--- layout: docs page_title: ACL System description: >- Consul provides an optional Access Control List (ACL) system which can be used to control access to data and APIs. The ACL system is a Capability-based system that relies on tokens which can have fine grained rules applied to them. It is very similar to AWS IAM in many ways. --- # ACL System ((#version_8_acls)) This content has been moved into the [ACL Guide](https://learn.hashicorp.com/tutorials/consul/access-control-setup-production). See [Complete ACL Coverage in Consul 0.8](/docs/security/acl/acl-legacy) for details about ACL changes in Consul 0.8 and later.