---
layout: docs
page_title: Configure Consul-Terraform-Sync
sidebar_title: Configuration
description: >-
  Consul-Terraform-Sync requires a Terraform Provider, a Terraform Module and a running Consul Cluster outside of the consul-terraform-sync daemon.
---

# Configuration Options for Consul-Terraform-Sync

The Consul-Terraform-Sync daemon is configured using configuration files and supports [HashiCorp Configuration Language](https://github.com/hashicorp/hcl) (HCL) and JSON file formats.

## Example

An example HCL configuration is shown below to automate a task to execute a Terraform module for 2 services.

```hcl
log_level = "info"

consul {
  address = "consul.example.com"
}

buffer_period {
  min = "5s"
  max = "20s"
}

task {
  name = "website-x"
  description = "automate services for website-x"
  source = "namespace/example/module"
  version = "1.0.0"
  providers = ["myprovider"]
  services = ["web", "api"]
  buffer_period {
    min = "10s"
  }
}

driver "terraform" {
  required_providers {
    myprovider = {
      source = "namespace/myprovider"
      version = "1.3.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "myprovider" {
  address = "myprovider.example.com"
}
```

## Global Config Options

Top level options are reserved for configuring Consul-Terraform-Sync.

```hcl
log_level = "INFO"
syslog {}
buffer_period {
  enabled = true
  min = "5s"
  max = "20s"
}
```

* `log_level` - `(string: "WARN")` The log level to use for Consul-Terraform-Sync logging.
* `syslog` - Specifies the syslog server for logging.
  * `enabled` - `(bool: false)` Enable syslog logging. Specifying other option also enables syslog logging.
  * `facility` - `(string: <none>)` Name of the syslog facility to log to.
  * `name` - `(string: "consul-terraform-sync")` Name to use for the daemon process when logging to syslog.
* `buffer_period` - Configures the default buffer period for all [tasks](#task) to dampen the affects of flapping services to downstream network devices. It defines the minimum and maximum amount of time to wait for the cluster to reach a consistent state and accumulate changes before triggering task executions. The default is enabled to reduce the number of times downstream infrastructure is updated within a short period of time. This is useful to enable in systems that have a lot of flapping.
  * `enabled` - `(bool: true)` Enable or disable buffer periods globally. Specifying `min` will also enable it.
  * `min` - `(string: 5s)` The minimum period of time to wait after changes are detected before triggering related tasks.
  * `max` - `(string: 20s)` The maximum period of time to wait after changes are detected before triggering related tasks. If `min` is set, the default period for `max` is 4 times the value of `min`.

## Consul

The `consul` block is used to configure Consul-Terraform-Sync connection with a Consul agent to perform queries to the Consul Catalog and Consul KV pertaining to task execution.

```hcl
consul {
  address = "consul.example.com"
  auth {}
  tls {}
  token = null
  transport {}
}
```

* `address` - `(string: "localhost:8500")` Address is the address of the Consul agent. It may be an IP or FQDN.
* `auth` - Auth is the HTTP basic authentication for communicating with Consul.
  * `enabled` - `(bool: false)`
  * `username` - `(string: <none>)`
  * `password` - `(string: <none>)`
* `tls` - Configure TLS to use a secure client connection with Consul. This requires Consul to be configured to serve HTTPS.
  * `enabled` - `(bool: false)` Enable TLS. Specifying any option for TLS will also enable it.
  * `verify` - `(bool: true)` Enables TLS peer verification. The default is enabled, which will check the global CA chain to make sure the given certificates are valid. If you are using a self-signed certificate that you have not added to the CA chain, you may want to disable SSL verification. However, please understand this is a potential security vulnerability.
  * `key` - `(string: <none>)` The client key file to use for talking to Consul over TLS. The key also be provided through the `CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY` environment variable.
  * `ca_cert` - `(string: <none>)` The CA file to use for talking to Consul over TLS. Can also be provided though the `CONSUL_CACERT` environment variable.
  * `ca_path` - `(string: <none>)` The path to a directory of CA certs to use for talking to Consul over TLS. Can also be provided through the `CONSUL_CAPATH` environment variable.
  * `cert` - `(string: <none>)` The client cert file to use for talking to Consul over TLS. Can also be provided through the `CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT` environment variable.
  * `server_name` - `(string: <none>)` The server name to use as the SNI host when connecting via TLS. Can also be provided through the `CONSUL_TLS_SERVER_NAME` environment variable.
* `token` - `(string: <none>)` The ACL token to use for client communication with the local Consul agent. The token can also be provided through the `CONSUL_TOKEN` or `CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN` environment variables.
* `transport` - Transport configures the low-level network connection details.
  * `dial_keep_alive` - `(string: "30s")` The amount of time for keep-alives.
  * `dial_timeout` - `(string: "30s")` The amount of time to wait to establish a connection.
  * `disable_keep_alives` - `(bool: false)` Determines if keep-alives should be used. Disabling this significantly decreases performance.
  * `idle_conn_timeout` - `(string: "90s")` The timeout for idle connections.
  * `max_idle_conns` - `(int: 100)` The maximum number of total idle connections.
  * `max_idle_conns_per_host` - `(int: 1)` The maximum number of idle connections per remote host.
  * `tls_handshake_timeout` - `(string: "10s")` amount of time to wait to complete the TLS handshake.

## Service

A `service` block is an optional block to explicitly define configuration of services that Consul-Terraform-Sync monitors. A `service` block is only necessary for services that have non-default values e.g. custom datacenter. Services that do not have a `service` block configured will assume default values. To configure multiple services, specify multiple `service` blocks. For services to be included in task automation, the service must be included in the `task.services` field of a [`task` block](#task). If a `service` block is configured, the service can be referred in `task.services` by service name or ID. If a `service` block is not configured, it can only be referred to by service name.

```hcl
service {
  name = "web"
  datacenter = "dc1"
  description = "all instances of the service web in datacenter dc1"
}
```

* `datacenter` - `(string: <none>)` The datacenter the service is deployed in.
* `description` - `(string: <none>)` The human readable text to describe the service.
* `id` - `(string: <none>)` ID identifies the service for Consul-Terraform-Sync. This is used to explicitly identify the service config for a task to use. If no ID is provided, the service is identified by the service name within a [task definition](#task).
* `name` - `(string: <required>)` The Consul logical name of the service (required).
* `namespace` <EnterpriseAlert inline /> - `(string: "default")` The namespace of the service. If not provided, the namespace will be inferred from the Consul-Terraform-Sync ACL token, or default to the `default` namespace.
* `tag` - `(string: <none>)` Tag is used to filter nodes based on the tag for the service.

## Task

A `task` block configures which task to run in automation for the selected services. The list of services can include services explicitly defined by a `service` block or implicitly declared by the service name. The `task` block may be specified multiple times to configure multiple tasks.

```hcl
task {
  name = "taskA"
  description = ""
  providers = []
  services = ["web", "api"]
  source = "org/example/module"
  version = "1.0.0"
  variable_files = []
}
```

* `description` - `(string: <none>)` The human readable text to describe the service.
* `name` - `(string: <required>)` Name is the unique name of the task (required). A task name must start with a letter or underscore and may contain only letters, digits, underscores, and dashes.
* `providers` - `(list(string): [])` Providers is the list of provider names the task is dependent on. This is used to map [provider configuration](#provider) to the task.
* `services` - `(list(string): [])` Services is the list of logical service names or service IDs the task executes on. Consul-Terraform-Sync monitors the Consul Catalog for changes to these services and triggers the task to run. Any service value not explicitly defined by a `service` block with a matching ID is assumed to be a logical service name in the default namespace.
* `source` - `(string: <required>)` Source is the location the driver uses to fetch task dependencies. The source format is dependent on the driver. For the [Terraform driver](#terraform-driver), the source is the module path (local or remote). Read more on [Terraform module source here](https://www.terraform.io/docs/modules/sources.html).
* `variable_files` - `(list(string): [])` A list of paths to files containing variables for the task. For the [Terraform driver](#terraform-driver), these are used as Terraform [variable defintion (`.tfvars`) files](https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/variables.html#variable-definitions-tfvars-files) and consists of only variable name assignments. The variable assignments must match the corresponding variable declarations available by the Terraform module for the task. Consul-Terraform-Sync will generate the intermediate variable declarations to pass as arguments from the auto-generated root module to the task's module. Variables are loaded in the same order as they appear in the order of the files. Duplicate variables are overwritten with the later value. *Note: unless specified by the module, configure arguments for providers using [provider blocks](#provider).*
  ```hcl
  address_group = "consul-services"
  tags = [
    "consul-terraform-sync",
    "terraform"
  ]
  ```
* `version` - `(string: <none>)` The version of the provided source the task will use. For the [Terraform driver](#terraform-driver), this is the module version. The latest version will be used as the default if omitted.
* `buffer_period` - Configures the buffer period for the task to dampen the affects of flapping services to downstream network devices. It defines the minimum and maximum amount of time to wait for the cluster to reach a consistent state and accumulate changes before triggering task execution. The default is inherited from the top level [`buffer_period` block](#global-config-options). If configured, these values will take precedence over the global buffer period. This is useful to enable for a task that is dependent on services that have a lot of flapping.
  * `enabled` - `(bool: false)` Enable or disable buffer periods for this task. Specifying `min` will also enable it.
  * `min` - `(string: 5s)` The minimum period of time to wait after changes are detected before triggering related tasks.
  * `max` - `(string: 20s)` The maximum period of time to wait after changes are detected before triggering related tasks. If `min` is set, the default period for `max` is 4 times the value of `min`.

## Terraform Driver

The `driver` block configures the subprocess for Consul-Terraform-Sync to propagate infrastructure change. The Terraform driver does not need to be explicitly configured and has reasonable default values.

```hcl
driver "terraform" {
  log = false
  persist_log = false
  path = ""
  working_dir = ""
  
  backend "consul" {
    scheme = "https"
  }

  required_providers {
    myprovider = {
      source = "namespace/myprovider"
      version = "1.3.0"
    }
  }
}
```

* `backend` - `(obj: optional)` The backend stores [Terraform state files](https://www.terraform.io/docs/state/index.html) for each task. This option is similar to the [Terraform backend configuration](https://www.terraform.io/docs/backends/types/consul.html). Consul backend is the only supported backend at this time. If omitted, Consul-Terraform-Sync will generate default values and use configuration from the [`consul` block](#consul). The Consul KV path is the base path to store state files for tasks. The full path of each state file will have the task identifer appended to the end of the path, e.g. `consul-terraform-sync/terraform-env:task-name`.
* `log` - `(bool: false)` Enable all Terraform output (stderr and stdout) to be included in the Consul-Terraform-Sync log. This is useful for debugging and development purposes. It may be difficult to work with log aggregators that expect uniform log format.
* `path` - `(string: optional)` The file path to install Terraform or discover an existing Terraform binary. If omitted, Terraform will be installed in the same directory as the Consul-Terraform-Sync daemon.
* `persist_log` - `(bool: false)` Enable trace logging for each Terraform client to disk per task. This is equivalent to setting `TF_LOG_PATH=<work_dir>/terraform.log`. Trace log level results in verbose logging and may be useful for debugging and development purposes. We do not recommend enabling this for production. There is no log rotation and may quickly result in large files.
* `required_providers` - `(obj)` Declare each Terraform provider used across all tasks. This is similar to the [Terraform `terraform.required_providers`](https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/provider-requirements.html#requiring-providers) field to specify the source and version for each provider. Consul-Terraform-Sync will process these requirements when preparing each task that uses the provider.
* `working_dir` - `(string: "sync-tasks")` The base working directory to manage Terraform configurations all tasks. The full path of each working directory will have the task identifier appended to the end of the path, e.g. `./sync-tasks/task-name`.

## Provider

A `provider` block configures the options to interface with network infrastructure. Define a block for each provider required by the set of Terraform modules across all tasks. This block resembles [provider blocks for Terraform configuration](https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/providers.html). To find details on how to configure a provider, refer to the corresponding documentation for the Terraform provider. The main directory of publicly available providers are hosted on the [Terraform Registry](https://registry.terraform.io/browse/providers).

The below configuration captures the general design of defining a provider using the [Vault Terraform provider](https://registry.terraform.io/providers/hashicorp/vault/latest/docs) as an example.

```hcl
driver "terraform" {
  required_providers {
    vault = {
      source = "hashicorp/vault"
      version = "2.13.0"
    }
  }
}

provider "vault" {
  address = "vault.example.com"
}

task {
  source = "some/source"
  providers = ["vault"]
  services = ["web", "api"]
}
```

### Multiple Provider Configurations

Consul-Terraform-Sync supports the [Terraform feature to define multiple configurations](https://www.terraform.io/docs/configuration/providers.html#alias-multiple-provider-configurations) for the same provider by utilizing the `alias` meta-argument. Define multiple provider blocks with the same provider name and set the `alias` to a unique value across a given provider. Select which provider configuration to use for a task by specifying the configuration with the provider name and alias (`<name>.<alias>`) within the list of providers in the [`task.provider`](#task) parameter. A task can use multiple providers, but only one provider instance of a provider is allowed per task.

The example Consul-Terraform-Sync configuration below defines two similar tasks executing the same module with different instances of the Vault provider.

```hcl
provider "vault" {
  alias = "a"
  address = "vault.example.com"
  namespace = "team-a"
}

provider "vault" {
  alias = "b"
  address = "vault.internal.com"
  namespace = "team-b"
}

provider "dns" {
  // ...
}

task {
  name = "task-a"
  source = "org/module"
  providers = ["vault.a", "dns"]
  // ...
}

task {
  name = "task-b"
  source = "org/module"
  providers = ["vault.b", "dns"]
  // ...
}
```