---
reviewers:
- davidopp
- madhusudancs
title: Configure Multiple Schedulers
content_template: templates/task
---

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Kubernetes ships with a default scheduler that is described [here](/docs/admin/kube-scheduler/).
If the default scheduler does not suit your needs you can implement your own scheduler.
Not just that, you can even run multiple schedulers simultaneously alongside the default
scheduler and instruct Kubernetes what scheduler to use for each of your pods. Let's
learn how to run multiple schedulers in Kubernetes with an example.

A detailed description of how to implement a scheduler is outside the scope of this
document. Please refer to the kube-scheduler implementation in
[pkg/scheduler](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes/tree/{{< param "githubbranch" >}}/pkg/scheduler)
in the Kubernetes source directory for a canonical example.

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{{< toc >}}

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{{< include "task-tutorial-prereqs.md" >}} {{< version-check >}}

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## Package the scheduler

Package your scheduler binary into a container image. For the purposes of this example,
let's just use the default scheduler (kube-scheduler) as our second scheduler as well.
Clone the [Kubernetes source code from Github](https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes)
and build the source.

```shell
git clone https://github.com/kubernetes/kubernetes.git
cd kubernetes
make
```

Create a container image containing the kube-scheduler binary. Here is the `Dockerfile`
to build the image:

```docker
FROM busybox
ADD ./_output/dockerized/bin/linux/amd64/kube-scheduler /usr/local/bin/kube-scheduler
```

Save the file as `Dockerfile`, build the image and push it to a registry. This example
pushes the image to
[Google Container Registry (GCR)](https://cloud.google.com/container-registry/).
For more details, please read the GCR
[documentation](https://cloud.google.com/container-registry/docs/).

```shell
docker build -t gcr.io/my-gcp-project/my-kube-scheduler:1.0 .
gcloud docker -- push gcr.io/my-gcp-project/my-kube-scheduler:1.0
```

## Define a Kubernetes Deployment for the scheduler

Now that we have our scheduler in a container image, we can just create a pod
config for it and run it in our Kubernetes cluster. But instead of creating a pod
directly in the cluster, let's use a [Deployment](/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/)
for this example. A [Deployment](/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/deployment/) manages a
[Replica Set](/docs/concepts/workloads/controllers/replicaset/) which in turn manages the pods,
thereby making the scheduler resilient to failures. Here is the deployment
config. Save it as `my-scheduler.yaml`:

{{< code file="my-scheduler.yaml" >}}

An important thing to note here is that the name of the scheduler specified as an
argument to the scheduler command in the container spec should be unique. This is the name that is matched against the value of the optional `spec.schedulerName` on pods, to determine whether this scheduler is responsible for scheduling a particular pod.

Note also that we created a dedicated service account `my-scheduler` and bind the cluster role
`system:kube-scheduler` to it so that it can acquire the same privileges as `kube-scheduler`.

Please see the
[kube-scheduler documentation](/docs/admin/kube-scheduler/) for
detailed description of other command line arguments.

## Run the second scheduler in the cluster

In order to run your scheduler in a Kubernetes cluster, just create the deployment
specified in the config above in a Kubernetes cluster:

```shell
kubectl create -f my-scheduler.yaml
```

Verify that the scheduler pod is running:

```shell
$ kubectl get pods --namespace=kube-system
NAME                                           READY     STATUS    RESTARTS   AGE
....
my-scheduler-lnf4s-4744f                       1/1       Running   0          2m
...
```

You should see a "Running" my-scheduler pod, in addition to the default kube-scheduler
pod in this list.

To run multiple-scheduler with leader election enabled, you must do the following:

First, update the following fields in your YAML file:

* `--leader-elect=true`
* `--lock-object-namespace=lock-object-namespace`
* `--lock-object-name=lock-object-name`

If RBAC is enabled on your cluster, you must update the `system:kube-scheduler` cluster role. Add you scheduler name to the resourceNames of the rule applied for endpoints resources, as in the following example:
```
$ kubectl edit clusterrole system:kube-scheduler
- apiVersion: rbac.authorization.k8s.io/v1
  kind: ClusterRole
  metadata:
    annotations:
      rbac.authorization.kubernetes.io/autoupdate: "true"
    labels:
      kubernetes.io/bootstrapping: rbac-defaults
    name: system:kube-scheduler
  rules:
  - apiGroups:
    - ""
    resourceNames:
    - kube-scheduler
    - my-scheduler
    resources:
    - endpoints
    verbs:
    - delete
    - get
    - patch
    - update
```

## Specify schedulers for pods

Now that our second scheduler is running, let's create some pods, and direct them to be scheduled by either the default scheduler or the one we just deployed. In order to schedule a given pod using a specific scheduler, we specify the name of the
scheduler in that pod spec. Let's look at three examples.


- Pod spec without any scheduler name

  {{< code file="pod1.yaml" >}}

  When no scheduler name is supplied, the pod is automatically scheduled using the
  default-scheduler.

  Save this file as `pod1.yaml` and submit it to the Kubernetes cluster.

```shell
kubectl create -f pod1.yaml
```

- Pod spec with `default-scheduler`

  {{< code file="pod2.yaml" >}}

  A scheduler is specified by supplying the scheduler name as a value to `spec.schedulerName`. In this case, we supply the name of the
  default scheduler which is `default-scheduler`.

  Save this file as `pod2.yaml` and submit it to the Kubernetes cluster.

```shell
kubectl create -f pod2.yaml
```

- Pod spec with `my-scheduler`

  {{< code file="pod3.yaml" >}}

  In this case, we specify that this pod should be scheduled using the scheduler that we
  deployed - `my-scheduler`. Note that the value of `spec.schedulerName` should match the name supplied to the scheduler
  command as an argument in the deployment config for the scheduler.

  Save this file as `pod3.yaml` and submit it to the Kubernetes cluster.

```shell
kubectl create -f pod3.yaml
```

  Verify that all three pods are running.

```shell
kubectl get pods
```

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### Verifying that the pods were scheduled using the desired schedulers

In order to make it easier to work through these examples, we did not verify that the
pods were actually scheduled using the desired schedulers. We can verify that by
changing the order of pod and deployment config submissions above. If we submit all the
pod configs to a Kubernetes cluster before submitting the scheduler deployment config,
we see that the pod `annotation-second-scheduler` remains in "Pending" state forever
while the other two pods get scheduled. Once we submit the scheduler deployment config
and our new scheduler starts running, the `annotation-second-scheduler` pod gets
scheduled as well.

Alternatively, one could just look at the "Scheduled" entries in the event logs to
verify that the pods were scheduled by the desired schedulers.

```shell
kubectl get events
```

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