Docker Swarm

Docker Swarm is an orchestrator and so is Kubernetes.

Kubernetes is breathing down my neck too and today I am thinking, "What the hell, go for it! Why NOT run a single node with Kubernetes?" I spent an hour looking at it and it just adds more complexity.

Some day I will spin up some IoT and Edge nodes for buzzword compliance but for now it's just one node. Bellman

Note, it made me pick an ethernet address, this is Bellman's primary internet interface.

bellman> docker swarm init --advertise-addr 192.168.123.2
Swarm initialized: current node (isk0jocx0rb37yonoafstyvoj) is now a manager.

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

   docker swarm join --token SWMTKN-1-5b81dywl9xkis6769fxnsvjahfy361w2kxkz69nc35bz3nxt6s-43jxeopl6inw8xur1vpcl23w7 192.168.123.2:2377

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

I can add a node on another machine using that token. I won't be doing this today. It would look like this.

tern> docker swarm join --token SWMTKN-1-5b81dywl9xkis6769fxnsvjahfy361w2kxkz69nc35bz3nxt6s-43jxeopl6inw8xur1vpcl23w7 192.168.123.2:2377
This node joined a swarm as a worker.

bellman> docker node ls
ID                            HOSTNAME            STATUS              AVAILABILITY        MANAGER STATUS      ENGINE  VERSION
isk0jocx0rb37yonoafstyvoj *   bellman             Ready               Active              Leader              19.03.5
vjbx2h8n8280ecib2btzkwcxw     tern                Ready               Active                                  18.09.1

bellman> docker network create -d overlay --attachable testing
shaboxhgakqer14j1ve7zyysj

The "attachable" option is for containers not yet running in swarm. I will need that soon, when I run bash in Debian for tests.

Now ordinarily I'd use Docker Compose to start a reverse proxy (my favorite today is Varnish).

Before worrying about Varnish though I will spin up simple web server on just the one existing node. If I add tern it will spread them over the two nodes. I want it to use that "testing" network.

docker service create --name web --replicas 4 -p 80:80 --network testing --detach nginx:latest

Now I have 4 copies of nginx running. I can see that they were published on port 80 but that's inside the funny swarm network, how to see them? They are on localhost, I can do this "curl http://localhost". I can get the id (or just use the name "web") and then kill them off,

docker service ls
docker service rm pmbrvm6wow7q
curl http://localhost

When I do the "curl" with the nginx replicas shut down, I can see the page served by Varnish (still running in Compose), it's the Home Assistant instance. So I guess the swarm takes precedence over whatever is running in Compose.

This bit me when I accidentally masked Psono by putting the test for nginx on port 81. That's where I run Psono.

I skipped the "--network testing" parameter and everything still worked. I think maybe that's just so I can attach more services later?? Here's a test. This looks the way I expected.

docker run -it --rm --network testing debian:bullseye bash
# apt update
# apt install -y bind9-dnsutils
# nslookup web
Server:         127.0.0.11
Address:        127.0.0.11#53

Non-authoritative answer:
Name:   web
Address: 10.0.1.27
# apt install -y curl
# curl http://10.0.1.27
# curl http://web/

The standard nginx page is returned from curl both times, so I know it's hitting a replica and running under the name "web", which is what I assigned. Inside the container I can see my local LAN too, for example from the Debian instance I can "curl http://bellman.wildsong.biz:8123/" and get the Home Assistant page. So far, easy easy.

That healthcheck thing

It's not too soon to think about it. ;-)

With nginx I can create my own Docker image and build the healthcheck right into the image.

Yes, I know "curl" is not the answer. https://blog.sixeyed.com/docker-healthchecks-why-not-to-use-curl-or-iwr/ but for now it's what I am using!

In my Dockerfile, I have this

FROM nginx:latest
HEALTHCHECK CMD curl --fail http://localhost || exit 1

$ docker build -t wildsong/nginx .
$ docker service rm web
$ docker service create --name web --replicas 1 -p 80:80 --network testing --detach wildsong/nginx
$ docker ps | grep web
01a3f36f7580   wildsong/nginx:latest      "/docker-entrypoint.…"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute (healthy)   80/tcp   web.1.ssssfmwmwp8je7g1dnsabevew

When I create the service, I will get a warning because I have not pushed that image (wildsong/nginx) to a registry, but it still works because I am running only one node for now. When I do "docker ps" I can see that the container is marked as "healthy".

The service is bound to the IP address I created with the "docker swarm init" command. So I can hit it with the localhost address or the one I specified, with nginx, pointing a browser at http://192.168.123.2/ works.

I suspect this means Varnish will redirect traffic to it??? https://bellman.wildsong.biz/ should work if that's true. It does not, for some reason it's going to Home Assistant.

Okay. Some rule in Varnish was kicking in, not sure what, but I added Bellman support in there and now it's working as expected.

Replicas 0, Problems 1

Earlier in my testing regimen I was encountering creating a stack and having lots of services running but showing "Replicas 0/1". This means, nothing running. When I searched for the containers with "docker ps", there was nothing.

I kept going and got past this. When I figure out in 5 minutes what I did wrong I will write it up here. But that is what 0/1 means: nothing running for that service.

Services migration

I want to move the services I normally use on Bellman into the Swarm.

1. Varnish (and hitch)
2. Pihole
3. Psono (Including PostgreSQL)
4. Home Assistant (Including Mosquitto)
5. Unifi
6. Logitech Media Server

Psono has to be accessible from the Internet but none of the others do; some things are in Varnish but really currently only for testing.

I see a copy of mysql, I wonder who that belongs to.

Also running today I have pgadmin and rocketchat, both of which I can shelve for now.

Before I can proceed, I need persistent data, and I need to deal with these issues.

• Special case #1 for Home Assistant, I need a connection to a USB device (the radio for Zigbee and ZWave)
• Special case #2, for Pihole I need to watch the network.

I think this means leaving both of these in a plain old Docker Compose set up for now.

Bring in Compose

By that I mean I want to deploy a stack of containers using a docker-compose.yml file as the configuration. So far I have not needed it, if I start just one container per project then "docker service" commands are fine.