212 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
212 lines
8.8 KiB
Markdown
---
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layout: "docs"
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page_title: "Service Definition"
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sidebar_current: "docs-agent-services"
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description: |-
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One of the main goals of service discovery is to provide a catalog of available services. To that end, the agent provides a simple service definition format to declare the availability of a service and to potentially associate it with a health check. A health check is considered to be application level if it is associated with a service. A service is defined in a configuration file or added at runtime over the HTTP interface.
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---
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# Services
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One of the main goals of service discovery is to provide a catalog of available
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services. To that end, the agent provides a simple service definition format
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to declare the availability of a service and to potentially associate it with
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a health check. A health check is considered to be application level if it is
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associated with a service. A service is defined in a configuration file
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or added at runtime over the HTTP interface.
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## Service Definition
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To configure a service, either provide the service definition as a `-config-file` option to
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the agent or place it inside the `-config-dir` of the agent. The file
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must end in the `.json` or `.hcl` extension to be loaded by Consul. Check
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definitions can be updated by sending a `SIGHUP` to the agent.
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Alternatively, the service can be registered dynamically using the [HTTP
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API](/api/index.html).
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A service definition is a configuration that looks like the following. This
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example shows all possible fields, but note that only a few are required.
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```javascript
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{
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"service": {
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"name": "redis",
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"tags": ["primary"],
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"address": "",
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"meta": {
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"meta": "for my service"
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},
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"port": 8000,
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"enable_tag_override": false,
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"checks": [
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{
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"args": ["/usr/local/bin/check_redis.py"],
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"interval": "10s"
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}
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],
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"kind": "connect-proxy",
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"proxy_destination": "redis",
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"connect": {
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"native": false,
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"proxy": {
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"command": [],
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"config": {}
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}
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}
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}
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}
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```
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A service definition must include a `name` and may optionally provide an
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`id`, `tags`, `address`, `port`, `check`, `meta` and `enable_tag_override`.
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The `id` is set to the `name` if not provided. It is required that all
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services have a unique ID per node, so if names might conflict then
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unique IDs should be provided.
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For Consul 0.9.3 and earlier you need to use `enableTagOverride`. Consul 1.0
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supports both `enable_tag_override` and `enableTagOverride` but the latter is
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deprecated and has been removed in Consul 1.1.
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The `tags` property is a list of values that are opaque to Consul but
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can be used to distinguish between `primary` or `secondary` nodes,
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different versions, or any other service level labels.
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The `address` field can be used to specify a service-specific IP address. By
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default, the IP address of the agent is used, and this does not need to be provided.
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The `port` field can be used as well to make a service-oriented architecture
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simpler to configure; this way, the address and port of a service can
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be discovered.
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The `meta` object is a map of max 64 key/values with string semantics. Key can contain
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only ASCII chars and no special characters (`A-Z` `a-z` `0-9` `_` and `-`).
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For performance and security reasons, values as well as keys are limited to 128
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characters for keys, 512 for values. This object has the same limitations as the node
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meta object in node definition.
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All those meta data can be retrieved individually per instance of the service
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and all the instances of a given service have their own copy of it.
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Services may also contain a `token` field to provide an ACL token. This token is
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used for any interaction with the catalog for the service, including
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[anti-entropy syncs](/docs/internals/anti-entropy.html) and deregistration.
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A service can have an associated health check. This is a powerful feature as
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it allows a web balancer to gracefully remove failing nodes, a database
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to replace a failed secondary, etc. The health check is strongly integrated in
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the DNS interface as well. If a service is failing its health check or a
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node has any failing system-level check, the DNS interface will omit that
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node from any service query.
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The check must be of the script, HTTP, TCP or TTL type. If it is a script type,
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`args` and `interval` must be provided. If it is a HTTP type, `http` and
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`interval` must be provided. If it is a TCP type, `tcp` and `interval` must be
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provided. If it is a TTL type, then only `ttl` must be provided. The check name
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is automatically generated as `service:<service-id>`. If there are multiple
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service checks registered, the ID will be generated as
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`service:<service-id>:<num>` where `<num>` is an incrementing number starting
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from `1`.
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-> **Note:** There is more information about [checks here](/docs/agent/checks.html).
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The `enable_tag_override` can optionally be specified to disable the
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anti-entropy feature for this service. If `enable_tag_override` is set to
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`TRUE` then external agents can update this service in the
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[catalog](/api/catalog.html) and modify the tags. Subsequent
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local sync operations by this agent will ignore the updated tags. For
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example, if an external agent modified both the tags and the port for
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this service and `enable_tag_override` was set to `TRUE` then after the next
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sync cycle the service's port would revert to the original value but the
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tags would maintain the updated value. As a counter example: If an
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external agent modified both the tags and port for this service and
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`enable_tag_override` was set to `FALSE` then after the next sync cycle the
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service's port *and* the tags would revert to the original value and all
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modifications would be lost.
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It's important to note that this applies only to the locally registered
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service. If you have multiple nodes all registering the same service
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their `enable_tag_override` configuration and all other service
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configuration items are independent of one another. Updating the tags
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for the service registered on one node is independent of the same
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service (by name) registered on another node. If `enable_tag_override` is
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not specified the default value is false. See [anti-entropy
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syncs](/docs/internals/anti-entropy.html) for more info.
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For Consul 0.9.3 and earlier you need to use `enableTagOverride`. Consul 1.0
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supports both `enable_tag_override` and `enableTagOverride` but the latter is
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deprecated and has been removed as of Consul 1.1.
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The `kind` field is used to optionally identify the service as an [unmanaged
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Connect proxy](/docs/connect/proxies.html#unmanaged-proxies) instance with the
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value `connect-proxy`. For typical non-proxy instances the `kind` field must be
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omitted. The `proxy_destination` field is also required for unmanaged proxy
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registrations and is only valid if `kind` is `connect-proxy`. It's value must be
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the _name_ of the service that the proxy is handling traffic for.
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The `connect` field can be specified to configure
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[Connect](/docs/connect/index.html) for a service. This field is available in
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Consul 1.2 and later. The `native` value can be set to true to advertise the
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service as [Connect-native](/docs/connect/native.html). If the `proxy` field is
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set (even to an empty object), then this will enable a [managed
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proxy](/docs/connect/proxies.html) for the service. The fields within `proxy`
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are used to configure the proxy and are specified in the [proxy
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docs](/docs/connect/proxies.html). If `native` is true, it is an error to also
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specifiy a managed proxy instance.
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## Multiple Service Definitions
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Multiple services definitions can be provided at once using the plural
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`services` key in your configuration file.
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```javascript
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{
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"services": [
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{
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"id": "red0",
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"name": "redis",
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"tags": [
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"primary"
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],
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"address": "",
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"port": 6000,
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"checks": [
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{
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"args": ["/bin/check_redis", "-p", "6000"],
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"interval": "5s",
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"ttl": "20s"
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}
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]
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},
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{
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"id": "red1",
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"name": "redis",
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"tags": [
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"delayed",
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"secondary"
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],
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"address": "",
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"port": 7000,
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"checks": [
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{
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"args": ["/bin/check_redis", "-p", "7000"],
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"interval": "30s",
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"ttl": "60s"
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}
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]
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},
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...
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]
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}
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```
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## Service and Tag Names with DNS
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Consul exposes service definitions and tags over the [DNS](/docs/agent/dns.html)
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interface. DNS queries have a strict set of allowed characters and a
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well-defined format that Consul cannot override. While it is possible to
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register services or tags with names that don't match the conventions, those
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services and tags will not be discoverable via the DNS interface. It is
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recommended to always use DNS-compliant service and tag names.
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DNS-compliant service and tag names may contain any alpha-numeric characters, as
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well as dashes. Dots are not supported because Consul internally uses them to
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delimit service tags.
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