ZipNap

ZipNap is a smart cloud resource management tool that automatically starts and stops various types of instances based on demand. It acts as a proxy that wakes up sleeping instances when they're needed and puts them back to sleep when idle, helping you save on cloud costs while maintaining availability.

Features

• Smart Wake-Up: Automatically starts instances when requests arrive
• HTTP Proxy: Routes HTTP traffic to target instances with health checks
• TCP Proxy: Routes TCP traffic to target instances
• Schedule-Based Activation: Wake up instances based on cron schedules
• GitHub Actions Runner Activation: Starts host on matching GitHub Actions Job with specific labels
• Idle Shutdown: Automatically stops instances after periods of inactivity
• Health Monitoring: Continuous health checks with configurable endpoints
• Waiting Pages: Shows user-friendly waiting pages while instances start up

How It Works

1. Request Arrives: A request comes in through one of the configured activators (HTTP proxy, schedule, etc.)
2. Wake Up: If the target instance is stopped, ZipNap starts it automatically
3. Health Check: Monitors the instance until it's healthy and ready to serve traffic
4. Proxy Traffic: Routes requests to the healthy instance
5. Idle Detection: Tracks activity and stops the instance after a configured timeout period
6. Cost Savings: Instance only runs when needed, reducing cloud costs

Installation

go install github.com/mathspace/zipnap@latest

Or build from source:

git clone https://github.com/mathspace/zipnap.git
cd zipnap
go build -o zipnap

Configuration

Create a zipnap.yaml configuration file:

instances:
  my-app:
    timeout: 5m  # Stop instance after 5 minutes of inactivity
    ec2:
      instance_id: "i-1234567890abcdef0"
    activators:
      web:
        httpproxy:
          listen_host: "0.0.0.0"
          listen_port: 8080
          host_port: 3000
          show_waiting_page_after: 3s
          health_check:
            path: "/health"
            interval: 5s
            status_codes: [200]
      scheduler:
        schedule:
          cron: "0 9 * * 1-5"  # Wake up at 9 AM on weekdays
          keep_awake: 1h # Keep awake for 1 hour after waking up

Usage

Run ZipNap with your configuration:

zipnap -config zipnap.yaml

Example Use Cases

• Development Environments: Automatically start/stop development instances
• Batch Processing: Wake up compute instances for scheduled jobs
• Cost Optimization: Reduce costs for infrequently used applications
• Demo Applications: Keep demo apps available on-demand without 24/7 costs