Docker swarm

June 21, 2020 - Reading time: 5 minutes

Docker Swarm

Enables us to take multiple hosts and pulls them together into a swarm. A manager node will spread the load between multiple worker nodes.

  • Swarm works with docker CLI.
  • It runs on a decentralized design
  • Runs on declarative model - A whole application can be define on one declaration
  • Scalable, horizontally
  • Desired state reconciliation - The manager is constantly monitoring the configuration and making sure that it matches with the running state.
  • Multi-host networking - The manager assigns addresses to containers
  • Service discovery - A service is a group of containers of the same image. The manager assigns a unique DNS name and load balances.
  • Load balancing - Internal load balance.
  • TLS authentication - Communication between nodes is done with TLS mutual authentication.
  • Rolling updates - Allows us to updates containers in groups.

Enable swarm on manager node

root@pzolo1c:~# docker swarm init --advertise-addr 172.31.25.177
Swarm initialized: current node (i5pzauemeje1pfcdznqr3vroe) is now a manager.

To add a worker to this swarm, run the following command:

    docker swarm join --token SWMTKN-1-56p1ly19vbhpejakwnb4p3ooom2cfeen4s1jb8w84tu5fhnen4-7iq8usdv0fkw687k8vmk48f7f 172.31.25.177:2377

To add a manager to this swarm, run 'docker swarm join-token manager' and follow the instructions.

On the workers:

root@pzolo3c:~# docker swarm join --token SWMTKN-1-56p1ly19vbhpejakwnb4p3ooom2cfeen4s1jb8w84tu5fhnen4-7iq8usdv0fkw687k8vmk48f7f 172.31.25.177:2377
This node joined a swarm as a worker.

List swarm status on master:

root@pzolo1c:~# docker node ls
ID                            HOSTNAME                  STATUS              AVAILABILITY        MANAGER STATUS      ENGINE VERSION
i5pzauemeje1pfcdznqr3vroe *   pzolo1c.mylabserver.com   Ready               Active              Leader              19.03.11
rudihv22bbfwnvbo6gmfg6c0d     pzolo2c.mylabserver.com   Ready               Active                                  19.03.11
xp2n4759amxb1eq91lpw2bc7s     pzolo3c.mylabserver.com   Ready               Active                                  19.03.11

Let's create a service with 2 replicas of the nginx container.

root@pzolo1c:~# docker service create --replicas 2 -p 80:80 --name myweb nginx
kzqy1s69xlfc3nl2xd60z4hbx
overall progress: 2 out of 2 tasks
1/2: running   [==================================================>]
2/2: running   [==================================================>]
verify: Service converged

The manager node assigns the tasks based on the number of replicas.

root@pzolo1c:~# docker service ls
ID                  NAME                MODE                REPLICAS            IMAGE               PORTS
kzqy1s69xlfc        myweb               replicated          2/2                 nginx:latest        *:80->80/tcp

On the worker:

root@pzolo2c:~# docker container ls
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
ad9a9d8aa4c8        nginx:latest        "/docker-entrypoint.…"   3 minutes ago       Up 3 minutes        80/tcp              myweb.2.ggqhv3fa4fdcd2m8hgi3z40en

Details of the service. One instance is running in the manager:

root@pzolo1c:~# docker service ps myweb
ID                  NAME                IMAGE               NODE                      DESIRED STATE       CURRENT STATE           ERROR               PORTS
igq2zwielyr8        myweb.1             nginx:latest        pzolo1c.mylabserver.com   Running             Running 5 minutes ago
ggqhv3fa4fdc        myweb.2             nginx:latest        pzolo2c.mylabserver.com   Running             Running 5 minutes ago

Even if the service is only running on 2 nodes, it should be accesible from ANY working node:

root@pzolo3c:~# curl localhost:80 -v -so /dev/null
* Rebuilt URL to: localhost:80/
*   Trying 127.0.0.1...
* TCP_NODELAY set
* Connected to localhost (127.0.0.1) port 80 (#0)
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> Host: localhost
> User-Agent: curl/7.52.1
> Accept: */*
>
< HTTP/1.1 200 OK
< Server: nginx/1.19.0
< Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2020 21:04:27 GMT
< Content-Type: text/html
< Content-Length: 612
< Last-Modified: Tue, 26 May 2020 15:00:20 GMT
< Connection: keep-alive
< ETag: "5ecd2f04-264"
< Accept-Ranges: bytes
<
{ [612 bytes data]
* Curl_http_done: called premature == 0
* Connection #0 to host localhost left intact

In case one of the workers fails, the manager will move the running container to another worker in order to maintain the number of required repolicas. For example, if we stop the docker service on worker2:

root@pzolo1c:~# docker service ps myweb
ID                  NAME                IMAGE               NODE                      DESIRED STATE       CURRENT STATE            ERROR               PORTS
igq2zwielyr8        myweb.1             nginx:latest        pzolo1c.mylabserver.com   Running             Running 20 minutes ago
isk181g1xc6z        myweb.2             nginx:latest        pzolo3c.mylabserver.com   Running             Running 2 minutes ago
ggqhv3fa4fdc         \_ myweb.2         nginx:latest        pzolo2c.mylabserver.com   Shutdown            Running 20 minutes ago