Manage Targets

Targets are Boundary resources which contain one or more Host Sets. A target allows Boundary users to define an endpoint with a default port and a protocol to establish a session. Unless specified with a -host-id flag, Boundary will choose one Host in the host set to connect to at random.

In this section, we'll show you the basics of how to define a host, host set, and a target in Boundary on the CLI, the admin console, and using our Terraform provider.

We assume you're running Boundary in dev mode and have a default static host-catalog of hcst_1234567890. We also assume you've logged in on the command line and the admin console. See the output of boundary dev for these login values.

Note that all resource IDs in this example are illustration only - IDs are uniquely generated for every resource upon creation with the exception being generated resources in dev mode. Please make sure to use the resource IDs that are generated when running this example. For example, if you run boundary users create, use the resource ID of the user seen in stdout, not the ID in the example command.

Define a Host

For this example, we're going to create a target to access postgres on localhost. This assumes a couple of things:

The host address is 127.0.0.1
The target port is :5432

boundary hosts create static -name postgres -description "Postgres host" -address "127.0.0.1" -host-catalog-id "hcst_1234567890"

Host information:
  Created Time:        Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:12:39 PDT
  Description:         Postgres host
  Host Catalog ID:     hcst_1234567890
  ID:                  hst_N5l67hLYrQ
  Name:                postgres
  Type:                static
  Updated Time:        Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:12:39 PDT
  Version:             1

  Scope:
    ID:                p_1234567890
    Name:              Generated project scope
    Parent Scope ID:   o_1234567890
    Type:              project

  Attributes:
    address:           127.0.0.1

To define this same host using our Terraform provider:

resource "boundary_host" "postgres" {
  type            = "static"
  name            = "postgres"
  description     = "Postgres host"
  address         = "127.0.0.1"
  host_catalog_id = "hcst_1234567890"
}

Define a Host Set

Host sets allow us to group hosts providing equivalent services together. A target works off of host sets, so even though we are only defining one host in this example, we're going to create a host set of one host.

boundary host-sets create static -name "postgres" -description "Postgres host set" -host-catalog-id hcst_1234567890

Host Set information:
  Created Time:        Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:27:10 PDT
  Description:         Postgres host set
  Host Catalog ID:     hcst_1234567890
  ID:                  hsst_z7gDCPSig5
  Name:                postgres
  Type:                static
  Updated Time:        Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:27:10 PDT
  Version:             1

  Scope:
    ID:                p_1234567890
    Name:              Generated project scope
    Parent Scope ID:   o_1234567890
    Type:              project

Navigate to a host catalog, then to the Host Sets tab.
Choose Create Host Set from the Manage dropdown.
Fill host set details.
Choose Save and view the host set edit form page.

Then associate the host set with a host:

From the host set edit form, navigate to the Hosts tab.
Choose Add Existing Host from the Manage dropdown.
Select one or more hosts to associate with the host set.
Choose the Add Hosts button and view the hosts list.

To define this host set in Terraform:

resource "boundary_host_set" "postgres" {
  type            = "static"
  name            = "postgres"
  description     = "Host set for postgres"
  host_catalog_id = "hcst_1234567890"

  // taken from the Terraform example above
  host_ids = [ boundary_host.postgres.id ]
}

Define a Target

boundary targets create tcp -name 'postgres' -description 'Postgres target' -default-port 5432 -scope-id p_1234567890 -session-connection-limit '-1'

Target information:
  Created Time:               Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:43:12 PDT
  Description:                Postgres target
  ID:                         ttcp_CzVQA3adBf
  Name:                       postgres
  Session Connection Limit:   -1
  Session Max Seconds:        28800
  Type:                       tcp
  Updated Time:               Mon, 28 Sep 2020 18:43:12 PDT
  Version:                    1

  Scope:
    ID:                       p_1234567890
    Name:                     Generated project scope
    Parent Scope ID:          o_1234567890
    Type:                     project
  Attributes:
    Default Port:             5432

To define this target in Terraform:

resource "boundary_target" "postgres" {
  type                     = "tcp"
  name                     = "postgres"
  description              = "Postgres target"
  scope_id                 = "p_1234567890"
  session_connection_limit = -1
  default_port             = 5432

  // taken from the example above
  host_set_ids = [
    boundary_host_set.postgres.id
  ]
}