page_title: Docker Swarm filters
page_description: Swarm filters
page_keywords: docker, swarm, clustering, filters
Filters
The Docker Swarm
scheduler comes with multiple filters.
The following filters are currently used to schedule containers on a subset of nodes:
You can choose the filter(s) you want to use with the --filter
flag of swarm manage
Constraint Filter
Constraints are key/value pairs associated to particular nodes. You can see them
as node tags.
When creating a container, the user can select a subset of nodes that should be
considered for scheduling by specifying one or more sets of matching key/value pairs.
This approach has several practical use cases such as:
- Selecting specific host properties (such as
storage=ssd
, in order to schedule
containers on specific hardware).
- Tagging nodes based on their physical location (
region=us-east
, to force
containers to run on a given location).
- Logical cluster partitioning (
environment=production
, to split a cluster into
sub-clusters with different properties).
To tag a node with a specific set of key/value pairs, one must pass a list of
--label
options at docker startup time.
For instance, let's start node-1
with the storage=ssd
label:
$ docker -d --label storage=ssd
$ swarm join --addr=192.168.0.42:2375 token://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Again, but this time node-2
with storage=disk
:
$ docker -d --label storage=disk
$ swarm join --addr=192.168.0.43:2375 token://XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Once the nodes are registered with the cluster, the master pulls their respective
tags and will take them into account when scheduling new containers.
Let's start a MySQL server and make sure it gets good I/O performance by selecting
nodes with flash drives:
$ docker run -d -P -e constraint:storage==ssd --name db mysql
f8b693db9cd6
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NODE NAMES
f8b693db9cd6 mysql:latest "mysqld" Less than a second ago running 192.168.0.42:49178->3306/tcp node-1 db
In this case, the master selected all nodes that met the storage=ssd
constraint
and applied resource management on top of them, as discussed earlier.
node-1
was selected in this example since it's the only host running flash.
Now we want to run an nginx
frontend in our cluster. However, we don't want
flash drives since we'll mostly write logs to disk.
$ docker run -d -P -e constraint:storage==disk --name frontend nginx
963841b138d8
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NODE NAMES
963841b138d8 nginx:latest "nginx" Less than a second ago running 192.168.0.43:49177->80/tcp node-2 frontend
f8b693db9cd6 mysql:latest "mysqld" Up About a minute running 192.168.0.42:49178->3306/tcp node-1 db
The scheduler selected node-2
since it was started with the storage=disk
label.
Standard Constraints
Additionally, a standard set of constraints can be used when scheduling containers
without specifying them when starting the node. Those tags are sourced from
docker info
and currently include:
- storagedriver
- executiondriver
- kernelversion
- operatingsystem
Affinity Filter
Containers
You can schedule 2 containers and make the container #2 next to the container #1.
$ docker run -d -p 80:80 --name front nginx
87c4376856a8
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NODE NAMES
87c4376856a8 nginx:latest "nginx" Less than a second ago running 192.168.0.42:80->80/tcp node-1 front
Using -e affinity:container==front
will schedule a container next to the container front
.
You can also use IDs instead of name: -e affinity:container==87c4376856a8
$ docker run -d --name logger -e affinity:container==front logger
87c4376856a8
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NODE NAMES
87c4376856a8 nginx:latest "nginx" Less than a second ago running 192.168.0.42:80->80/tcp node-1 front
963841b138d8 logger:latest "logger" Less than a second ago running node-1 logger
The logger
container ends up on node-1
because its affinity with the container front
.
Images
You can schedule a container only on nodes where the images are already pulled.
$ docker -H node-1:2375 pull redis
$ docker -H node-2:2375 pull mysql
$ docker -H node-3:2375 pull redis
Here only node-1
and node-3
have the redis
image. Using -e affinity:image=redis
we can
schedule container only on these 2 nodes. You can also use the image ID instead of its name.
$ docker run -d --name redis1 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis2 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis3 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis4 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis5 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis6 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis7 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker run -d --name redis8 -e affinity:image==redis redis
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NODE NAMES
87c4376856a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-1 redis1
1212386856a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-1 redis2
87c4376639a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-3 redis3
1234376856a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-1 redis4
86c2136253a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-3 redis5
87c3236856a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-3 redis6
87c4376856a8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-3 redis7
963841b138d8 redis:latest "redis" Less than a second ago running node-1 redis8
As you can see here, the containers were only scheduled on nodes with the redis image already pulled.
Expression Syntax
An affinity or a constraint expression consists of a key
and a value
.
A key
must conform the alpha-numeric pattern, with the leading alphabet or underscore.
A value
must be one of the following:
- An alpha-numeric string, dots, hyphens, and underscores.
- A globbing pattern, i.e.,
abc*
.
- A regular expression in the form of
/regexp/
. We support the Go's regular expression syntax.
Current swarm
supports affinity/constraint operators as the following: ==
and !=
.
For example,
constraint:node==node1
will match node node1
.
constraint:node!=node1
will match all nodes, except node1
.
constraint:region!=us*
will match all nodes outside the regions prefixed with us
.
constraint:node==/node[12]/
will match nodes node1
and node2
.
constraint:node==/node\d/
will match all nodes with node
+ 1 digit.
constraint:node!=/node-[01]/
will match all nodes, except node-0
and node-1
.
constraint:node!=/foo\[bar\]/
will match all nodes, except foo[bar]
. You can see the use of escape characters here.
constraint:node==/(?i)node1/
will match node node1
case-insensitive. So 'NoDe1' or 'NODE1' will also match.
Soft Affinities/Constraints
By default, affinities and constraints are hard enforced. If an affinity or
constraint is not met, the container won't be scheduled. With soft
affinities/constraints the scheduler will try to meet the rule. If it is not
met, the scheduler will discard the filter and schedule the container according
to the scheduler's strategy.
soft affinities/constraints are expressed with a ~ in the expression
Example ,
$ docker run -d --name redis1 -e affinity:image==~redis redis
If none of the nodes in the cluster has the image redis, the scheduler will
discard the affinity and schedules according to the strategy.
$ docker run -d --name redis2 -e constraint:region==~us* redis
If none of the nodes in the cluster belongs to us
region, the scheduler will
discard the constraint and schedules according to the strategy.
$ docker run -d --name redis5 -e affinity:container!=~redis* redis
The affinity filter will be used to schedule a new redis5
container to a
different node that doesn't have a container with the name that satisfies
redis*
. If each node in the cluster has a redis*
container, the scheduler
will discard the affinity rule and schedules according to the strategy.
Port Filter
With this filter, ports
are considered as unique resources.
$ docker run -d -p 80:80 nginx
87c4376856a8
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND PORTS NODE NAMES
87c4376856a8 nginx:latest "nginx" 192.168.0.42:80->80/tcp node-1 prickly_engelbart
Docker cluster selects a node where the public 80
port is available and schedules
a container on it, in this case node-1
.
Attempting to run another container with the public 80
port will result in
clustering selecting a different node, since that port is already occupied on node-1
:
$ docker run -d -p 80:80 nginx
963841b138d8
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND PORTS NODE NAMES
963841b138d8 nginx:latest "nginx" 192.168.0.43:80->80/tcp node-2 dreamy_turing
87c4376856a8 nginx:latest "nginx" 192.168.0.42:80->80/tcp node-1 prickly_engelbart
Again, repeating the same command will result in the selection of node-3
, since
port 80
is neither available on node-1
nor node-2
:
$ docker run -d -p 80:80 nginx
963841b138d8
$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND PORTS NODE NAMES
f8b693db9cd6 nginx:latest "nginx" 192.168.0.44:80->80/tcp node-3 stoic_albattani
963841b138d8 nginx:latest "nginx" 192.168.0.43:80->80/tcp node-2 dreamy_turing
87c4376856a8 nginx:latest "nginx" 192.168.0.42:80->80/tcp node-1 prickly_engelbart
Finally, Docker Cluster will refuse to run another container that requires port
80
since not a single node in the cluster has it available:
$ docker run -d -p 80:80 nginx
2014/10/29 00:33:20 Error response from daemon: no resources available to schedule container
Dependency Filter
This filter co-schedules dependent containers on the same node.
Currently, dependencies are declared as follows:
- Shared volumes:
--volumes-from=dependency
- Links:
--link=dependency:alias
- Shared network stack:
--net=container:dependency
Swarm will attempt to co-locate the dependent container on the same node. If it
cannot be done (because the dependent container doesn't exist, or because the
node doesn't have enough resources), it will prevent the container creation.
The combination of multiple dependencies will be honored if possible. For
instance, --volumes-from=A --net=container:B
will attempt to co-locate the
container on the same node as A
and B
. If those containers are running on
different nodes, Swarm will prevent you from scheduling the container.
Health Filter
This filter will prevent scheduling containers on unhealthy nodes.
Docker Swarm documentation index