This guide outlines the process for deploying a functional single-node Apache Mesos cluster using Docker containers. The architecture consists of four primary components: a ZooKeeper instance for coordination, a Mesos Master for resource management, a Marathon framework for orchestration, and a Mesos Agent to execute tasks.

Prerequisites

Insure a Docker daemon is runing on the host machine. Obtain the IP address of the Docker host, as it is required for inter-container communication.

export DOCKER_HOST_IP=192.168.1.50

Step 1: Deploy ZooKeeper

Start the ZooKeeper container to handle leader election and cluster state coordination.

docker run -d \
  --name zk_cluster \
  -p 2181:2181 \
  -p 2888:2888 \
  -p 3888:3888 \
  zookeeper:3.6

Step 2: Launch Mesos Master

Run the Mesos Master container. The --net=host flag is recommended to simplify network addressing, ensuring the master advertises the correct host IP.

docker run -d \
  --name mesos_master \
  --net host \
  -e MESOS_HOSTNAME=${DOCKER_HOST_IP} \
  -e MESOS_IP=${DOCKER_HOST_IP} \
  -e MESOS_ZK=zk://${DOCKER_HOST_IP}:2181/mesos \
  -e MESOS_PORT=5050 \
  -e MESOS_LOG_DIR=/var/log/mesos \
  -e MESOS_QUORUM=1 \
  -e MESOS_REGISTRY=in_memory \
  -e MESOS_WORK_DIR=/var/lib/mesos \
  mesosphere/mesos-master:latest

Step 3: Launch Marathon

Deploy the Marathon framework, which serves as the container orchestration layer for long-running services. It connects to ZooKeeper to discover the Mesos Master.

docker run -d \
  --name marathon_service \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  mesosphere/marathon:latest \
  --master zk://${DOCKER_HOST_IP}:2181/mesos \
  --zk zk://${DOCKER_HOST_IP}:2181/marathon

Step 4: Launch Mesos Agent

Start the Mesos Agent (formerly slave) to register with the master and offer resources for task execution.

docker run -d \
  --name mesos_agent \
  --net host \
  -e MESOS_HOSTNAME=${DOCKER_HOST_IP} \
  -e MESOS_IP=${DOCKER_HOST_IP} \
  -e MESOS_MASTER=zk://${DOCKER_HOST_IP}:2181/mesos \
  -e MESOS_LOG_DIR=/var/log/mesos \
  -e MESOS_CONTAINERIZERS=docker,mesos \
  -e MESOS_WORK_DIR=/var/lib/mesos \
  mesosphere/mesos-slave:latest

Step 5: Verify Cluster Status

Open a browser and navigate to the Mesos Web UI to confirm the master is active and the agent has registered.

http://${DOCKER_HOST_IP}:5050

Step 6: Deploy a Test Application

Access the Marathon UI to schedule a test task.

http://${DOCKER_HOST_IP}:8080

Create a new application via the UI. Configure the command field to generate output periodically, for instance: while true; do echo "Test Message" >> /tmp/test_output.log; sleep 2; done.

Step 7: Validate Task Execution

Connect to the Mesos Agent container to verify the application is writing to the log file.

docker exec -it mesos_agent /bin/bash
tail -f /tmp/test_output.log