Allow disabling p2p for single-node clusters

[willmurnane]

I run my homelab on a single-node k3s cluster. For testing purposes I often spin up a kind cluster in CI and start a duplicate copy of all my services in that. I'd like to avoid re-pulling images from the internet (and hitting docker.io pull limits etc). I wanted to try out Spegel for this purpose, but it doesn't work when only a single instance is running, so it doesn't discover any peers and decides that something has gone wrong.

{"time":"2026-06-14T00:53:12.86787428Z","level":"INFO","source":{"function":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing.loadOrCreatePrivateKey","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing/p2p.go","line":678},"msg":"loading the private key from data directory","path":"/var/lib/spegel/private.key"}
{"time":"2026-06-14T00:53:12.875545016Z","level":"INFO","source":{"function":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing.(*P2PRouter).Run","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing/p2p.go","line":217},"msg":"starting p2p router","logger":"p2p","id":"12D3KooWAojmdtMgP3pY2aXHuGosTRXgoosoXT8r1Yv1JNpwsYTy"}
{"time":"2026-06-14T00:53:12.875819214Z","level":"INFO","source":{"function":"main.registryCommand","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/main.go","line":322},"msg":"running Spegel","registry":":5000","router":":5001"}
...
{"time":"2026-06-14T00:56:05.656908499Z","level":"ERROR","source":{"function":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing.(*P2PRouter).Run.func2.1","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing/p2p.go","line":236},"msg":"failed to run bootstrap","logger":"p2p","err":"routing table is empty after bootstrapping","attempts":25}
{"time":"2026-06-14T00:56:11.837813341Z","level":"ERROR","source":{"function":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing.(*P2PRouter).Run.func2","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing/p2p.go","line":254},"msg":"could not run bootstrap","logger":"p2p","err":"context canceled"}
{"time":"2026-06-14T00:56:11.837840462Z","level":"ERROR","source":{"function":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/oci.(*Containerd).Subscribe.func3","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/oci/containerd.go","line":295},"msg":"received containerd event error","err":"rpc error: code = Canceled desc = context canceled"}
{"time":"2026-06-14T00:56:11.83789273Z","level":"ERROR","source":{"function":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing.(*P2PRouter).Run.func2","file":"github.com/spegel-org/spegel/pkg/routing/p2p.go","line":254},"msg":"could not run bootstrap","logger":"p2p","err":"context canceled"}
stream closed: EOF for spegel/spegel-cwblj (registry)

I know I could run a standalone registry outside the cluster, set everything to pull images from that, and so on, and that's probably what I'll do. Spegel would have been a really tidy way of sharing these images within my network, though.

[phillebaba]

I did some tests with this not too long ago as I had the same idea to speed up some local development. While it did work it is not something I can put in the OSS project right now as it adds more maintenance burden. For the time being the feature will be limited to private use and potential enterprise customers. Thanks for understanding!

[phillebaba]

@willmurnane I have come up with a compromise solution to make the tool I built available. It did not make sense to put this functionality in Spegel as the functionality is so different. So I created a new tool called Hall which supports Kind, k3d, Talos and k0s. Once the daemon runs it will automatically configure clusters to use the local mirror. Hall is not OSS but is free to use for hobby users, oss projects and small companies.

https://hall.kvick.dev/