---
layout: "docs"
page_title: "Out-of-Cluster Nodes - Kubernetes"
sidebar_current: "docs-platform-k8s-ooc-nodes"
description: |-
  Non-Kubernetes nodes can join a Consul cluster running within Kubernetes. These are considered "out-of-cluster" nodes.
---

# Out-of-Cluster Nodes

Non-Kubernetes nodes can join a Consul cluster running within Kubernetes.
These are considered "out-of-cluster" nodes.

## Auto-join

The recommended way to join a cluster running within Kubernetes is to
use the ["k8s" cloud auto-join provider](/docs/agent/cloud-auto-join.html#kubernetes-k8s-).

The auto-join provider dynamically discovers IP addresses to join using
the Kubernetes API. It authenticates with Kubernetes using a standard
`kubeconfig` file. This works with all major hosted Kubernetes offerings
as well as self-hosted installations. The token in the `kubeconfig` file
needs to have permissions to list pods in the namespace where Consul servers
are deployed.

The auto-join string below will join a Consul server cluster that is
started using the [official Helm chart](/docs/platform/k8s/helm.html):

```sh
$ consul agent -retry-join 'provider=k8s label_selector="app=consul,component=server"'
```

By default, Consul will join the default Gossip port. Pods may set an
annotation `consul.hashicorp.com/auto-join-port` to an integer value or
a named port to specify the port for the auto-join to return. This enables
different pods to have different exposed ports.

## Networking

Consul typically requires a fully connected network. Therefore, out-of-cluster
nodes joining a cluster running within Kubernetes must be able to communicate
to pod IPs or Kubernetes node IPs via the network.

-> **Consul Enterprise customers** may use
[network segments](/docs/enterprise/network-segments/index.html) to
enable non-fully-connected topologies. However, out-of-cluster nodes must still
be able to communicate with the server pod or host IP addresses.

The auto-join provider discussed above will use pod IPs by default. The
`host_network=true` setting may be set to use host IPs, however all the ports
Consul requires must be exposed via a `hostPort`. If no ports are exposed via
`hostPort`, the pod will not be discovered.