50 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
50 lines
2.1 KiB
Plaintext
---
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layout: docs
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page_title: Consul Clients Outside of Kubernetes - Kubernetes
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sidebar_title: 'Consul Clients Outside Kubernetes'
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sidebar_current: docs-platform-k8s-run-clients-outside
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description: >-
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Consul clients running on non-Kubernetes nodes can join a Consul cluster
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running within Kubernetes.
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---
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# Consul Clients Outside Kubernetes
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Consul clients running on non-Kubernetes nodes can join a Consul cluster running within Kubernetes.
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## Auto-join
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The recommended way to join a cluster running within Kubernetes is to
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use the ["k8s" cloud auto-join provider](/docs/agent/cloud-auto-join.html#kubernetes-k8s-).
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The auto-join provider dynamically discovers IP addresses to join using
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the Kubernetes API. It authenticates with Kubernetes using a standard
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`kubeconfig` file. This works with all major hosted Kubernetes offerings
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as well as self-hosted installations. The token in the `kubeconfig` file
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needs to have permissions to list pods in the namespace where Consul servers
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are deployed.
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The auto-join string below will join a Consul server cluster that is
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started using the [official Helm chart](/docs/platform/k8s/helm.html):
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```shell
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$ consul agent -retry-join 'provider=k8s label_selector="app=consul,component=server"'
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```
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By default, Consul will join the default gossip port. Pods may set an
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annotation `consul.hashicorp.com/auto-join-port` to an integer value or
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a named port to specify the port for the auto-join to return. This enables
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different pods to have different exposed ports.
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## Networking
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Consul typically requires a fully connected network.
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Because the Consul Helm chart currently doesn't allow exposing servers' gossip ports via a `hostPort`,
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nodes outside of Kubernetes joining a cluster running within Kubernetes must be able to communicate
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to pod IPs via the network. Note that the auto-join provider discussed above will use pod IPs by default.
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-> **Consul Enterprise customers** may use
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[network segments](/docs/enterprise/network-segments/index.html) to
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enable non-fully-connected topologies. However, out-of-cluster nodes must still
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be able to communicate with the server pod or host IP addresses.
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