128 lines
8.3 KiB
Plaintext
128 lines
8.3 KiB
Plaintext
---
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layout: docs
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page_title: Connect - Terminating Gateways
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sidebar_title: Terminating Gateways
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description: >-
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A terminating gateway enables traffic from services in the Consul
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service mesh to services outside the mesh. This section details
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how to configure and run a terminating gateway.
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---
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# Terminating Gateways
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-> **1.8.0+:** This feature is available in Consul versions 1.8.0 and newer.
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Terminating gateways enable connections from services in the Consul service mesh to
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services outside the mesh. These gateways effectively act as Connect proxies that can
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represent more than one service. They terminate Connect mTLS connections, enforce intentions,
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and forward requests to the appropriate destination.
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For additional use cases and usage patterns, review the guide for
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[understanding terminating gateways](https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul/developer-mesh/understand-terminating-gateways).
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~> **Known limitations:** Terminating gateways currently do not support targeting service subsets with
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[L7 configuration](/docs/connect/l7-traffic-management). They route to all instances of a service with no capabilities
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for filtering by instance.
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## Security Considerations
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~> We recommend that terminating gateways are not exposed to the WAN or open internet. This is because terminating gateways
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hold certificates to decrypt Consul Connect traffic directed at them and may be configured with credentials to connect
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to linked services. Connections over the WAN or open internet should flow through [mesh gateways](/docs/connect/mesh-gateway)
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whenever possible since they are not capable of decrypting traffic or connecting directly to services.
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By specifying a path to a [CA file](/docs/agent/config-entries/terminating-gateway#cafile) connections
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from the terminating gateway will be encrypted using one-way TLS authentication. If a path to a
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[client certificate](/docs/agent/config-entries/terminating-gateway#certfile)
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and [private key](/docs/agent/config-entries/terminating-gateway#keyfile) are also specified connections
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from the terminating gateway will be encrypted using mutual TLS authentication.
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If none of these are provided, Consul will **only** encrypt connections to the gateway and not
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from the gateway to the destination service.
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When certificates for linked services are rotated, the gateway must be restarted to pick up the new certificates from disk.
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To avoid downtime, perform a rolling restart to reload the certificates. Registering multiple terminating gateway instances
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with the same [name](https://www.consul.io/docs/commands/connect/envoy#service) provides additional fault tolerance
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as well as the ability to perform rolling restarts.
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-> **Note:** If certificates and keys are configured the terminating gateway will upgrade HTTP connections to TLS.
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Client applications can issue plain HTTP requests even when connecting to servers that require HTTPS.
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## Prerequisites
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Each terminating gateway needs:
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1. A local Consul client agent to manage its configuration.
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2. General network connectivity to services within its local Consul datacenter.
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Terminating gateways also require that your Consul datacenters are configured correctly:
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- You'll need to use Consul version 1.8.0 or newer.
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- Consul [Connect](/docs/agent/options#connect) must be enabled on the datacenter's Consul servers.
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- [gRPC](/docs/agent/options#grpc_port) must be enabled on all client agents.
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Currently, [Envoy](https://www.envoyproxy.io/) is the only proxy with terminating gateway capabilities in Consul.
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- Terminating gateway proxies receive their configuration through Consul, which
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automatically generates it based on the gateway's registration. Currently Consul
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can only translate terminating gateway registration information into Envoy
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configuration, therefore the proxies acting as terminating gateways must be Envoy.
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Connect proxies that send upstream traffic through a gateway aren't
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affected when you deploy terminating gateways. If you are using non-Envoy proxies as
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Connect proxies they will continue to work for traffic directed at services linked to
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a terminating gateway as long as they discover upstreams with the
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[/health/connect](/api/health#list-nodes-for-connect-capable-service) endpoint.
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## Running and Using a Terminating Gateway
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For a complete example of how to enable connections from services in the Consul service mesh to
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services outside the mesh, review the [terminating gateway guide](https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul/developer-mesh/terminating-gateways).
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## Terminating Gateway Configuration
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Terminating gateways are configured in service definitions and registered with Consul like other services, with two exceptions.
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The first is that the [kind](/api/agent/service#kind) must be "terminating-gateway". Second,
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the terminating gateway service definition may contain a `Proxy.Config` entry just like a
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Connect proxy service, to define opaque configuration parameters useful for the actual proxy software.
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For Envoy there are some supported [gateway options](/docs/connect/proxies/envoy#gateway-options) as well as
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[escape-hatch overrides](/docs/connect/proxies/envoy#escape-hatch-overrides).
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-> **Note:** If ACLs are enabled, terminating gateways must be registered with a token granting `node:read` on the nodes
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of all services in its configuration entry. The token must also grant `service:write` for the terminating gateway's service name **and**
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the names of all services in the terminating gateway's configuration entry. These privileges will authorize the gateway
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to terminate mTLS connections on behalf of the linked services and then route the traffic to its final destination.
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If the Consul client agent on the gateway's node is not configured to use the default gRPC port, 8502, then the gateway's token
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must also provide `agent:read` for its node's name in order to discover the agent's gRPC port. gRPC is used to expose Envoy's xDS API to Envoy proxies.
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Linking services to a terminating gateway is done with a `terminating-gateway`
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[configuration entry](/docs/agent/config-entries/terminating-gateway). This config entry can be applied via the
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[CLI](/docs/commands/config/write) or [API](/api/config#apply-configuration).
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Gateways with the same name in Consul's service catalog are configured with a single configuration entry.
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This means that additional gateway instances registered with the same name will determine their routing based on the existing configuration entry.
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Adding replicas of a gateway that routes to a particular set of services requires running the
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[envoy subcommand](/docs/commands/connect/envoy#terminating-gateways) on additional hosts and specifying
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the same gateway name with the `service` flag.
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~> [Configuration entries](/docs/agent/config-entries) are global in scope. A configuration entry for a gateway name applies
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across all federated Consul datacenters. If terminating gateways in different Consul datacenters need to route to different
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sets of services within their datacenter then the terminating gateways **must** be registered with different names.
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The services that the terminating gateway will proxy for must be registered with Consul, even the services outside the mesh. They must also be registered
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in the same Consul datacenter as the terminating gateway. Otherwise the terminating gateway will not be able to
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discover the services' addresses. These services can be registered with a local Consul agent.
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If there is no agent present, the services can be registered [directly in the catalog](/api/catalog#register-entity)
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by sending the registration request to a client or server agent on a different host.
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All services registered in the Consul catalog must be associated with a node, even when their node is
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not managed by a Consul client agent. All agent-less services with the same address can be registered under the same node name and address.
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However, ensure that the [node name](/api/catalog.html#node) for external services registered directly in the catalog
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does not match the node name of any Consul client agent node. If the node name overlaps with the node name of a Consul client agent,
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Consul's [anti-entropy sync](/docs/internals/anti-entropy) will delete the services registered via the `/catalog/register` HTTP API endpoint.
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For a complete example of how to register external services review the
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[external services guide](https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul/developer-discovery/external).
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