Deploy Swarm-only mode

Swarm-only mode is an MKE configuration that supports only Swarm orchestration. Lacking Kubernetes and its operational and health-check dependencies, the resulting highly-stable application is smaller than a typical mixed-orchestration MKE installation.

You can only enable or disable Swarm-only mode at the time of MKE installation. MKE preserves the Swarm-only setting through upgrades, backups, and system restoration. Installing MKE in Swarm-only mode pulls only the images required to run MKE in this configuration. Refer to Swarm-only images for more information.

Note

Installing MKE in Swarm-only mode removes all Kubernetes options from the MKE web UI.

To install MKE in Swarm-only mode:

  1. Complete the steps and recommendations in Plan the deployment and Perform pre-deployment configuration.

  2. Add the --swarm-only flag to the install command in Install the MKE image:

    docker container run --rm -it --name ucp \
    -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
    mirantis/ucp:3.6.11 install \
    --host-address <node-ip-address> \
    --interactive \
    --swarm-only
    

Note

In addition, MKE includes the --swarm-only flag with the bootstrapper images command, which you can use to pull or to check the required images on manager nodes.

Caution

To restore Swarm-only clusters, invoke the ucp restore command with the --swarm-only option.