Offline Lab¶
A battery-powered platform for life without internet.
What is Offline Lab?¶
Offline Lab is an open-source platform for running apps on low-power devices without internet. We are the opposite of a data center: just enough compute to serve a family or a small community.
The platform has two parts: a minimal read-only operating system (working name: MinOS) and a set of services packaged as portable images. Everything runs on battery power, stores data on SD cards, and works without any network connection.
Use cases¶
Offline Lab is for people who need computing tools but don't have reliable internet. Travelers on cruises or long trips. Communities in remote or off-grid locations. Small groups that want to share services over a local network.
How it works¶
A Raspberry Pi Zero 2W boots a read-only OS from an SD card. Services run as systemd portable services from squashfs images. User data lives on a separate writable partition. Updates use A/B root partitions: write the new image to the inactive slot and reboot.
Nodes connect over a travel router or WiFi mesh. Each node also works standalone, powered by a USB powerbank.
Project ecosystem¶
| Repository | Description |
|---|---|
| website | Documentation and project site |
| builder | Buildroot-based OS image builder |
| disco | Service discovery and name resolution for offline networks |
| services | Portable systemd service images (Phase 3, planned) |
| sync | Data synchronization tools (planned) |
Documentation¶
Platform - About - purpose and philosophy - Hardware - devices, storage, power, networking - Offline - offline design decisions - Roadmap - development phases
Operating system - Operating System - MinOS design principles - Boot - boot chain, partition layout, A/B mechanics - Packages - OS packages and the provisioning pattern - Configuration - WiFi, SSH, and runtime config reference - Components - portable service model and planned services
Infrastructure - Disco - service discovery and name resolution
Framework - Framework - bash library and labctl CLI reference - Commands - labctl command reference
Contributing - Building - how to build the OS image - Development - repo structure, gotchas, adding packages - Contributing - how to get involved
License¶
Offline Lab is licensed under AGPL v3. You can use, modify, and distribute the software, but modifications, including running it as a service, must be released under the same license.