Introduction

Tundra is a self-hosted server management platform — a modern, open-source alternative to Plesk and cPanel. It ships as a single static binary per component, has no licensing fees, and gives you full control over your infrastructure.

What Tundra manages

• Sites — PHP, Node.js, Python, Go, Rust, Ruby, .NET with blue/green deployments
• WordPress — full WP-CLI lifecycle: install, configure, plugins, themes, staging, cloning
• Servers — multi-server fleet with SSH agent install and mTLS gRPC mesh
• Databases — PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, Valkey with CRUD and access control
• Domains & DNS — zone management, 30 provider-ready DNS templates
• Mail — Postfix + Dovecot + Rspamd + DKIM, managed per domain
• Backups — restic-backed, GPG-encrypted, preview-then-confirm restore
• Plugins — Wasmtime sandbox with MCP AI integration

Architecture overview

Browser / AI editor
       │
       ▼
  Panel (React SPA)
       │  REST + WebSocket
       ▼
  tundrad  ──────── PostgreSQL 18
  (control plane)── Valkey 8
       │  mTLS gRPC
       ▼
  tundra-agent  (per managed server)
       │
       ▼
  Site workloads, PHP-FPM, Caddy, systemd

Single-host mode (most common): tundrad and tundra-agent run on the same machine over a Unix socket.
Multi-host mode: mTLS gRPC over port 7447. The agent on each server connects back to the control plane.

Components

Binary	Role
tundrad	Control plane — HTTP API, panel SPA, job dispatcher, event bus
tundra-agent	Per-node agent — provisioning, telemetry, log shipping
tundra	Operator CLI — migrations, master-key, acceptance tests

System requirements

Resource	Minimum	Recommended
OS	Ubuntu 24.04 / Debian 12 / RHEL 9	Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
CPU	1 vCPU	2+ vCPU
RAM	512 MB	2 GB
Disk	5 GB	20 GB SSD
PostgreSQL	18	18

Next steps

• Quick Install — install on a VPS in under 5 minutes
• Add Your First Server — enroll a managed server
• Deploy a Site — deploy your first web app