Intentions - Connect HTTP API

The /connect/intentions endpoint provide tools for managing intentions.

Upsert Intention by Name

This endpoint creates a new intention and returns true if it was created successfully.

The name and destination pair must be unique. If another intention matches the name and destination, the creation will replace the previous intention.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention create -replace.

Query Parameters

• source (string: <required>) - Specifies the source service according to the source naming conventions.

• destination (string: <required>) - Specifies the destination service according to the destination naming conventions.

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the default namespace to use when source or destination query parameters do not include a namespace as shown in the source and destination naming conventions. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

JSON Request Body Schema

• SourceType (string: "") - The type for the SourceName value. This can be only "consul" today to represent a Consul service. If not provided, this will be defaulted to "consul".

• Action (string: "") - For an L4 intention this is required, and should be set to one of "allow" or "deny" for the action that should be taken if this intention matches a request.

  This should be omitted for an L7 intention as it is mutually exclusive with the Permissions field.

• Permissions (array<IntentionPermission>) - The list of all additional L7 attributes that extend the intention match criteria.

  Permission precedence is applied top to bottom. For any given request the first permission to match in the list is terminal and stops further evaluation. As with L4 intentions, traffic that fails to match any of the provided permissions in this intention will be subject to the default intention behavior is defined by the default ACL policy.

  This should be omitted for an L4 intention as it is mutually exclusive with the Action field.

• Description (string: "") - Description for the intention. This is not used by Consul, but is presented in API responses to assist tooling.

Sample Payload

{
  "SourceType": "consul",
  "Action": "allow"
}

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    --data @payload.json \
    "http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/exact?source=web&destination=db"

Sample Response

true

Create Intention with ID

This endpoint creates a new intention and returns its ID if it was created successfully.

The name and destination pair must be unique. If another intention matches the name and destination, the creation will fail. You must either update the existing intention or delete it prior to creating a new one.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention create.

Query Parameters

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the default namespace to use when SourceNS or DestinationNS request body parameters do not include a namespace as shown in the source and destination naming conventions. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

JSON Request Body Schema

• SourceName (string: <required>) - The source of the intention. For a SourceType of consul this is the name of a Consul service. The service does not need to be registered.

• SourceNS (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - The namespace for the SourceName parameter.

• DestinationName (string: <required>) - The destination of the intention. The intention destination is always a Consul service, unlike the source. The service does not need to be registered.

• DestinationNS (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - The namespace for the DestinationName parameter.

• SourceType (string: "") - The type for the SourceName value. This can be only "consul" today to represent a Consul service. If not provided, this will be defaulted to "consul".

• Action (string: <required>) - This is one of "allow" or "deny" for the action that should be taken if this intention matches a request.

• Description (string: "") - Description for the intention. This is not used by Consul, but is presented in API responses to assist tooling.

• Meta (map<string|string>: nil) - Specifies arbitrary KV metadata pairs.

Sample Payload

{
  "SourceName": "web",
  "DestinationName": "db",
  "SourceType": "consul",
  "Action": "allow"
}

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request POST \
    --data @payload.json \
    http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions

Sample Response

{
  "ID": "8f246b77-f3e1-ff88-5b48-8ec93abf3e05"
}

Update Intention by ID

This endpoint updates an intention with the given values.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

This endpoint supports the same parameters as the create an intention endpoint. Additional parameters unique to this endpoint include:

Path Parameters

• uuid (string: <required>) - Specifies the UUID of the intention to update.

Sample Payload

{
  "SourceName": "web",
  "DestinationName": "other-db",
  "SourceType": "consul",
  "Action": "allow"
}

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    --data @payload.json \
    http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/e9ebc19f-d481-42b1-4871-4d298d3acd5c

Read Specific Intention by Name

This endpoint reads a specific intention by its unique source and destination.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention get.

Query Parameters

• source (string: <required>) - Specifies the source service according to the source naming conventions.

• destination (string: <required>) - Specifies the destination service according to the destination naming conventions.

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the default namespace to use when source or destination query parameters do not include a namespace as shown in the source and destination naming conventions. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/exact?source=web&destination=db

Sample Response

{
  "Description": "",
  "SourceNS": "default",
  "SourceName": "web",
  "DestinationNS": "default",
  "DestinationName": "db",
  "SourceType": "consul",
  "Action": "allow",
  "Meta": {},
  "Precedence": 9,
  "CreateIndex": 11,
  "ModifyIndex": 11
}

Read Specific Intention by ID

This endpoint reads a specific intention.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention get.

Path Parameters

• uuid (string: <required>) - Specifies the UUID of the intention to read.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/e9ebc19f-d481-42b1-4871-4d298d3acd5c

Sample Response

{
  "ID": "e9ebc19f-d481-42b1-4871-4d298d3acd5c",
  "Description": "",
  "SourceNS": "default",
  "SourceName": "web",
  "DestinationNS": "default",
  "DestinationName": "db",
  "SourceType": "consul",
  "Action": "allow",
  "Meta": {},
  "Precedence": 9,
  "CreatedAt": "2018-05-21T16:41:27.977155457Z",
  "UpdatedAt": "2018-05-21T16:41:27.977157724Z",
  "CreateIndex": 11,
  "ModifyIndex": 11
}

List Intentions

This endpoint lists all intentions.

The HTTP response includes the X-Consul-Results-Filtered-By-ACLs: true header if the response array excludes results due to ACL policy configuration. Refer to the HTTP API documentation for more information.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention list.

Query Parameters

• filter (string: "") - Specifies the expression used to filter the queries results prior to returning the data.

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the namespace to list intentions from. The * wildcard may be used to list intentions from all namespaces. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    'http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions?filter=SourceName==web'

Sample Response

[
  {
    "Description": "",
    "SourceNS": "default",
    "SourceName": "web",
    "DestinationNS": "default",
    "DestinationName": "db",
    "SourceType": "consul",
    "Action": "allow",
    "Meta": {},
    "Precedence": 9,
    "CreateIndex": 11,
    "ModifyIndex": 11
  }
]

Filtering

The filter will be executed against each Intention in the result list with the following selectors and filter operations being supported:

Delete Intention by Name

This endpoint deletes a specific intention by its unique source and destination.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention delete.

Query Parameters

• source (string: <required>) - Specifies the source service according to the source naming conventions.

• destination (string: <required>) - Specifies the destination service according to the destination naming conventions.

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the default namespace to use when source or destination query parameters do not include a namespace as shown in the source and destination naming conventions. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request DELETE \
    http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/exact?source=web&destination=db

Delete Intention by ID

This endpoint deletes a specific intention.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention delete.

Path Parameters

• uuid (string: <required>) - Specifies the UUID of the intention to delete.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request DELETE \
    http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/e9ebc19f-d481-42b1-4871-4d298d3acd5c

Check Intention Result

This endpoint evaluates the intentions for a specific source and destination and returns whether the connection would be authorized or not given the current Consul configuration and set of intentions.

For performance and reliability reasons it is desirable to implement intention enforcement by listing intentions that match the destination and representing them in the native configuration of the proxy itself (such as RBAC for Envoy).

This endpoint will work even if the destination service has intention = "deny" specifically set, because the resulting API response does not contain any information about the intention itself.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention check.

Query Parameters

• source (string: <required>) - Specifies the source service according to the source naming conventions.

• destination (string: <required>) - Specifies the destination service according to the destination naming conventions.

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the default namespace to use when source or destination query parameters do not include a namespace as shown in the source and destination naming conventions. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    "http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/check?source=web&destination=db"

Sample Response

{
  "Allowed": true
}

• Allowed is true if the connection would be allowed, false otherwise.

List Matching Intentions

This endpoint lists the intentions that match a given source or destination. The intentions in the response are in evaluation order.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, agent caching, and required ACLs.

¹ Intention ACL rules are specified as part of a service rule. See Intention Management Permissions for more details.

The corresponding CLI command is consul intention match.

Query Parameters

• by (string: <required>) - Specifies whether to match the "name" value by "source" or "destination".

• name (string: <required>) - Specifies a name to match according to the source and destination naming conventions. You can repeat this parameter for batching multiple matches.

• ns (string: "") EnterpriseEnterprise - Specifies the default namespace to use when the name query parameter does not include a namespace as shown in the source and destination naming conventions. You can also specify the namespace through other methods.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    "http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/connect/intentions/match?by=source&name=web"

Sample Response

{
  "web": [
    {
      "Description": "",
      "SourceNS": "default",
      "SourceName": "web",
      "DestinationNS": "default",
      "DestinationName": "db",
      "SourceType": "consul",
      "Action": "deny",
      "Meta": {},
      "CreateIndex": 12,
      "ModifyIndex": 12
    },
    {
      "Description": "",
      "SourceNS": "default",
      "SourceName": "web",
      "DestinationNS": "default",
      "DestinationName": "*",
      "SourceType": "consul",
      "Action": "allow",
      "Meta": {},
      "CreateIndex": 11,
      "ModifyIndex": 11
    }
  ]
}

Methods to Specify Namespace EnterpriseEnterprise

Connect intention endpoints support several methods for specifying the namespace of intention resources with the following order of precedence:

1. ns query parameter
2. X-Consul-Namespace request header
3. Namespace is inherited from the namespace of the request's ACL token (if any)
4. The default namespace