Coffey Labs
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Company · since 2018

The company behind the code

Coffey Labs LLC is an Arizona company that builds, owns and maintains open-source infrastructure software. We sell nothing today.

Where we came from

Coffey Labs started in 2018 as LINUXexpert.org: how-tos, study guides and essays, consulting and support for the managed service providers and small businesses in biotech, manufacturing, and oil and gas that needed Linux and AWS help on the side, and more and more software along the way.

On August 30, 2026 LINUXexpert.org was retired. The writing moved to jcoffey.dev, and the projects moved here under the Coffey Labs name. The announcement explains why.

On October 5, 2026 Coffey Labs was organized as Coffey Labs LLC. The projects had become software other people run, which nobody planned for when they started, and software people depend on should have a company standing behind it. Read the announcement.

What we are, and aren’t

We’re a small company run by its founder. There’s no sales team, no paid tier and no support contract, and we won’t pretend otherwise. The repositories are the honest signal of how actively each project is moving: commit history, open issues and releases say more than a status badge would.

In exchange, the licenses mean you never depend on us continuing to care. Everything is open source with nothing held back, so a fork is always available to anyone who needs one.

Founder

I started these projects to fix problems on machines I run, and kept publishing them because a problem worth solving once is usually someone else’s too.

John CoffeyFounder, Coffey Labs

John Coffey is the founder of Coffey Labs. A platform engineer and open source evangelist, he builds the infrastructure software Coffey Labs publishes and writes about systems engineering and open source at jcoffey.dev. He helped write two Linux Foundation certification exams and sits on the advisory council for a third.

Legal name
Coffey Labs LLC
Organized
October 5, 2026, in Arizona
Roots
LINUXexpert.org, since 2018
Timeline

How we got here

Eight years, in order.

  1. LINUXexpert begins, first at linuxexperts.net.

    A wiki of how-tos and study guides. The Internet Archive has the site that summer. Source

  2. Consulting and support, alongside the writing.

    Linux and AWS help for managed service providers and small businesses in biotech, manufacturing, and oil and gas, who needed it on the side of their own work. Client work, so there is nothing public to link.

  3. The essays begin, and the consulting starts to wind down.

    Clients begin moving to other support providers. Dozens of articles follow by the end of the year, on history, licensing and how infrastructure actually gets run; all of them are now at jcoffey.dev. Source

  4. LINUXexpert.org leaves Facebook, for good.

    The reasons are in the article. Source

  5. SysAdminAutomation begins.

    Bash for the jobs that recur, and the first code published under the LINUXexpert name. Source

  6. The groundwork for inbuxa begins, behind the scenes.

    The day the inbuxa.com name was registered. Design and specifications before any public code. Source

  7. Work starts on WGX.

    A Bash installer for a hardened WireGuard stack, about five weeks before it was published.

  8. The founder joins a Linux Foundation advisory council.

    For the Certified IT Associate exam, after writing items for two earlier certifications. Source

  9. WGX is published, the first VPN tool, as a LINUXexpert.org project.

    A Bash installer with a text-mode interface that wired a VPN together out of other people’s parts: wg-easy, Caddy, a firewall and a watchdog. Retired a year later. Source

  10. ihasmail begins, as a LINUXexpert.org project.

    Webmail for Stalwart that speaks only JMAP, with no database of its own. Source

  11. The last consulting client is handed off.

    Eight years of client work ends, and the time goes to the software instead.

  12. Work starts on what became Cairn OBS.

    Log collection, search and alerting for Kubernetes, designed before it had a name or any public code.

  13. Cairn OBS gets its name and goes public.

    The first public commit, five months in. Still in development. Source

  14. LINUXexpert.org retires.

    The articles move to jcoffey.dev and the projects move here, as Coffey Labs. Source

  15. ihasmail 2026.9.2, the first release.

    The first of the calendar-numbered releases every project has used since. Source

  16. WGX is rewritten from scratch, and becomes ihasvpn.

    A WireGuard server and its console in one Go binary, sharing nothing with the installer but the goal. Renamed the next day, released ten days later as 2026.9.22. Source

  17. LINUXexpert.org is reborn in the fediverse.

    The domain comes back as a small, moderated Mastodon server for the Linux community. Source

  18. inbuxa 2026.9.20, the first release.

    Mail server, console and webmail, installed and versioned together, as a Coffey Labs project. Fifteen months after the work began. Source

  19. Coffey Labs becomes Coffey Labs LLC.

    An Arizona company, so the software people depend on has a company standing behind it. Source

Writing about us?

Press and brand kit

Descriptions you can copy, the facts, our logo and a photo, all on one page.

Go to the press page