In this guide, you'll start a local Kubernetes cluster with Minikube. You will then deploy Consul with the official Helm chart. After deploying Consul, you will learn how to access the agents. You will then deploy two services that use Consul to discover each other and communicate over TLS via Consul Connect.
Security Warning This guide is not for production use. By default, the chart will install an insecure configuration of Consul. Please refer to the Kubernetes documentation to determine how you can secure Consul on Kubernetes in production. Additionally, it is highly recommended to use a properly secured Kubernetes cluster or make sure that you understand and enable the recommended security features.
Prerequisites
First, you'll need to follow the directions for installing Minikube, including VirtualBox or a similar virtualization tool.
You'll also need to install kubectl and helm.
MacOS users can install helm and kubectl with Homebrew.
$ brew install kubernetes-cli
$ brew install kubernetes-helm
Windows users can use Chocolatey with the same package names:
$ choco install kubernetes-cli
$ choco install kubernetes-helm
Start Minikube
Start Minikube with the optional --memory flag specifying the equivalent of 4-8GB of memory, so your pods will have plenty of resources to use. Starting Minikube may take several minutes. It will download a 100-300MB of dependencies and container images.
$ minikube start --memory 4096
Next, use the minikube dashboard command to launch the local Kubernetes dashboard in a browser. Even if the previous step completed successfully, you may have to wait a minute or two for Minikube to be available. If you see an error, try again after a few minutes.
$ minikube dashboard
Once it's available, you'll see the dashboard in your web browser. You can view pods, nodes, and other resources.
Install Consul with the official Helm chart
Tip: You can deploy a complete Consul datacenter using the official Helm chart. By default, the chart will install a three-server Consul datacenter on Kubernetes, with a Consul client on each Kubernetes node. You can review the official Helm chart values to learn more about the default settings.
Download the demo code and Helm chart
First, download the official Helm chart. To get the latest copy of the Helm chart, clone the hashicorp/consul-helm repository.
$ git clone https://github.com/hashicorp/consul-helm.git
If using Helm 2, you will need to initialize it. If using Helm 3, skip to the next step.
$ helm init
HELM_HOME has been configured at /Users/kaitlincarter/.helm.
Happy Helming!
Create a custom values file
The chart comes with reasonable defaults, however, you will override a few values to help things go more smoothly with Minikube and enable useful features.
Create a custom values file called helm-consul-values.yaml with the following contents. Name the Consul datacenter and then enable the following:
- Consul UI via a
NodePort - secure communication between pods with
connectInject
Finally, you'll configure your deployment to only have one Consul server (suitable for local development).
# Choose an optional name for the datacenter
global:
datacenter: minidc
# Enable the Consul Web UI via a NodePort
ui:
service:
type: 'NodePort'
# Enable Connect for secure communication between nodes
connectInject:
enabled: true
client:
enabled: true
# Use only one Consul server for local development
server:
replicas: 1
bootstrapExpect: 1
disruptionBudget:
enabled: true
maxUnavailable: 0
Deploy Consul on Minikube
Now, run helm install, providing your custom values file, the cloned consul-helm chart, and a name for your Consul installation. It will print a list of all the resources that were created.
$ helm install -f helm-consul-values.yaml hashicorp ./consul-helm
NAME: hashicorp
LAST DEPLOYED: Wed Nov 13 09:47:39 2019
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: DEPLOYED
RESOURCES:
==> v1/DaemonSet
NAME AGE
hashicorp-consul 0s
==> v1/StatefulSet
hashicorp-consul-server 0s
==> v1/Pod(related)
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
hashicorp-consul-fqzsz 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 0s
hashicorp-consul-connect-injector-webhook-deployment-5c7d4pvh5h 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 0s
==> v1/Service
hashicorp-consul-connect-injector-svc 0s
hashicorp-consul-dns 0s
hashicorp-consul-server 0s
hashicorp-consul-ui 0s
If using Helm 2, run helm install -f helm-consul-values.yaml --name hashicorp ./consul-helm.
Access the Consul UI
Verify Consul was deploy properly by accessing the Consul UI. Run minikube service list to see your services. Find the one with consul-ui in the name.
$ minikube service list
|-------------|----------------------------------------|-----------------------------|
| NAMESPACE | NAME | URL |
|-------------|----------------------------------------|-----------------------------|
| default | hashicorp-consul-server | No node port |
| default | hashicorp-consul-ui | http://192.168.99.100:31376 |
| default | kubernetes | No node port |
| kube-system | kube-dns | No node port |
| kube-system | kubernetes-dashboard | No node port |
| kube-system | tiller-deploy | No node port |
|-------------|----------------------------------------|-----------------------------|
Run minikube service with the consul-ui service name as the argument. It will open the service in your web browser.
$ minikube service hashicorp-consul-ui
You can now view the Consul UI with a list of Consul's services, nodes, and other resources. Currently, you should only see the consul service listed.
Access Consul with kubectl and the HTTP API
In addition to accessing Consul with the UI, you can manage Consul with the
HTTP API or by directly connecting to the pod with kubectl.
Use Kubectl to access the server
To access the pod and data directory you can exec into the pod with kubectl to start a shell session.
First, get a list of all the Kubernetes pods.
$ kubectl get pods
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
hashicorp-consul-connect-injector-webhook-deployment-5c7d4pvh5h 1/1 Running 0 2m40s
hashicorp-consul-fqzsz 1/1 Running 0 2m40s
hashicorp-consul-server-0 1/1 Running 0 2m39s
Next, connect to the server using kubectl exec.
$ kubectl exec -it hashicorp-consul-server-0 /bin/sh
/ #
This will allow you to navigate the file system and run Consul CLI commands on the pod. For example you can view the Consul version and member list.
/ # consul version
Consul v1.6.1
Protocol 2 spoken by default, understands 2 to 3 (agent will automatically use protocol >2 when speaking to compatible agents)
/ # consul members
Node Address Status Type Build Protocol DC Segment
hashicorp-consul-server-0 172.17.0.8:8301 alive server 1.6.1 2 kaitlin <all>
minikube 172.17.0.2:8301 alive client 1.6.1 2 kaitlin <default>
/ # exit
Consul HTTP API
You can use the Consul HTTP API by communicating with the local agent running on the Kubernetes node. Read the documentation to learn more about using the Consul HTTP API with Kubernetes.
Deploy services with Kubernetes
Because you enabled the Connect injector in your values.yaml file, all the services using Connect will automatically be registered in the Consul catalog.
Deploy two services
Now you can deploy your services as a two-tier application made of a backend data service that returns a number (the counting service) and a frontend dashboard that pulls from the counting service over HTTP and displays the number.
Create a pod definition for the counting service named counting.yaml.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: counting
spec:
containers:
- name: counting
image: hashicorp/counting-service:0.0.2
ports:
- containerPort: 9001
name: http
Next, create a pod definition for the dashboard service and its load balancer named dashboard.yaml.
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
name: dashboard
labels:
app: "dashboard"
annotations:
"consul.hashicorp.com/connect-service-upstreams": "counting:9001"
spec:
containers:
- name: dashboard
image: hashicorp/dashboard-service:0.0.4
ports:
- containerPort: 9002
name: http
env:
- name: COUNTING_SERVICE_URL
value: "http://localhost:9001"
---
apiVersion: "v1"
kind: "Service"
metadata:
name: "dashboard-service-load-balancer"
namespace: "default"
labels:
app: "dashboard"
spec:
ports:
- protocol: "TCP"
port: 80
targetPort: 9002
selector:
app: "dashboard"
type: "LoadBalancer"
loadBalancerIP: ""
Use kubectl to deploy both services.
$ kubectl create -f counting.yaml
pod/counting created
$ kubectl create -f dashboard.yaml
pod/dashboard created
service/dashboard-service-load-balancer created
To verify the services were deployed, refresh the Consul UI until you see that the counting and dashboard services and their proxies are running.
View the dashboard
To view the dashboard, forward the pod's port where the dashboard service is running to your local machine on the same port by providing the pod name (dashboard), which you specified in the service definition YAML file.
$ kubectl port-forward dashboard 9002:9002
Forwarding from 127.0.0.1:9002 -> 9002
Forwarding from [::1]:9002 -> 9002
Visit http://localhost:9002 in your web browser. It will display the dashboard service running in a Kubernetes pod, with a number retrieved from the counting service using Consul service discovery, and transmitted securely over the network with mutual TLS via an Envoy proxy.
Secure service communication with Consul Connect
Consul Connect secures service-to-service communication with authorization and encryption. Applications can use sidecar proxies to automatically establish mutual TLS connections for inbound and outbound network traffic without being aware of Connect at all.
Connect "intentions" provide you the ability to control which services are allowed to communicate. Next, you will use intentions to test the communication between the dashboard and counting services.
Create an intention that denies communication
Connect to the Consul server using kubectl. Then use
the Consul CLI to create an intention to prevent the dashboard service from reaching its upstream counting service using the -deny flag.
$ kubectl exec -it hashicorp-consul-server-0 /bin/sh
/ # consul intention create -deny dashboard counting
Created: dashboard => counting (deny)
Verify the services are no longer allowed to communicate by returning to the dashboard UI. The service will display a message that the "Counting Service is Unreachable" and the count will display as "-1".
You can use consul intention create to create "deny" and "allow" rules.
Allow the Application Dashboard to Connect to the Counting Service
Finally, remove the intention so that the services can communicate again.
/ # consul intention delete dashboard counting
Intention deleted.
These action does not require a reboot. It takes effect so quickly that by the time you visit the application dashboard, you'll see that it's successfully communicating with the backend counting service again.
Extend your knowledge
Rolling updates to Consul
While running Consul you may want to make configuration and deployment updates. You can use
helm upgrade to increase the number of agents, enable additional features, or upgrade the Consul version. You can practice using helm upgrade by updating your custom values file to enable catalogSync.
syncCatalog:
enabled: true
The catalog sync feature allows Consul to discover services deployed in Kubernetes, without an operator creating Consul registration files. With catalog sync and Connect inject enabled, you will no longer need to manually register services when they are hosted on a Kubernetes node.
Initiate the
upgrade
with the -f flag that passes in your new values file.
$ helm upgrade hashicorp -f demo-consul-101/k8s/helm-consul-values.yaml ./consul-helm
Release "hashicorp" has been upgraded. Happy Helming!
LAST DEPLOYED: Wed Nov 13 10:07:29 2019
NAMESPACE: default
STATUS: DEPLOYED
RESOURCES:
==> v1/Service
hashicorp-consul-connect-injector-svc 19m
hashicorp-consul-dns 19m
hashicorp-consul-server 19m
hashicorp-consul-ui 19m
==> v1/Deployment
hashicorp-consul-connect-injector-webhook-deployment 19m
hashicorp-consul-sync-catalog 0s
==> v1/Pod(related)
NAME READY STATUS RESTARTS AGE
hashicorp-consul-fqzsz 1/1 Running 0 19m
hashicorp-consul-connect-injector-webhook-deployment-5c7d4pvh5h 1/1 Running 0 19m
hashicorp-consul-sync-catalog-769c859849-fnmh8 0/1 ContainerCreating 0 0s
hashicorp-consul-server-0
Notice you can now see the basic Kubernetes services in the Consul UI.
Summary
To Learn more about deploying Consul on a full Kubernetes cluster, review the production deployment guide.