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docs Key/Value Store (HTTP) docs-agent-http-kv The KV endpoints are used to access Consul's simple key/value store, useful for storing service configuration or other metadata.

Key/Value Store Endpoints

The KV endpoints are used to access Consul's simple key/value store, useful for storing service configuration or other metadata.

The following endpoints are supported:

  • /v1/kv/<key>: Manages updates of individual keys, deletes of individual keys or key prefixes, and fetches of individual keys or key prefixes
  • /v1/txn: Manages updates or fetches of multiple keys inside a single, atomic transaction

/v1/kv/<key>

This endpoint manages updates of individual keys, deletes of individual keys or key prefixes, and fetches of individual keys or key prefixes. The GET, PUT and DELETE methods are all supported.

By default, the datacenter of the agent is queried; however, the dc can be provided using the ?dc= query parameter. It is important to note that each datacenter has its own KV store, and there is no built-in replication between datacenters. If you are interested in replication between datacenters, look at the Consul Replicate project.

The KV endpoint supports the use of ACL tokens using the ?token= query parameter.

GET Method

When using the GET method, Consul will return the specified key. If the ?recurse query parameter is provided, it will return all keys with the given prefix.

This endpoint supports blocking queries and all consistency modes.

Each object will look like:

[
  {
    "CreateIndex": 100,
    "ModifyIndex": 200,
    "LockIndex": 200,
    "Key": "zip",
    "Flags": 0,
    "Value": "dGVzdA==",
    "Session": "adf4238a-882b-9ddc-4a9d-5b6758e4159e"
  }
]

CreateIndex is the internal index value that represents when the entry was created.

ModifyIndex is the last index that modified this key. This index corresponds to the X-Consul-Index header value that is returned in responses, and it can be used to establish blocking queries by setting the ?index query parameter. You can even perform blocking queries against entire subtrees of the KV store: if ?recurse is provided, the returned X-Consul-Index corresponds to the latest ModifyIndex within the prefix, and a blocking query using that "?index" will wait until any key within that prefix is updated.

LockIndex is the number of times this key has successfully been acquired in a lock. If the lock is held, the Session key provides the session that owns the lock.

Key is simply the full path of the entry.

Flags is an opaque unsigned integer that can be attached to each entry. Clients can choose to use this however makes sense for their application.

Value is a Base64-encoded blob of data.

-> Note: Values cannot be larger than 512kB.

It is possible to list just keys without their values by using the ?keys query parameter. This will return a list of the keys under the given prefix. The optional ?separator= can be used to list only up to a given separator.

For example, listing /web/ with a / separator may return:

[
  "/web/bar",
  "/web/foo",
  "/web/subdir/"
]

Using the key listing method may be suitable when you do not need the values or flags or want to implement a key-space explorer.

If the ?raw query parameter is used with a non-recursive GET, the response is just the raw value of the key, without any encoding.

If no entries are found, a 404 code is returned.

PUT method

When using the PUT method, Consul expects the request body to be the value corresponding to the key. There are a number of query parameters that can be used with a PUT request:

  • ?flags=<num> : This can be used to specify an unsigned value between 0 and (2^64)-1. Clients can choose to use this however makes sense for their application.

  • ?cas=<index> : This flag is used to turn the PUT into a Check-And-Set operation. This is very useful as a building block for more complex synchronization primitives. If the index is 0, Consul will only put the key if it does not already exist. If the index is non-zero, the key is only set if the index matches the ModifyIndex of that key.

    • ?acquire=<session> : This flag is used to turn the PUT into a lock acquisition operation. This is useful as it allows leader election to be built on top of Consul. If the lock is not held and the session is valid, this increments the LockIndex and sets the Session value of the key in addition to updating the key contents. A key does not need to exist to be acquired. If the lock is already held by the given session, then the LockIndex is not incremented but the key contents are updated. This lets the current lock holder update the key contents without having to give up the lock and reacquire it.

  • ?release=<session> : This flag is used to turn the PUT into a lock release operation. This is useful when paired with "?acquire=" as it allows clients to yield a lock. This will leave the LockIndex unmodified but will clear the associated Session of the key. The key must be held by this session to be unlocked.

The return value is either true or false. If false is returned, the update has not taken place.

DELETE method

The DELETE method can be used to delete a single key or all keys sharing a prefix. There are a few query parameters that can be used with a DELETE request:

  • ?recurse : This is used to delete all keys which have the specified prefix. Without this, only a key with an exact match will be deleted.

  • ?cas=<index> : This flag is used to turn the DELETE into a Check-And-Set operation. This is very useful as a building block for more complex synchronization primitives. Unlike PUT, the index must be greater than 0 for Consul to take any action: a 0 index will not delete the key. If the index is non-zero, the key is only deleted if the index matches the ModifyIndex of that key.

/v1/txn

Available in Consul 0.7 and later, this endpoint manages updates or fetches of multiple keys inside a single, atomic transaction. Only the PUT method is supported.

By default, the datacenter of the agent receives the transaction; however, the dc can be provided using the ?dc= query parameter. It is important to note that each datacenter has its own KV store, and there is no built-in replication between datacenters. If you are interested in replication between datacenters, look at the Consul Replicate project.

The transaction endpoint supports the use of ACL tokens using the ?token= query parameter.

PUT Method

The PUT method lets you submit a list of operations to apply to the key/value store inside a transaction. If any operation fails, the transaction will be rolled back and none of the changes will be applied.

If the transaction doesn't contain any write operations then it will be fast-pathed internally to an endpoint that works like other reads, except that blocking queries are not currently supported. In this mode, you may supply the ?stale or ?consistent query parameters with the request to control consistency. To support bounding the acceptable staleness of data, read-only transaction responses provide the X-Consul-LastContact header containing the time in milliseconds that a server was last contacted by the leader node. The X-Consul-KnownLeader header also indicates if there is a known leader. These won't be present if the transaction contains any write operations, and any consistency query parameters will be ignored, since writes are always managed by the leader via the Raft consensus protocol.

The body of the request should be a list of operations to perform inside the atomic transaction. Up to 64 operations may be present in a single transaction. Operations look like this:

[
  {
    "KV": {
      "Verb": "<verb>",
      "Key": "<key>",
      "Value": "<Base64-encoded blob of data>",
      "Flags": <flags>,
      "Index": <index>,
      "Session": "<session id>"
    }
  },
  ...
]

KV is the only available operation type, though other types of operations may be added in future versions of Consul to be mixed with key/value operations. The following fields are available:

  • Verb is the type of operation to perform. Please see the table below for available verbs.

  • Key is simply the full path of the entry.

  • Value is a Base64-encoded blob of data. Values cannot be larger than 512kB.

  • Flags is an opaque unsigned integer that can be attached to each entry. Clients can choose to use this however makes sense for their application.

  • Index and Session are used for locking, unlocking, and check-and-set operations. Please see the table below for details on how they are used.

The following table summarizes the available verbs and the fields that apply to that operation ("X" means a field is required and "O" means it is optional):

Verb Operation Key Value Flags Index Session
set Sets the `Key` to the given `Value`. X X O
cas Sets the `Key` to the given `Value` with check-and-set semantics. The `Key` will only be set if its current modify index matches the supplied `Index`. X X O X
lock Locks the `Key` with the given `Session`. The `Key` will only obtain the lock if the `Session` is valid, and no other session has it locked. X X O X
unlock Unlocks the `Key` with the given `Session`. The `Key` will only release the lock if the `Session` is valid and currently has it locked. X X O X
get Gets the `Key` during the transaction. This fails the transaction if the `Key` doesn't exist. The key may not be present in the results if ACLs do not permit it to be read. X
get-tree Gets all keys with a prefix of `Key` during the transaction. This does not fail the transaction if the `Key` doesn't exist. Not all keys may be present in the results if ACLs do not permit them to be read. X
check-index Fails the transaction if `Key` does not have a modify index equal to `Index`. X X
check-session Fails the transaction if `Key` is not currently locked by `Session`. X X
delete Deletes the `Key`. X
delete-tree Deletes all keys with a prefix of`Key`. X
delete-cas Deletes the `Key` with check-and-set semantics. The `Key` will only be deleted if its current modify index matches the supplied `Index`. X X

If the transaction can be processed, a status code of 200 will be returned if it was successfully applied, or a status code of 409 will be returned if it was rolled back. If either of these status codes are returned, the response will look like this:

{
  "Results": [
    {
      "KV": {
        "LockIndex": <lock index>,
        "Key": "<key>",
        "Flags": <flags>,
        "Value": "<Base64-encoded blob of data, or null>",
        "CreateIndex": <index>,
        "ModifyIndex": <index>
      }
    },
    ...
  ],
  "Errors": [
    {
      "OpIndex": <index of failed operation>,
      "What": "<error message for failed operation>"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

Results has entries for some operations if the transaction was successful. To save space, the Value will be null for any Verb other than "get" or "get-tree". Like the /v1/kv/<key> endpoint, Value will be Base64-encoded if it is present. Also, no result entries will be added for verbs that delete keys.

Errors has entries describing which operations failed if the transaction was rolled back. The OpIndex gives the index of the failed operation in the transaction, and What is a string with an error message about why that operation failed.

If any other status code is returned, such as 400 or 500, then the body of the response will simply be an unstructured error message about what happened.