Guides - Deploy HashiCorp Nomad Cluster through the Linode Marketplace

HashiCorp Nomad is a workload scheduler and orchestrator that allows you to deploy and manage containerized or non-containerized, legacy applications using a single, unified workflow. Nomad uses bin packaging for efficient job scheduling and resource optimization, as well as enables developers to use declarative infrastructure-as-code for their deployments.

Deploying a Marketplace App

The Linode Marketplace allows you to easily deploy software on a Compute Instance using the Cloud Manager. See Get Started with Marketplace Apps for complete steps.

1. Log in to the Cloud Manager and select the Marketplace link from the left navigation menu. This displays the Linode Create page with the Marketplace tab pre-selected.

2. Under the Select App section, select the app you would like to deploy.

3. Complete the form by following the steps and advice within the Creating a Compute Instance guide. Depending on the Marketplace App you selected, there may be additional configuration options available. See the Configuration Options section below for compatible distributions, recommended plans, and any additional configuration options available for this Marketplace App.

4. Click the Create Linode button. Once the Compute Instance has been provisioned and has fully powered on, wait for the software installation to complete. If the instance is powered off or restarted before this time, the software installation will likely fail.

To verify that the app has been fully installed, see Get Started with Marketplace Apps > Verify Installation. Once installed, follow the instructions within the Getting Started After Deployment section to access the application and start using it.

Configuration Options

• Supported distributions: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS
• Recommended plan: We recommend 8GB Dedicated CPU or 8GB Shared CPU instances for the Nomad Cluster.

Nomad Cluster Options

• Linode API Token (required): Your API token is used to deploy additional Compute Instances as part of this cluster. At a minimum, this token must have Read/Write access to Linodes. If you do not yet have an API token, see Get an API Access Token to create one.

• Limited sudo user (required): A limited user account with sudo access is created as part of this cluster deployment. Enter your preferred username for this limited user. Please note that the sudo password is automatically created and stored in the ~/.deployment_secrets.txt file. See Accessing the Nomad Web UI below.

• Email Address (required): A valid SOA email address for auto-generated LetsEncrypt SSL.

• Add SSH Keys to all nodes? If you select yes, any SSH Keys that are added to the root user account (in the SSH Keys section), are also added to your limited user account on all deployed Compute Instances.

• Total Instance Count: The Nomad Cluster will deploy 6 Compute Instances.

  Servers	Clients	Total Instances
  3	3	6

• Nomad Server Count: The Nomad Cluster will deploy 3 Nomad servers.

• Nomad Client Count: The Nomad Cluster will deploy 3 Nomad clients.

  Note

  See Hashicorp’s Nomad Architecture documentation for more about how clients and servers function within the Nomad Cluster.

Getting Started after Deployment

Accessing the Nomad Web UI

1. Use SSH to connect as the created sudo user of the initially deployed instance, labeled occ-server-1.

2. Once logged in as your sudo user, view the contents of the file ~/.deployment-secrets.txt.

   cat ~/.deployment-secrets.txt`

   In this file, there are multiple generated tokens, as well as your limited sudo user password. These tokens are used for authenticating to the Nomad Web UI, adding Nomad clients to the cluster, managing jobs, and managing the Consul service mesh. Save the contents of this file somewhere secure as you will need the tokens later.

3. Open your web browser and navigate to http://[rDNS], where [rDNS] is the reverse DNS address of your Compute Instance labeled server-1. See our How to Configure rDNS guide for more information about viewing and editing rDNS.

4. The Nomad Web UI should be displayed with a link to enter a token. Click the token link, and enter the nomad_user_token from the ~/.deployment-secrets.txt file (see above) to authenticate to the UI.

5. Once your token is authenticated, you can manage your cluster, jobs, integrations, and ACL tokens.

   Note

   HashiCorp recommends using mutual TLS (mTLS) with a private CA to secure cluster communications and the web UI. Please see the following HashiCorp documentation for more details:

   • Enable TLS Encryption for Nomad
   • Nomad Configuration: tls Block

Next Steps

The HashiCorp Nomad Cluster provides default configurations to get you started. We recommend reviewing HashiCorp’s Configuration and Job Spec documentation to customize your Nomad Cluster for your specific workload.

If you find that you need additional Clients for your Nomad Cluster, the Nomad Clients Cluster deployment allows you to scale horizontally by deploying 3, 5, or 7 additional Compute Instances as Clients.