Bambuddy Appliance¶

The Bambuddy Appliance is a small Raspberry Pi 5 box that arrives with Bambuddy already installed. You plug it in, walk through a five-step setup wizard in your browser, and start adding printers. There is no Docker to install, no compose file to edit, and no cloud account to create.

It runs the same Bambuddy you would install yourself — same features, same AGPL licence, same local-only operation. What the appliance adds is everything around Bambuddy: first-boot bring-up, a captive-portal WiFi setup, an admin panel for the box itself, health-checked upgrades with automatic rollback, and a hardware factory-reset button.

Who it's for¶

You want it to just work¶

Buy it from an authorised reseller, plug it in, and skip the self-hosting entirely. Support comes from the people who built it.

You already self-host¶

You probably don't need this. A Docker install gives you the same Bambuddy. The appliance is about the box, not the software.

Bambuddy stays Bambuddy

The application on the appliance is the ordinary AGPL-3.0 Bambuddy container from ghcr.io/maziggy/bambuddy. You can inspect it, replace it, or run it somewhere else. The appliance wrapper — the wizard, the admin panel, the CLI — is separately licensed, and it never restricts what the AGPL grants you.

What's in the box¶


Computer	Raspberry Pi 5, 4 GB
Power	27 W USB-C supply
Cooling	Active Cooler
Storage	microSD with the appliance image
Reset	Recessed button on the case

That's the supported baseline. The image runs on lesser hardware, but a 4 GB Pi 5 with active cooling is what gets tested and supported.

What the appliance adds¶

Guided first boot. No display or keyboard needed. Plug in ethernet, or join the appliance's own Bambuddy-Setup WiFi network and the setup page opens by itself.
Its own admin panel on port 8001, separate from Bambuddy, so you can still fix the box when Bambuddy is down.
Health-checked upgrades. The Bambuddy container upgrade pulls, starts, and waits for a health check — and rolls back automatically if the new version doesn't come up.
Secondary IP aliases, one per virtual printer that needs its own address on your LAN.
Tailscale, ready to sign in from the panel, so you can reach the box and its virtual printers from anywhere without opening a router port.
A real reset button. Ten seconds, and you're back to a fresh setup wizard.

Start here¶

Quick Start ¶

Power on, run the wizard, reach Bambuddy. Fifteen minutes.

Admin Panel ¶

The four tabs: Dashboard, Network, Updates, Diagnostics.

Command Line ¶

bambuddy-appliance — everything the panel does, over SSH.

Updates & Backups ¶

Two upgrade lanes, what a backup covers, and what it doesn't.

Registration ¶

What a reseller unit sends home, and what a self-built one doesn't.

Recovery ¶

Factory reset, lockouts, and what to try when it won't come up.

How to get one¶

The appliance is sold through authorised resellers. It is not currently available as a direct download.

If you want to build your own, everything Bambuddy needs is in the Docker installation guide — the appliance carries no exclusive features.