Consul on virtual machines (VMs)

This topic describes the processes to operate Consul and use it for service networking on virtual machines.

Overview

Consul supports service networking for application workloads on multiple runtimes and cloud providers, including bare-metal servers and virtual machines. Although workflows to use Consul are similar across runtimes, some processes have distinct system requirements or a specific sequence of actions you must follow when Consul runs on virtual machines.

Consul operations on virtual machines

The following topics describe unique user actions, workflows, and goals related to installing Consul and operating it as a long-running daemon on multiple nodes in a network.

• Deploy Consul on VMs
• Upgrade Consul on VMs

Service networking on virtual machines

The following topics describe unique user actions, workflows, and goals related to Consul's service discovery and service mesh operations.

• Register services on VMs
• Discover services on VMs
• Connect service mesh workloads on VMs
• Secure north/south network access on VMs
• Link networks east/west across regions, providers, and runtimes
• Secure service mesh traffic on VMs
• Manage service traffic on VMs
• Observe service mesh telemetry on VMs

Guidance

To learn more about the system architecture and requirements when operating Consul on VMs, refer to the following topics.

• Control plane architecture describes the underlying infrastructure and communication protocols Consul uses.
• Architectural requirements reference documentation includes:
  • Server resource requirements
  • Required ports
  • Capacity planning and hardware requirements
• VM production patterns contains four guides to help you prepare a Consul deployment for production environments.
  • Consul reference architecture.
  • Consul security considerations
  • Deployment guide
  • Production readiness checklist

Tutorials

The following tutorials provide additional guidance to help you learn how to use Consul on VMs.

• Get Started on VMs is a collection of five tutorials that demonstrate common operations and workflows. These tutorials include a sample code repository so that you can follow along on AWS, Azure, GCP, or using a hosted terminal session.
  • Deploy Consul on VMs
  • Register your services to Consul
  • Securely connect your services with Consul service mesh
  • Access services in your service mesh
  • Observe Consul service mesh traffic
• Manage permissions with access control lists (ACLs) on VMs
• Register and monitor external services with Consul External Service Manager (ESM)
• Set up secure namespaces