Review guide - Consul Associate certification

8min
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Consul

Here is a direct mapping of each HashiCorp Certified: Consul Associate exam objective to where it is covered in HashiCorp's documentation, training, or interactive labs. This provides experienced exam candidates a place to review just the objectives they need extra help with before taking the exam.

1	Explain Consul architecture	Documentation	Tutorial
1a	Identify the components of Consul datacenter, including agents and communication protocols	Architecture Ports Glossary	Reference Architecture Secure Datacenter Networking
1b	Prepare Consul for high availability and performance	Architecture Consensus Read Scale Agent Options - read-replica Server Performance	Reference Architecture Deployment Guide Automated Upgrades Add & Remove Servers Redundancy Zones
1c	Identify Consul's core functionality	Service Mesh Service Mesh Use Case Service Discovery Use Case Service Discovery with DNS Network Middleware Automation Use Case KV Store KV Store Commands	Agents Services Service Mesh KV Store Service Discovery Troubleshooting
1d	Differentiate agent roles	Architecture Consensus Gossip Service Registration	Secure Datacenter Networking Agents Reference Architecture Deployment Guide Services
2	Deploy a single datacenter	Documentation	Tutorial
2a	Start and manage the Consul process	Agent Options Running an Agent	Agents Deployment Guide
2b	Interpret a Consul agent configuration	Agent Options	Services
2c	Configure Consul network addresses and ports	Agent Options Common Errors	Service Mesh Services Forward DNS Address Binding
2d	Describe and configure agent join and leave behaviors	Join Command Join Options Cloud Auto Join	Services Servers Auto Join
3	Register services and use service discovery	Documentation	Tutorial
3a	Interpret a service registration	Services Registration	Services
3b	Differentiate ways to register a single service	Services Agent Options - Reloadable Config	Services
3c	Interpret a service configuration with health check	Agent Checks API - Health DNS Interface What is Consul	Health Checks Troubleshooting - Health Checks
3d	Check the service catalog status from the output of the DNS/API interface or via the Consul UI	Services Agent Options DNS Checks Download Tools Network Infrastructure Automation	Web UI Services Health Checks Consul Template Network Infrastructure Automation with Consul-Terraform-Sync
3e	Interpret a prepared query	API - Query	Geo Failover
3f	Use a prepared query	API - Query	Geo Failover
4	Access the Consul key/value (KV)	Documentation	Tutorial
4a	Understand the capabilities and limitations of the KV store	KV Security - Threat Model FAQ - Size Limit	KV Store Monitoring - Memory Usage
4b	Interact with the KV store using both the Consul CLI and UI	API - KV Commands - KV KV	KV Store Web UI
4c	Monitor KV changes using `watch`	Watches Consul Watch command	Semaphores - Management
4d	Monitor KV changes using `envconsul` and `consul-template`	Envconsul Download Tools	Envconsul Consul Template
5	Back up and restore	Documentation	Tutorial
5a	Describe the contents of a snapshot	Snapshot Command Options - data_dir	Join Backups
5b	Back up and restore the datacenter	Save Snapshot	Backups
5c	[Enterprise] Describe the benefits of snapshot agent features	Enterprise Backups Snapshot Agent	Backups
6	Use Consul service mesh	Documentation	Tutorial
6a	Understand Consul service mesh high level architecture	Service Mesh Envoy	Service Mesh Understanding Upstream Secure Services
6b	Describe configuration for registering a service proxy	Service Registration Service Definition	Service Mesh Secure Services
6c	Describe intentions for Consul service mesh	Intentions	Service Mesh Zero Trust Network
6d	Check intentions in both the Consul CLI and UI	Intentions - Basics	Service Mesh Web UI
7	Secure agent communication	Documentation	Tutorial
7a	Understanding Consul security/threat model	TLS Certificates Security	Reference Architecture Certificates Update Certificates - Servers
7b	Differentiate certificate types needed for TLS encryption	Common Errors Built-In CA Service Mesh Internals - mTLS	Certificates Production Checklist
7c	Understand the different TLS encryption settings for a fully secure datacenter	Verify Server Hostname Verify Incoming Verify Outgoing	Certificates
8	Secure services with basic access control lists (ACL)	Documentation	Tutorial
8a	Set up and configure a basic ACL system	ACL System Bootstrap ACL System	Production ACLs ACL Tutorial
8b	Create policies	ACL System - Rules and Scope	Managing ACL Policies
8c	Manage token lifecycle: multiple policies, token revoking, ACL roles, service identities	ACL System	Managing ACL Policies
8d	Perform a CLI request using a token	CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN Create Agent Token Set Agent Token	Production ACLs Managing ACL Policies ACL Tutorial - bootstrap token
8e	Perform an API request using a token	Set Agent Token	ACL Tutorial - bootstrap token
9	Use gossip encryption	Documentation	Tutorial
9a	Understanding the Consul security/threat model	Security RPC Encryption with TLS	Deployment Guide Certificates Reference Architecture
9b	Configure gossip encryption for the existing data center	Encryption Agent Options	Agent Encryption Certificates Deployment Guide
9c	Manage the lifecycle of encryption keys	Certificate Rotation	Gossip Key Rotation Certificates

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