Multi-DC Swarm Dataplane

This example splits control-plane and dataplane responsibilities across machines:

• Controller host runs examples/multi-dc/controller-standalone.yml.
• Swarm manager and workers run dataplane tasks from examples/multi-dc/dataplane-swarm.yml.

Use this when controller/database should stay on a dedicated instance and dataplane nodes should be scheduled across multiple DC VMs.

If you also want to run external HTTP traffic across this swarm dataplane, continue with Swarm curl Client/Server Over Nextmini after dataplane services are stable.

Prerequisites

You need:

• One controller/database host.
• One swarm manager host.
• One or more swarm worker hosts.
• Docker installed on all hosts.

examples/multi-dc/dataplane-swarm.yml expects the controller endpoint through CONTROLLER_HOST, so keep the controller host reachable from manager and workers on TCP 3000.

Deployment order

1. Controller host: build and start controller + Postgres

On the controller host:

cd /path/to/nextmini/examples/multi-dc
docker build -t nextmini_controller -f ../../controller/Dockerfile ../../
docker pull postgres:alpine

Before launch, make sure controller-config.toml matches your intended node count. By default it is n_nodes = 15.

rg 'full_mesh_config' controller-config.toml

Start the control-plane services:

docker compose -f controller-standalone.yml up -d

2. Manager and workers: build dataplane image

On every swarm node (manager and workers):

cd /path/to/nextmini/examples/multi-dc
docker build -t nextmini_datapath -f ../../dataplane/Dockerfile ../../

3. Initialize swarm and join workers

On the manager:

docker swarm init --advertise-addr <MANAGER_IP>

On each worker, run the join command printed by the manager:

docker swarm join --token <WORKER_TOKEN> <MANAGER_IP>:2377

Verify from the manager:

docker node ls

4. Manager: generate deploy file with controller address

dataplane-swarm.yml uses REPLACE_WITH_MANAGER_IP as a placeholder for CONTROLLER_HOST. Replace it with the real controller host IP and create a deploy file:

cd /path/to/nextmini/examples/multi-dc
CONTROLLER_IP=<CONTROLLER_PUBLIC_OR_PRIVATE_IP>
sed "s/REPLACE_WITH_MANAGER_IP/${CONTROLLER_IP}/g" dataplane-swarm.yml > dataplane-deploy.yml

Deploy dataplane services from the manager:

docker stack deploy -c dataplane-deploy.yml nextmini

Verify

On the controller host:

cd /path/to/nextmini/examples/multi-dc
docker compose -f controller-standalone.yml ps
docker compose -f controller-standalone.yml logs --tail 100 controller

On the manager:

docker service ls
docker service ps nextmini_dataplane
docker service logs --tail 100 nextmini_dataplane

If you run external traffic tests later (for example swarm-curl), verify dataplane services are stable first and only then insert routes.

Tear down

On the manager:

docker stack rm nextmini

On the controller host:

cd /path/to/nextmini/examples/multi-dc
docker compose -f controller-standalone.yml down

Optional: if you are done with this cluster, leave swarm mode on workers and manager:

docker swarm leave -f