---
layout: docs
page_title: ACL Roles
description: >-
  Roles are a named collection of ACL policies, service identities, and node identities. Learn how roles allow you to reuse and update access control policies without needing to distribute new tokens to users.
---

# ACL Roles

A role is a collection of policies that your ACL administrator can link to a token.
They enable you to reuse policies by decoupling the policies from the token distributed to team members.
Instead, the token is linked to the role, which is able to hold several policies that can be updated asynchronously without distributing new tokens to users.
As a result, roles can provide a more convenient authentication infrastructure than creating unique policies and tokens for each requester.

## Workflow Overview

Roles are configurations linking several policies to a token. The following procedure describes the workflow for implementing roles.

1. Assemble rules into policies (see [Policies](/consul/docs/security/acl/acl-policies)) and register them in Consul.
1. Define a role and include the policy IDs or names.
1. Register the role in Consul and link it to a token.
1. Distribute the tokens to users for implementation.

## Creating Roles

Creating roles is commonly the responsibility of the Consul ACLs administrator.
Roles have several attributes, including service identities and node identities.
Refer to the following documentation for details:

- [Role Attributes](#role-attributes)
- [Service Identities](#service-identities)
- [Node Identities](#node-identities)

Use the Consul command line or API endpoint to create roles.

### Command Line

Issue the `consul acl role create` command to create roles. In the following example, a role named `crawler` is created that contains a policy named `crawler-kv` and a policy named `crawler-key`.

```shell-session
$ consul acl role create -name "crawler" -description "web crawler role" -policy-name "crawler-kv" -policy-name "crawler-key"
```

Refer to the [command line documentation](/consul/commands/acl/role) for details.

### API

Make a `PUT` call to the `acl/role` endpoint and specify the role configuration in the payload to create roles. You can save the role definition in a JSON file or use escaped JSON in the call. In the following example call, the payload is defined externally.

```shell-session
$ curl --request PUT --data @payload.json http://127.0.0.1:8500/v1/acl/role
```

Refer to the [API documentation](/consul/api-docs/acl/roles) for details.

## Role Attributes

Roles may contain the following attributes:

- `ID`: The `ID` is an auto-generated public identifier. You can specify the role `ID` when linking it to tokens.
- `Name`: A unique meaningful name for the role. You can specify the role `Name` when linking it to tokens.
- `Description`: (Optional) A human-readable description of the role.
- `Policies`: Specifies a the list of policies that are applicable for the role. The object can reference the policy `ID` or `Name` attribute.
- `ServiceIdentities`: Specifies a list of services that are applicable for the role. See [Service Identities](#service-identities) for details.
- `NodeIdentities`: Specifies a list of nodes that are applicable for the role. See [Node Identities](#node-identities) for details.
- `Namespace`: <EnterpriseAlert inline /> The namespace that the policy resides in. Roles can only be linked to policies that are defined in the same namespace. See [Namespaces](/consul/docs/enterprise/namespaces) for additional information. Requires Consul Enterprise 1.7.0+
- `Partition`: <EnterpriseAlert inline/> The admin partition that the policy resides in. Roles can only be linked to policies that are defined in the same admin partition. See [Admin Partitions](/consul/docs/enterprise/admin-partitions) for additional information. Requires Consul Enterprise 1.10.0+.

## Service Identities

<!-- -> Added in Consul 1.5.0 # Remove and lean on versioning?-->

You can specify a service identity when configuring roles or linking tokens to policies. Service identities enable you to quickly construct policies for services, rather than creating identical polices for each service.

Service identities are used during the authorization process to automatically generate a policy for the service(s) specified. The policy will be linked to the role or token so that the service(s) can _be discovered_ and _discover other healthy service instances_ in a service mesh. Refer to the [service mesh](/consul/docs/connect) topic for additional information about Consul service mesh.

### Service Identity Specification

Use the following syntax to define a service identity:

```json
{
  "ServiceIdentities": [
    {
      "ServiceName": "<service name>",
      "Datacenters": ["<datacenter name>"]
    }
  ]
}
```

- `ServiceIdentities`: Declares a service identity block.
- `ServiceIdentities.ServiceName`: String value that specifies the name of the service you want to associate with the policy.
- `ServiceIdentities.Datacenters`: Array that specifies the names of datacenters in which the service identity applies. This field is optional.

Refer to the the [API documentation for roles](/consul/api-docs/acl/roles#sample-payload) for additional information and examples.

-> **Scope for Namespace and Admin Partition** - In Consul Enterprise, service identities inherit the namespace or admin partition scope of the corresponding ACL token or role.

The following policy is generated for each service when a service identity is declared:

```hcl
# Allow the service and its sidecar proxy to register into the catalog.
service "<service name>" {
    policy = "write"
}
service "<service name>-sidecar-proxy" {
    policy = "write"
}

# Allow for any potential upstreams to be resolved.
service_prefix "" {
    policy = "read"
}
node_prefix "" {
    policy = "read"
}
```

Refer to the [rules reference](/consul/docs/security/acl/acl-rules) for information about the rules in the policy.

### Example

The following role configuration contains service identities for the `web` and `db` services. Note that the `db` service is also scoped to the `dc1` datacenter so that the policy will only be applied to instances of `db` in `dc1`.

<CodeBlockConfig filename="example-role.json">

```json
{
  "Name": "example-role",
  "Description": "Showcases all input parameters",
  "Policies": [
    {
      "ID": "783beef3-783f-f41f-7422-7087dc272765"
    },
    {
      "Name": "node-read"
    }
  ],
  "ServiceIdentities": [
    {
      "ServiceName": "web"
    },
    {
      "ServiceName": "db",
      "Datacenters": ["dc1"]
    }
  ],
  "NodeIdentities": [
    {
      "NodeName": "node-1",
      "Datacenter": "dc2"
    }
  ]
}
```

</CodeBlockConfig>

During the authorization process, the following policies for the `web` and `db` services will be generated and linked to the token:

<CodeBlockConfig filename="web-policy.hcl">

```hcl
# Allow the service and its sidecar proxy to register into the catalog.
service "web" {
	policy = "write"
}
service "web-sidecar-proxy" {
	policy = "write"
}

# Allow for any potential upstreams to be resolved.
service_prefix "" {
    policy = "read"
}
node_prefix "" {
    policy = "read"
}
```

</CodeBlockConfig>

Per the `ServiceIdentities.Datacenters` configuration, the `db` policy is scoped to resources in the `dc1` datacenter.

<CodeBlockConfig filename="db-policy.hcl">

```hcl
# Allow the service and its sidecar proxy to register into the catalog.
service "db" {
	policy = "write"
}
service "db-sidecar-proxy" {
	policy = "write"
}

# Allow for any potential upstreams to be resolved.
service_prefix "" {
    policy = "read"
}
node_prefix "" {
    policy = "read"
}
```

</CodeBlockConfig>

## Node Identities

You can specify a node identity when configuring roles or linking tokens to policies. _Node_ commonly refers to a Consul agent, but a node can also be a physical server, cloud instance, virtual machine, or container.

Node identities enable you to quickly construct policies for nodes, rather than manually creating identical polices for each node. They are used during the authorization process to automatically generate a policy for the node(s) specified. You can specify the token linked to the policy in the [`acl_tokens_agent`](/consul/docs/agent/config/config-files#acl_tokens_agent) field when configuring the agent.

### Node Identity Specification

Use the following syntax to define a node identity:

```json
{
  "NodeIdentities": [
    {
      "NodeName": "<node name>",
      "Datacenter": "<datacenter name>"
    }
  ]
}
```

- `NodeIdentities`: Declares a node identity block.
- `NodeIdentities.NodeName`: String value that specifies the name of the node you want to associate with the policy.
- `NodeIdentities.Datacenter`: String value that specifies the name of the datacenter in which the node identity applies.

Refer to the the [API documentation for roles](/consul/api-docs/acl/roles#sample-payload) for additional information and examples.

-> **Consul Enterprise Namespacing** - Node Identities can only be applied to tokens and roles in the `default` namespace. The generated policy rules allow for `service:read` permissions on all services in all namespaces.

The following policy is generated for each node when a node identity is declared:

```hcl
# Allow the agent to register its own node in the Catalog and update its network coordinates
node "<node name>" {
  policy = "write"
}

# Allows the agent to detect and diff services registered to itself. This is used during
# anti-entropy to reconcile difference between the agents knowledge of registered
# services and checks in comparison with what is known in the Catalog.
service_prefix "" {
  policy = "read"
}
```

Refer to the [rules reference](/consul/docs/security/acl/acl-rules) for information about the rules in the policy.

### Example

The following role configuration contains a node identity for `node-1`. Note that the node identity is also scoped to the `dc2` datacenter. As a result, the policy will only be applied to nodes named `node-1` in `dc2`.

<CodeBlockConfig filename="example-role.json">

```json
{
  "Name": "example-role",
  "Description": "Showcases all input parameters",
  "Policies": [
    {
      "ID": "783beef3-783f-f41f-7422-7087dc272765"
    },
    {
      "Name": "node-read"
    }
  ],
  "NodeIdentities": [
    {
      "NodeName": "node-1",
      "Datacenter": "dc2"
    }
  ]
}
```

</CodeBlockConfig>

During the authorization process, the following policy will be generated and linked to the token:

<CodeBlockConfig filename="node-1-policy.hcl">

```hcl
# Allow the agent to register its own node in the Catalog and update its network coordinates
node "node-1" {
  policy = "write"
}

# Allows the agent to detect and diff services registered to itself. This is used during
# anti-entropy to reconcile differences between the agent's knowledge of registered
# services and checks in comparison with what is known in the Catalog.
service_prefix "" {
  policy = "read"
}
```

</CodeBlockConfig>
