---
layout: docs
page_title: Using Ingress Gateways to Connect External Traffic to Internal Services
description: >-
  This topic describes how ingress gateways enable traffic from external services to reach services inside the Consul service mesh. 
  It provides guidance on how to use Envoy and how to plug into your preferred gateway.
---

# Ingress Gateways

-> **1.8.0+:** This feature is available in Consul versions 1.8.0 and newer.

Ingress gateways enable ingress traffic from services outside the Consul
service mesh to services inside the Consul service mesh. An ingress gateway is
a type of proxy and must be registered as a service in Consul, with the
[kind](/api/agent/service#kind) set to "ingress-gateway". They are an
entrypoint for outside traffic and allow you to define what services should be
exposed and on what port. You configure an ingress gateway by defining a set of
[listeners](/docs/connect/config-entries/ingress-gateway#listeners) that each map
to a set of backing
[services](/docs/connect/config-entries/ingress-gateway#services).

To enable easier service discovery, a new Consul [DNS
subdomain](/docs/discovery/dns#ingress-service-lookups) is provided, on
`<service>.ingress.<domain>`.

For listeners with a
[protocol](/docs/connect/config-entries/ingress-gateway#protocol) other than
`tcp`, multiple services can be specified for a single listener. In this
case, the ingress gateway relies on host/authority headers to decide the
service that should receive the traffic. The host used to match traffic
defaults to the [Consul DNS ingress
subdomain](/docs/discovery/dns#ingress-service-lookups), but can be changed using
the [hosts](/docs/connect/config-entries/ingress-gateway#hosts) field.

![Ingress Gateway Architecture](/img/ingress-gateways.png)

## Prerequisites

Ingress gateways also require that your Consul datacenters are configured correctly:

- You'll need to use Consul version 1.8.0 or newer.
- Consul [Connect](/docs/agent/config/agent-config-files#connect) must be enabled on the datacenter's Consul servers.
- [gRPC](/docs/agent/config/agent-config-files#grpc_port) must be enabled on all client agents.

Currently, [Envoy](https://www.envoyproxy.io/) is the only proxy with ingress gateway capabilities in Consul.

## Running and Using an Ingress Gateway

For a complete example of how to allow external traffic inside your Consul service mesh,
review the [ingress gateway tutorial](https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/consul/service-mesh-ingress-gateways).

## Ingress Gateway Configuration

Ingress gateways are configured in service definitions and registered with Consul like other services, with two exceptions.
The first is that the [kind](/api/agent/service#kind) must be "ingress-gateway". Second,
the ingress gateway service definition may contain a `Proxy.Config` entry just like a
Connect proxy service, to define opaque configuration parameters useful for the actual proxy software.
For Envoy there are some supported [gateway options](/docs/connect/proxies/envoy#gateway-options) as well as
[escape-hatch overrides](/docs/connect/proxies/envoy#escape-hatch-overrides).

-> **Note:** If ACLs are enabled, ingress gateways must be registered with a token granting `service:write` for the ingress gateway's service name,
`service:read` for all services in the ingress gateway's configuration entry, and `node:read` for all nodes of the services
in the ingress gateway's configuration entry. These privileges authorize the token to route communications to other Connect services.
If the Consul client agent on the gateway's node is not configured to use the default gRPC port, 8502, then the gateway's token
must also provide `agent:read` for its node's name in order to discover the agent's gRPC port. gRPC is used to expose Envoy's xDS API to Envoy proxies.

~> [Configuration entries](/docs/agent/config-entries) are global in scope. A configuration entry for a gateway name applies
across all federated Consul datacenters. If ingress gateways in different Consul datacenters need to route to different
sets of services within their datacenter, then the ingress gateways **must** be registered with different names.

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<a name="sds"></a>

## Custom TLS Certificates via Secret Discovery Service (SDS)

~> **Advanced Topic:** This topic describes a low-level feature designed for
developers building integrations with custom TLS management solutions.

Consul 1.11 added support for ingress gateways to serve TLS certificates to
inbound traffic that are sourced from an external service. The external service
must implement Envoy's [gRPC Secret Discovery
Service](https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/configuration/security/secret)
(or SDS) API.

The following procedure describes how to configure an ingress gateway with TLS certificates from an SDS source. The instructions assume that you are familiar with Envoy configuration and the SDS protocol.

### Configure Static SDS Cluster(s)

Each Envoy proxy that makes up this Ingress Gateway must define one or more additional [static
clusters](/docs/connect/proxies/envoy#envoy_extra_static_clusters_json) when registering. These additional clusters define how Envoy should connect to the required SDS service(s). Defining extra clusters in Envoy's bootstrap configuration requires a manual registration of the Ingress Gateway with Consul proxy.
It's not possible to use the `-register` flag with `consul connect envoy -gateway=ingress` to automatically register the proxy in this case.

The cluster(s) must provide connection information and any necessary
authentication information such as mTLS credentials.

The following example will demonstrate how to use:
 - A DNS name to discover the SDS service addresses
 - Local certificate files for TLS client authentication with the SDS server.
   The certificates are assumed to be created and managed by some other
   process.

 1. **Register the proxy service.**

    The following Proxy Service Definition defines the additional cluster
    configuration that will be provided to Envoy when it starts. With this TLS
    configuration, Envoy will detect changes to the certificate and key files on
    disk so an external process may maintain and rotate them without needing an
    Envoy restart.

    ```hcl
    // public-ingress.hcl
    Services {
      Name = "public-ingress"
      Kind = "ingress-gateway"

      Proxy {
        Config {
          envoy_extra_static_clusters_json = <<EOF
    {
      "name": "sds-cluster",
      "connect_timeout": "5s",
      "http2_protocol_options": {},
      "type": "LOGICAL_DNS",
      "transport_socket": {
        "name":"tls",
        "typed_config": {
          "@type":"type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.transport_sockets.tls.v3.UpstreamTlsContext",
          "common_tls_context":{
            "tls_certificate_sds_secret_configs": [
              {
                "name":"tls_sds",
                "sds_config":{
                  "path":"/certs/sds-auth-cert.json"
                }
              }
            ],
            "validation_context_sds_secret_config": {
              "name":"validation_context_sds",
              "sds_config":{
                  "path":"/certs/sds-validation.json"
              }
            }
          }
        }
      },
      "load_assignment": {
        "cluster_name": "sds-cluster",
        "endpoints": [
          {
            "lb_endpoints": [
              {
                "endpoint": {
                  "address": {
                    "socket_address": {
                      "address": "sds-server.svc.cluster.local",
                      "port_value": 8080,
                    }
                  }
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        ]
      }
    }
    EOF
        }
      }
    }
    ```

 1. **Issue the following command to create the registration.**

    ```
    consul services register public-ingress.hcl
    ```

    The command must be executed against the Consul agent on the Envoy proxy's node.

#### Setup TLS Client Authentication for SDS

Configuration files similar to the following examples must be available on the
disk where the Envoy proxy will run. The actual certificates and keys referenced
in the configuration files must also be present.

 1. **Configure TLS client authentication for SDS.**
 
    The certificates and keys must be saved to the same disk where the Envoy
    proxy will run. The following example files reference the PEM-encoded
    certificate and key files to be used for TLS Client Authentication with the
    SDS service (`sds-client-auth.{crt,key}`) and the certificate authority
    certificate used to validate the SDS server's TLS credentials
    (`sds-ca.crt`).
    
    Refer to [Envoy's documentation]
    https://www.envoyproxy.io/docs/envoy/latest/api-v3/bootstrap/bootstrap) for
    more details on this configuration and other possible authentication
    options.

    ```json
    // /certs/sds-auth-cert.json
    {
      "resources": [
        {
          "@type": "type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.transport_sockets.tls.v3.Secret",
          "name": "tls_sds",
          "tls_certificate": {
            "certificate_chain": {
              "filename": "/certs/sds-client-auth.crt"
            },
            "private_key": {
              "filename": "/certs/sds-client-auth.key"
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
    ```
    ```json
    // /certs/sds-validation.json
    {
      "resources": [
        {
          "@type": "type.googleapis.com/envoy.extensions.transport_sockets.tls.v3.Secret",
          "name": "validation_context_sds",
          "validation_context": {
            "trusted_ca": {
              "filename": "/certs/sds-ca.crt"
            }
          }
        }
      ]
    }
    ```

 1. **Issue the following command to start Envoy.**

    ```bash
    $ consul connect envoy -gateway=ingress -service public-ingress
    ```

### Configure the Ingress Gateway to Use Certificates from SDS

SDS certificates may now be configured in the `ingress-gateway` Config Entry.

The following example shows a single default certificate and key being used for
all listeners.

```hcl
// public-ingress-cfg.hcl
Kind = "ingress-gateway"
Name = "public-ingress"

TLS {
  SDS {
    # This must match the name of the static cluster from step #1
    ClusterName = "sds-cluster"
    # This is the name of the certificate resource to load.
    CertResource = "example.com-public-cert"
  }
}

Listeners = [
  {
    Port = 8443
    Protocol = "http"
    Services = ["*"]
  }
]

```

 1. **Run `consul config write public-ingress-cfg.hcl` to write this configuration.**

    The Envoy instance will now start a listener on port 8443 and attempt to fetch
    the TLS certificate named from the SDS server.

Separate certificates may be loaded per listener or per-service with hostname
(SNI) switching. See the [Config Entry
reference](/docs/connect/config-entries/ingress-gateway) for more details.