Sunday, August 31, 2014

Putting MySQL Cluster in a container

To get more familiar with docker and to create a test setup for MySQL Cluster I created docker images for the various components of MySQL Cluster (a.k.a. NDB Cluster)

At first I created a Fedora 20 container and ran all components in one container. That worked and is quite easy to setup. But that's not how one is supposed to use docker.

So I created Dockerfile's for all components and one base image.

The base image:
  • contains the MySQL Cluster software
  • has libaio installed
  • has a mysql user and group 
  • serves as a base for the other images
The management node (ndb_mgmd) image:
  • Has ndb_mgmd as entrypoint
  • Has a config.ini for the cluster config
  • Should be started with "--name=mymgm01"
The data node (ndbmtd) image:
  • Has ndbmtd as entrypoint
  • Uses the connect string: "host=${MGM01_PORT_1186_TCP_ADDR}:1186"
  • Should be started with "--link mymgm01:mgm01" to allow it to connect to the management node.
  • You should create 2 containers of this type to create a nodegroup of 2 nodes.
The API node (mysqld) image:
  • has a my.cnf
  • Runs mysqld_safe
  • Should be started with "--link mymgm01:mgm01" to allow it to connect to the management node.
  • The ndb-connectstring is given as parameter to mysqld_safe as it comes from an environment variable. It's not possible to use environment variables from within my.cnf. Docker is supposed to also update /etc/hosts but that didn't work for me.
  • You should expose port 3306 for your application
The management client (ndb_mgm) image:
  • Runs ndb_mgm as entrypoint
  • Should be started with "--link mymgm01:mgm01" to allow it to connect to the management node.
  • Running the ndb_mgm in a container removes the need to publish port 1186 on the management server. More info here.
  • You can override the entrypoint to run other NDB utilities like ndb_desc or ndb_select_all
The images can be found on https://registry.hub.docker.com/u/dveeden/mysqlcluster72/
The Dockerfiles can be found on https://github.com/dveeden/dve-docker  

Possible improvements
  • Use hostnames in the config.ini instead of IPv4 addresses. This makes it more dynamic. But that means updating /etc/hosts or fideling with DNS.
  • Using VOLUMES in the Dockerfiles to make working with data easier.

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