Drain a node on the swarm
Estimated reading time: 3 minutesIn earlier steps of the tutorial, all the nodes have been running with ACTIVE
availability. The swarm manager can assign tasks to any ACTIVE
node, so up to
now all nodes have been available to receive tasks.
Sometimes, such as planned maintenance times, you need to set a node to DRAIN
availability. DRAIN
availability prevents a node from receiving new tasks
from the swarm manager. It also means the manager stops tasks running on the
node and launches replica tasks on a node with ACTIVE
availability.
Important: Setting a node to
DRAIN
does not remove standalone containers from that node, such as those created withdocker run
,docker-compose up
, or the Docker Engine API. A node’s status, includingDRAIN
, only affects the node’s ability to schedule swarm service workloads.
-
If you haven’t already, open a terminal and ssh into the machine where you run your manager node. For example, the tutorial uses a machine named
manager1
. -
Verify that all your nodes are actively available.
$ docker node ls ID HOSTNAME STATUS AVAILABILITY MANAGER STATUS 1bcef6utixb0l0ca7gxuivsj0 worker2 Ready Active 38ciaotwjuritcdtn9npbnkuz worker1 Ready Active e216jshn25ckzbvmwlnh5jr3g * manager1 Ready Active Leader
-
If you aren’t still running the
redis
service from the rolling update tutorial, start it now:$ docker service create --replicas 3 --name redis --update-delay 10s redis:3.0.6 c5uo6kdmzpon37mgj9mwglcfw
-
Run
docker service ps redis
to see how the swarm manager assigned the tasks to different nodes:$ docker service ps redis NAME IMAGE NODE DESIRED STATE CURRENT STATE redis.1.7q92v0nr1hcgts2amcjyqg3pq redis:3.0.6 manager1 Running Running 26 seconds redis.2.7h2l8h3q3wqy5f66hlv9ddmi6 redis:3.0.6 worker1 Running Running 26 seconds redis.3.9bg7cezvedmkgg6c8yzvbhwsd redis:3.0.6 worker2 Running Running 26 seconds
In this case the swarm manager distributed one task to each node. You may see the tasks distributed differently among the nodes in your environment.
-
Run
docker node update --availability drain <NODE-ID>
to drain a node that had a task assigned to it:docker node update --availability drain worker1 worker1
-
Inspect the node to check its availability:
$ docker node inspect --pretty worker1 ID: 38ciaotwjuritcdtn9npbnkuz Hostname: worker1 Status: State: Ready Availability: Drain ...snip...
The drained node shows
Drain
forAVAILABILITY
. -
Run
docker service ps redis
to see how the swarm manager updated the task assignments for theredis
service:$ docker service ps redis NAME IMAGE NODE DESIRED STATE CURRENT STATE ERROR redis.1.7q92v0nr1hcgts2amcjyqg3pq redis:3.0.6 manager1 Running Running 4 minutes redis.2.b4hovzed7id8irg1to42egue8 redis:3.0.6 worker2 Running Running About a minute \_ redis.2.7h2l8h3q3wqy5f66hlv9ddmi6 redis:3.0.6 worker1 Shutdown Shutdown 2 minutes ago redis.3.9bg7cezvedmkgg6c8yzvbhwsd redis:3.0.6 worker2 Running Running 4 minutes
The swarm manager maintains the desired state by ending the task on a node with
Drain
availability and creating a new task on a node withActive
availability. -
Run
docker node update --availability active <NODE-ID>
to return the drained node to an active state:$ docker node update --availability active worker1 worker1
-
Inspect the node to see the updated state:
$ docker node inspect --pretty worker1 ID: 38ciaotwjuritcdtn9npbnkuz Hostname: worker1 Status: State: Ready Availability: Active ...snip...
When you set the node back to
Active
availability, it can receive new tasks:- during a service update to scale up
- during a rolling update
- when you set another node to
Drain
availability - when a task fails on another active node
What’s next?
Learn how to use a swarm mode routing mesh.