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Consul Watch

Command: consul watch

The watch command provides a mechanism to watch for changes in a particular data view (list of nodes, service members, key value, etc) and to invoke a process with the latest values of the view. If no process is specified, the current values are dumped to STDOUT which can be a useful way to inspect data in Consul.

There is more documentation on watches here.

Usage

Usage: consul watch [options] [child...]

The only required option is -type which specifies the particular data view. Depending on the type, various options may be required or optionally provided. There is more documentation on watch specifications here.

Command Options

  • -key - Key to watch. Only for key type.

  • -name- Event name to watch. Only for event type.

  • -passingonly=[true|false] - Should only passing entries be returned. Defaults to false and only applies for service type.

  • -prefix - Key prefix to watch. Only for keyprefix type.

  • -service - Service to watch. Required for service type, optional for checks type.

  • -shell - Optional, use a shell to run the command (can set a custom shell via the SHELL environment variable). The default value is true.

  • -state - Check state to filter on. Optional for checks type.

  • -tag - Service tag to filter on. Optional for service type.

  • -type - Watch type. Required, one of "key, keyprefix, services, nodes, service, checks, or event.

  • -filter=<filter> - Expression to use for filtering the results. Optional for checks nodes, services, and service type. See the /catalog/nodes API documentation for a description of what is filterable.

API Options

  • -ca-file=<value> - Path to a CA file to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CACERT environment variable.

  • -ca-path=<value> - Path to a directory of CA certificates to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CAPATH environment variable.

  • -client-cert=<value> - Path to a client cert file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT environment variable.

  • -client-key=<value> - Path to a client key file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY environment variable.

  • -http-addr=<addr> - Address of the Consul agent with the port. This can be an IP address or DNS address, but it must include the port. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR environment variable. In Consul 0.8 and later, the default value is http://127.0.0.1:8500, and https can optionally be used instead. The scheme can also be set to HTTPS by setting the environment variable CONSUL_HTTP_SSL=true. This may be a unix domain socket using unix:///path/to/socket if the agent is configured to listen that way.

  • -tls-server-name=<value> - The server name to use as the SNI host when connecting via TLS. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_TLS_SERVER_NAME environment variable.

  • -token=<value> - ACL token to use in the request. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. If unspecified, the query will default to the token of the Consul agent at the HTTP address.

  • -token-file=<value> - File containing the ACL token to use in the request instead of one specified via the -token argument or CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN_FILE environment variable.

  • -datacenter=<name> - Name of the datacenter to query. If unspecified, the query will default to the datacenter of the Consul agent at the HTTP address.

  • -stale - Permit any Consul server (non-leader) to respond to this request. This allows for lower latency and higher throughput, but can result in stale data. This option has no effect on non-read operations. The default value is false.