Deploy Consul on Minikube

Install Consul onto the kind cluster with consul-k8s. Confirm the installation with a y when prompted.

$ consul-k8s install -config-file=values.yaml -set global.image=hashicorp/consul:1.14.0
## ...
Proceed with installation? (y/N) y

Review the official Consul K8S CLI documentation to learn more about additional settings.

Install Consul onto the kind cluster with Helm. Confirm the installation with a y when prompted.

$ helm install --values values.yaml consul hashicorp/consul --create-namespace --namespace consul --version "1.0.0"

Review the official Helm chart values to learn more about the default settings.

Open a separate terminal window and expose the Consul server with kubectl port-forward using the consul-ui service name as the target.

$ kubectl port-forward svc/consul-ui --namespace consul 8501:443

In your original terminal, run the CLI command consul catalog services to return the list of services registered in Consul. Notice this returns only the consul service since it is the only running service in your Consul cluster.

$ consul catalog services
consul

Agents run in either server or client mode. Server agents store all state information, including service and node IP addresses, health checks, and configuration. Client agents are lightweight processes that make up the majority of the datacenter. They report service health status to the server agents. Clients must run on every pod where services are running.

Run the CLI command consul members to return the list of Consul agents in your environment.

$ consul members
Node                Address           Status  Type    Build   Protocol  DC   Partition  Segment
consul-server-0     10.244.0.12:8301  alive   server  1.14.0  2         dc1  default    <all>

Output the token value to your terminal and copy the value to your clipboard. You will use this ACL token to authenticate in the Consul UI.

$ echo $CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN
fe0dd5c3-f2e1-81e8-cde8-49d26cee5efc

Open a separate terminal window and expose the Consul UI with kubectl port-forward using the consul-ui service name as the target.

$ kubectl port-forward svc/consul-ui --namespace consul 8501:443

Open https://localhost:8501 in your browser to find the Consul UI. Since this environment uses a self-signed TLS certificate for its resources, click to proceed through the certificate warnings.

On the left navigation pane, click Services to review your deployed services. At this time, you will only find the consul service.

By default, the anonymous ACL policy allows you to view the contents of Consul services, nodes, and intentions. To make changes and see more details within the Consul UI, click Log In in the top right and insert your bootstrap ACL token.

After successfully authenticating with your ACL token, you are now able to view additional Consul components and make changes in the UI. Notice you can view and manage more options under the Access Controls section on the left navigation pane.

On the left navigation pane, click on Nodes.

Agents run in either server or client mode. Server agents store all state information, including service and node IP addresses, health checks, and configuration. Client agents are lightweight processes that make up the majority of the datacenter. They report service health status to the server agents. Clients must run on every pod where services are running.

Open a separate terminal window and expose the Consul server with kubectl port-forward using the consul-ui service name as the target.

$ kubectl port-forward svc/consul-ui --namespace consul 8501:443

In your original terminal, view the list of services registered in Consul.

$ curl -k \
    --header "X-Consul-Token: $CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN" \
    $CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR/v1/catalog/services

Sample output:

{"consul":[]}

Agents run in either server or client mode. Server agents store all state information, including service and node IP addresses, health checks, and configuration. Client agents are lightweight processes that make up the majority of the datacenter. They report service health status to the server agents. Clients must run on every pod where services are running.

View the list of server and client Consul agents in your environment.

$ curl -k \
    --header "X-Consul-Token: $CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN" \
    $CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR/v1/agent/members\?pretty

Sample output:

[
    {
        "Name": "consul-server-0",
        "Addr": "10.244.0.13",
        "Port": 8301,
        "Tags": {
            "acls": "1",
            "bootstrap": "1",
            "build": "1.14.0",
            "dc": "dc1",
            "ft_fs": "1",
            "ft_si": "1",
            "grpc_port": "8502",
            "id": "8016fc4d-767f-8552-b018-0812228bd135",
            "port": "8300",
            "raft_vsn": "3",
            "role": "consul",
            "segment": "",
            "use_tls": "1",
            "vsn": "2",
            "vsn_max": "3",
            "vsn_min": "2",
            "wan_join_port": "8302"
        },
        "Status": 1,
        "ProtocolMin": 1,
        "ProtocolMax": 5,
        "ProtocolCur": 2,
        "DelegateMin": 2,
        "DelegateMax": 5,
        "DelegateCur": 4
    }
]