8 ms·

Swarmlet: A self-hosted, open-source Platform as a Service

88 points by mono-bob 4y ago

lordpankake 4y ago
Sadly like many Docker Swarm based projects, this has become abandonware. I use Docker Swarm with Portainer for managing services with ecoeats[1], a decision that was made years ago, just before Swarm was revealed to be absolutely dead in the water. I initially used Swarmlet before switching to Portainer, as there were far too many bugs and missing tools needed to effectively manage a Swarm that went beyond stateless Node containers. With Portainer and Swarm I've been forced to manually intervene with rollouts more times than I would have liked due to Swarm-specific errors and other quirky networking behaviour. At least it's simpler than Kubernetes! [1] https://ecoeats.uk https://ecoeats.uk
- mono-bob 4y ago
  I really liked the option to deploy through a git push without additional setup. But it indeed looks like abandonware, thanks for sharing your experience! If you would start over, would you choose for Portainer and Swarm again? Do you know of any alternatives to Swarmlet?
  - grepfru_it 4y ago
    Portainer can poll your git repo and supports webhooks. I went with portainer early on and haven't looked back.
- the_common_man 4y ago
  portainer now has a banner to subscribe as well on the free version
  - sschueller 4y ago
    Portainer also has default opt-out analytics via matomo. According to their github the analytics are in Germany but the DNS points to server in France at the moment. Either way, I find it questionable to have analytics running on self hosted open source software.
    - the_common_man 4y ago
      Oh, i wasn't aware of this
mono-bob 4y ago
I really like the option to deploy through a git push without additional setup, and I am looking for something similar to host a bunch of containers. Does anyone here have experience with such a tool, and what is your experience regarding reliability?
- daslicious 4y ago
  You might want to check out dokku
  - sureglymop 4y ago
    You might want to be careful with this though because if your application is built on the same server where your productive apps consuming some of the memory it could affect performance of your deployment or even take it down.
    - josegonzalez 4y ago
      Dokku allows for deploying apps from images built in CI - which is quite effective if you also test your image artifacts in CI and don't want to build twice. If you are using our Nomad or Kubernetes plugins, you can also run the apps on servers other than the one you are building on.
      - sureglymop 4y ago
        Yup I am aware :) I am just warning them of jumping in without reading too much of the documentation.
- hummus_bae 4y ago
  Yarn is a PaaS that deploys through a git push, without additional setup deployment is done from a hosted site with additional setup . . .
- pgm8705 4y ago
  A 2nd for Dokku. It's dead simple and works on any host. Yes, it is limited to single server architecture, but for most people this shouldn't be a problem. Vertical scaling can go a long way.
gigatexal 4y ago
Not worth the effort. Best to learn k8s. Inertia is a thing; and k8s has the ecosystem behind it. It’s also a vibrant project and is evolving.
- GiorgioG 4y ago
  Best to stay the hell away from k8s if you care about being productive. You're not Google and we'll all be better for it when everyone admits that fact.
  - rad_gruchalski 4y ago
    Meh. I find k8s + istio + cert manager pretty productive.
    - emptysongglass 4y ago
      Replace Istio with Linkerd for even faster time to productive.
  - INTPenis 4y ago
    It's not that complicated. It's just that people need to start planning more before they dive into k8s, there's a limit to where and when k8s makes sense in your app. And most people could get away with the more traditional setup of Frontend, App and DB Backend for a service oriented architecture and still be able to scale up into k8s when necessary.
  - gigatexal 4y ago
    Of course a startup with 1-2 or 3 engineers with nothing off the ground should probably just run a their service on a VPS and keep things super simple. But for mature companies K8s can make a ton of sense.
  - foverzar 4y ago
    You don't really need to be Google to have a few runtimes with healthchecks across a few nodes with a few metrics and an ssl-terminating reverse proxy. This is a pretty basic setup and with k3s one can be very productive at it. In fact, you will very likely hit quite a lot of k8s bottlenecks at Google scale if you throw everything at a single cluster. I feel like we would actually be better off if people admit they'd rather manage all the complexity by hand all the tine, than spend a few hours reading the docs on k8s objects properties and lifecycles - that's really all there is to it for basic setups like k3s.
bovermyer 4y ago
Swarm was great. Docker/Moby should never have abandoned it. Kubernetes solves a similar class of problems to Swarm, but in a much more complex way. Sometimes that complexity helps solve problems. For many organizations, though, Swarm would have been the better option. Both Swarm and Kubernetes have their purposes. I'm sad that no option has popped up to replace Swarm in the "simple and easy container orchestration" space. Now it's either Kubernetes or... ECS, I guess.
- 131hn 4y ago
  what makes you think docker swarm is abandonned ? The latest docker engine release (23.0) continue support it and add new features
  - bovermyer 4y ago
    A few years ago (2018?), I read somewhere - I think it was on Hacker News, even - that Docker/Moby was quietly dropping paid support for Swarm. I've had a hard time finding much via hn.algolia.com to back this up, other than some discussions in mid-2018, though.
- ungawatkt 4y ago
  I've been trying out Nomad on a home server setup, its still not as simple as Swarm and has some hard edges to learn around, but overall it hasn't been a bad experience, definitely easier than my attempts at k8s. And Nomad got basic built in service discovery in the last couple versions, which was the main thing turning me away (it used to require running Consul).
  - maxnoe 4y ago
    Can you describe your setup? I tried setting up nomad but couldn't figure out service discovery, external ingress / letsencrypt in the time I allotted myself...
    - nesarkvechnep 4y ago
kodah 4y ago
I have a use for something like this and was intending on building something similar. Unfortunately the whole thing is written in Bash.
- tommica 4y ago
  What about dokku?
9dev 4y ago
I have built all our infrastructure on Docker Swarm before learning about its state. Currently waging migrating to Nomad out of fear for K8s complexity - I’ve worked with it in a previous job with more employees than now, and it still was a big hassle - but am afraid I’ll repeat the same mistake and should just bite the bullet. Does anyone have suggestions?
- e12e 4y ago
  In similar position - currently leaning towards self-hosted k3s (it's kubernetes - but somewhat simple).
- whalesalad 4y ago
  Rancher + k3s
- 3np 4y ago
  I'd say go for Nomad! As for getting started... - Single-server and non-secure (no mTLS; no ACLs) clusters are super easy to set up and a great way to try out things before committing. - ...However, enabling especially ACLs but also TLS on running clusters is going to be more hassle than simply setting up a fresh, properly bootstrapped cluster. - Their minimum and recommended resource requirements are hugely inflated, you can generally get good mileage out of way less - ...However: Do follow their advice on keeping nodes single-responsibility (ie don't run a consul server and nomad server on the same node; generally keep your servers dedicated and not running jobs) - Consul and Vault integrations are generally rock solid. - ...However: Nomad native service discovery is not yet (wrt consistency and template rewrites). Consul Connect may or may not have edge (it's some time since last we seriously tried it). - learn.hashicorp.com has material for most things you want to do. - Put all your ACL configuration in Terraform (or whatever else you have for the same purpose)
  - 9dev 4y ago
    Thank you for this list, very much appreciated! I'll keep those things in mind.

88 points by mono-bob 4y ago

Sadly like many Docker Swarm based projects, this has become abandonware. I use Docker Swarm with Portainer for managing services with ecoeats[1], a decision that was made years ago, just before Swarm was revealed to be absolutely dead in the water. I initially used Swarmlet before switching to Portainer, as there were far too many bugs and missing tools needed to effectively manage a Swarm that went beyond stateless Node containers. With Portainer and Swarm I've been forced to manually intervene with rollouts more times than I would have liked due to Swarm-specific errors and other quirky networking behaviour. At least it's simpler than Kubernetes! [1] https://ecoeats.uk https://ecoeats.uk

mono-bob 4y ago
I really liked the option to deploy through a git push without additional setup. But it indeed looks like abandonware, thanks for sharing your experience! If you would start over, would you choose for Portainer and Swarm again? Do you know of any alternatives to Swarmlet?
- grepfru_it 4y ago
  Portainer can poll your git repo and supports webhooks. I went with portainer early on and haven't looked back.
the_common_man 4y ago
portainer now has a banner to subscribe as well on the free version
- sschueller 4y ago
  Portainer also has default opt-out analytics via matomo. According to their github the analytics are in Germany but the DNS points to server in France at the moment. Either way, I find it questionable to have analytics running on self hosted open source software.
  - the_common_man 4y ago
    Oh, i wasn't aware of this

mono-bob 4y ago

I really like the option to deploy through a git push without additional setup, and I am looking for something similar to host a bunch of containers. Does anyone here have experience with such a tool, and what is your experience regarding reliability?

daslicious 4y ago
You might want to check out dokku
- sureglymop 4y ago
  You might want to be careful with this though because if your application is built on the same server where your productive apps consuming some of the memory it could affect performance of your deployment or even take it down.
  - josegonzalez 4y ago
    Dokku allows for deploying apps from images built in CI - which is quite effective if you also test your image artifacts in CI and don't want to build twice. If you are using our Nomad or Kubernetes plugins, you can also run the apps on servers other than the one you are building on.
    - sureglymop 4y ago
      Yup I am aware :) I am just warning them of jumping in without reading too much of the documentation.
hummus_bae 4y ago
Yarn is a PaaS that deploys through a git push, without additional setup deployment is done from a hosted site with additional setup . . .
pgm8705 4y ago
A 2nd for Dokku. It's dead simple and works on any host. Yes, it is limited to single server architecture, but for most people this shouldn't be a problem. Vertical scaling can go a long way.

gigatexal 4y ago

Not worth the effort. Best to learn k8s. Inertia is a thing; and k8s has the ecosystem behind it. It’s also a vibrant project and is evolving.

GiorgioG 4y ago
Best to stay the hell away from k8s if you care about being productive. You're not Google and we'll all be better for it when everyone admits that fact.
- rad_gruchalski 4y ago
  Meh. I find k8s + istio + cert manager pretty productive.
  - emptysongglass 4y ago
    Replace Istio with Linkerd for even faster time to productive.
- INTPenis 4y ago
  It's not that complicated. It's just that people need to start planning more before they dive into k8s, there's a limit to where and when k8s makes sense in your app. And most people could get away with the more traditional setup of Frontend, App and DB Backend for a service oriented architecture and still be able to scale up into k8s when necessary.
- gigatexal 4y ago
  Of course a startup with 1-2 or 3 engineers with nothing off the ground should probably just run a their service on a VPS and keep things super simple. But for mature companies K8s can make a ton of sense.
- foverzar 4y ago
  You don't really need to be Google to have a few runtimes with healthchecks across a few nodes with a few metrics and an ssl-terminating reverse proxy. This is a pretty basic setup and with k3s one can be very productive at it. In fact, you will very likely hit quite a lot of k8s bottlenecks at Google scale if you throw everything at a single cluster. I feel like we would actually be better off if people admit they'd rather manage all the complexity by hand all the tine, than spend a few hours reading the docs on k8s objects properties and lifecycles - that's really all there is to it for basic setups like k3s.

bovermyer 4y ago

Swarm was great. Docker/Moby should never have abandoned it. Kubernetes solves a similar class of problems to Swarm, but in a much more complex way. Sometimes that complexity helps solve problems. For many organizations, though, Swarm would have been the better option. Both Swarm and Kubernetes have their purposes. I'm sad that no option has popped up to replace Swarm in the "simple and easy container orchestration" space. Now it's either Kubernetes or... ECS, I guess.

131hn 4y ago
what makes you think docker swarm is abandonned ? The latest docker engine release (23.0) continue support it and add new features
- bovermyer 4y ago
  A few years ago (2018?), I read somewhere - I think it was on Hacker News, even - that Docker/Moby was quietly dropping paid support for Swarm. I've had a hard time finding much via hn.algolia.com to back this up, other than some discussions in mid-2018, though.
ungawatkt 4y ago
I've been trying out Nomad on a home server setup, its still not as simple as Swarm and has some hard edges to learn around, but overall it hasn't been a bad experience, definitely easier than my attempts at k8s. And Nomad got basic built in service discovery in the last couple versions, which was the main thing turning me away (it used to require running Consul).
- maxnoe 4y ago
  Can you describe your setup? I tried setting up nomad but couldn't figure out service discovery, external ingress / letsencrypt in the time I allotted myself...
  - nesarkvechnep 4y ago

kodah 4y ago

I have a use for something like this and was intending on building something similar. Unfortunately the whole thing is written in Bash.

tommica 4y ago
What about dokku?

9dev 4y ago

I have built all our infrastructure on Docker Swarm before learning about its state. Currently waging migrating to Nomad out of fear for K8s complexity - I’ve worked with it in a previous job with more employees than now, and it still was a big hassle - but am afraid I’ll repeat the same mistake and should just bite the bullet. Does anyone have suggestions?

e12e 4y ago
In similar position - currently leaning towards self-hosted k3s (it's kubernetes - but somewhat simple).
whalesalad 4y ago
Rancher + k3s
3np 4y ago
I'd say go for Nomad! As for getting started... - Single-server and non-secure (no mTLS; no ACLs) clusters are super easy to set up and a great way to try out things before committing. - ...However, enabling especially ACLs but also TLS on running clusters is going to be more hassle than simply setting up a fresh, properly bootstrapped cluster. - Their minimum and recommended resource requirements are hugely inflated, you can generally get good mileage out of way less - ...However: Do follow their advice on keeping nodes single-responsibility (ie don't run a consul server and nomad server on the same node; generally keep your servers dedicated and not running jobs) - Consul and Vault integrations are generally rock solid. - ...However: Nomad native service discovery is not yet (wrt consistency and template rewrites). Consul Connect may or may not have edge (it's some time since last we seriously tried it). - learn.hashicorp.com has material for most things you want to do. - Put all your ACL configuration in Terraform (or whatever else you have for the same purpose)
- 9dev 4y ago
  Thank you for this list, very much appreciated! I'll keep those things in mind.