Consul Documentation

Consul is a multi-networking tool that offers a fully-featured service mesh solution. It solves the networking and security challenges of operating microservices and cloud infrastructure in multi-cloud and hybrid cloud environments. This documentation describes Consul concepts, the problems it solves, and contains quick-start tutorials for using Consul.

• API

• CLI

Use cases

Service mesh

Consul service mesh provides service-to-service connection authorization and encryption using mutual transport layer security (TLS).

• Register mesh services

  Define and register services with Consul and associate them with health checks.

• Configure mesh behavior

  The exported services configuration entry enables you to export services from a single file.

• Manage mesh traffic

  Gateways provide connectivity into, out of, and between Consul service meshes.

• Control ingress traffic

  Deploy a Consul API gateway to manage north-south network traffic .

Kubernetes

Consul has many integrations with Kubernetes. You can deploy Consul to Kubernetes using the Helm chart or Consul K8s CLI, sync services between Consul and Kubernetes, run Consul service mesh, and more.

• Install Consul on Kubernetes

  Consul runs directly on Kubernetes to support pure K8s workloads. You can also join workloads to Consul servers outside of Kubernetes to support mixed environments.

• Simplify service mesh on Kubernetes with Consul Dataplane

  Consul Dataplane manages proxies but leaves responsibility for other functions to the orchestrator, removing the need to run client agents on every node.

• Connect services deployed to multiple Kubernetes clusters

  Install and federate Consul on multiple Kubernetes clusters.

• Sync Kubernetes and Consul services

  Automatically sync your Kubernetes and Consul services to seamlessly secure communications between your Kubernetes and Consul services.

Network infrastructure automation

Consul-Terraform-Sync (CTS) enables dynamic updates to network infrastructure devices triggered by service changes.

• Install and configure the CTS

  Install the CTS binary.

• Define dynamic updates

  Configure CTS Tasks to automatically update network infrastructure when your Consul services change.

• Create a Terraform module

  Automatically execute Terraform modules for network infrastructure automation with CTS.

Platforms

Consul integrates with several platforms and products. Learn more about Consul integrations and how to enable them.

• Nomad

  Use Consul service mesh with Nomad to provide secure service to service communication between Nomad jobs.

• Vault

  Use Consul with Vault to manage and sign certificates. The Vault CA provider uses the Vault PKI secrets engine to generate and sign certificates.

• AWS ECS

  Deploy Consul service mesh on AWS ECS (Elastic Container Service).

• AWS Lambda

  Integrate AWS Lambda with Consul services by registering Lambda functions as Consul services and invoking them from your service mesh.

Developers

• Envoy integration

• HTTP API structure

• Download Consul tools

• GitHub samples