the image. CUDA-ready on first boot. No post-install driver dance. No nouveau conflicts.
✓ ZFSBootMenu
UEFI bootloader that understands ZFS. Boot environment selection. 15-second rollback. No GRUB hacks.
✓ Automatic Snapshots
Before every package change. Every 15 minutes for /srv. Hourly boot environment snapshots. Configurable retention.
✓ 30+ CLI Tools
kst, ksnap, kbe, kdf, kdir, kpkg, kupgrade, krecovery — short names, no flags to memorize.
✓ Secure Boot / MOK
Per-machine key generation. Automatic module signing. DKMS auto-sign on kernel upgrades. Works with Secure Boot enabled.
✓ Offline / Air-Gap Ready
Complete package mirror baked in. No internet at install time. No phone home. The USB drive is the deployment.
Four Profiles
Pick the platform you need.
Desktop
GNOME workstation + ZFS on root + all kldload tools + web UI + automatic snapshots + offline darksites. For workstations and dev machines.
Server
Headless + SSH + ZFS on root + all kldload tools + web UI + automatic snapshots + offline darksites. For production servers and NAS.
KVM Host
Bare metal hypervisor. Every VM on a ZFS zvol. Instant clones (~100ms, 0 bytes). Atomic snapshots. Incremental replication. Golden image workflow. New in 1.0.3.
Core
ZFS on root only. Stock distro. No kldload tools, no web UI, no sanoid, no darksites. Just the kernel modules and boot environments. For advanced users.
Every profile gives you ZFS on root with proper DKMS, initramfs, and ZFSBootMenu. Nothing is removed from the base distro. The k* and kvm-* tools are additions, not replacements. apt, dnf, zfs, zpool, and virsh always work directly.
I Want…
Whatever you want. kldload assembles it.
“I want ZFS on Debian”
Pick Debian. Pick Core. Done. ZFS on root, boot environments, DKMS. Stock Debian underneath.
“I want a KVM hypervisor”
Pick CentOS. Pick KVM Host. Clone VMs in 100ms. Snapshot atomically. Replicate incrementally. See 1.0.3.
“I want a NAS”
Pick any distro. Pick Server. Add NFS or Samba. ZFS handles the rest — checksums, compression, snapshots, replication.
“I want to run AI models”
Pick Desktop or Server. Enable NVIDIA. Ollama runs on the GPU. Two models share one GPU via CUDA time-slicing. No PCIe passthrough. Works on consumer cards.
“I want an air-gapped server”
Boot the USB. Install. No internet needed. Offline RPM and APT mirrors are baked into the ISO. The USB drive is the deployment.
“I want to learn the primitives”
32 masterclasses. 3,273 pages. ZFS, WireGuard, eBPF, KVM, Cilium, IPsec, Keycloak, nftables — every technology explained from first principles. Start here.
100% free. Fully auditable. No catch.
Each profile is an expertly crafted userland — a purpose-built assembly of packages, configs, and tools for a specific job. 150+ recipes and 32 masterclasses teach you to craft your own. All of which I've made free — so you can do the same.
Learn the primitives — they'll outlast any product.