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Consul Login

Command: consul login

Corresponding HTTP API Endpoint: [POST] /v1/acl/login

The login command will exchange the provided third party credentials with the requested auth method for a newly minted Consul ACL token. The companion command consul logout should be used to destroy any tokens created this way to avoid a resource leak.

The table below shows this command's required ACLs. Configuration of blocking queries and agent caching are not supported from commands, but may be from the corresponding HTTP endpoint.

ACL Required
none

Usage

Usage: consul login [options]

Command Options

  • -bearer-token-file=<string> - Path to a file containing a secret bearer token to use with this auth method.

  • -meta=<value> - Metadata to set on the token, formatted as key=value. This flag may be specified multiple times to set multiple meta fields.

  • -method=<string> - Name of the auth method to login to.

  • -token-sink-file=<string> - The most recent token's SecretID is kept up to date in this file.

  • -type=<string> - Type of the auth method to login to. This field is optional and defaults to no type. Required for type=oidc auth method login. Added in Consul 1.8.0.

Enterprise Options

  • -namespace=<string> - Specifies the namespace to query. If not provided, the namespace will be inferred from the request's ACL token, or will default to the default namespace. Namespaces are a Consul Enterprise feature added in v1.7.0.

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.

Examples

Login to an auth method.

$ consul login -method 'minikube' \
    -bearer-token-file '/run/secrets/kubernetes.io/serviceaccount/token' \
    -token-sink-file 'consul.token'

$ cat consul.token
36103ae4-6731-e719-f53a-d35188cfa41d