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layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
docs	Connect - Mesh Gateways	docs-connect-meshgateways	A Mesh Gateway enables better routing of a Connect service's data to upstreams in other datacenters. This section details how to use Envoy and describes how you can plug in a gateway of your choice.

-> 1.6.0+: This feature is available in Consul versions 1.6.0 and newer.

Mesh Gateways

Mesh gateways enable routing of Connect traffic between different Consul datacenters. Those datacenters can reside in different clouds or runtime environments where general interconnectivity between all services in all datacenters isn't feasible. These gateways operate by sniffing the SNI header out of the Connect session and then route the connection to the appropriate destination based on the server name requested. The data within the Connect session is not decrypted by the Gateway.

For a complete example of how to connect services across datacenters, review the mesh gateway guide.

Prerequisites

Each mesh gateway needs three things:

A local Consul agent to manage its configuration.
General network connectivity to all services within its local Consul datacenter.
General network connectivity to all mesh gateways within remote Consul datacenters.

Mesh gateways also require that your Consul datacenters are configured correctly:

You'll need to use Consul version 1.6.0.
Consul Connect must be enabled in both datacenters.
Each of your datacenters must have a unique name.
Your datacenters must be WAN joined.
The primary datacenter must be set to the same value in both datacenters. This specifies which datacenter is the authority for Connect certificates and is required for services in all datacenters to establish mutual TLS with each other.
gRPC must be enabled.
If you want to enable gateways globally you must enable centralized configuration.

Currently, Envoy is the only proxy with mesh gateway capabilities in Consul.

Mesh gateway proxies receive their configuration through Consul, which automatically generates it based on the proxy's registration. Currently Consul can only translate mesh gateway registration information into Envoy configuration, therefore the proxies acting as mesh gateways must be Envoy.
Sidecar proxies that send traffic to an upstream service through a gateway need to know the location of that gateway. They discover the gateway based on their sidecar proxy registrations. Consul can only translate the gateway registration information into Envoy configuration, so any sidecars that send upstream traffic through a gateway must be Envoy.

Sidecar proxies that don't send upstream traffic through a gateway aren't affected when you deploy gateways. If you are using Consul's built-in proxy as a Connect sidecar it will continue to work for intra-datacenter traffic and will receive incoming traffic even if that traffic has passed through a gateway.

Modes of Operation

Each upstream of a Connect proxy can be configured to be routed through a mesh gateway. Depending on your network, the proxy's connection to the gateway can happen in one of the following modes:

local - In this mode the Connect proxy makes its outbound connection to a gateway running in the same datacenter. That gateway is then responsible for ensuring the data gets forwarded along to gateways in the destination datacenter. This is the mode of operation depicted in the diagram at the beginning of the page.
remote - In this mode the Connect proxy makes its outbound connection to a gateway running in the destination datacenter. That gateway will then forward the data to the final destination service.
none - In this mode, no gateway is used and a Connect proxy makes its outbound connections directly to the destination services.

Mesh Gateway Configuration

Mesh gateways are defined very similarly to other typical services. The one exception is that a mesh gateway service definition may contain a Proxy.Config entry just like a Connect proxy service to define opaque configuration parameters useful for the actual proxy software.

Connect Proxy Configuration

Configuring a Connect Proxy to use gateways is as simple as setting its mode of operation. This can be done in several different places allowing for global to more fine grained control. If the gateway mode is configured in multiple locations the order of precedence is as follows

Upstream Definition
Service Instance Definition
Centralized service-defaults configuration entry
Centralized proxy-defaults configuration entry.

Enabling Gateways Globally

The following proxy-defaults configuration will enable gateways for all Connect services in the local mode.

Kind = "proxy-defaults"
Name = "global"
MeshGateway {
   Mode = "local"
}

Enabling Gateways Per-Service

The following service-defaults configuration will enable gateways for all Connect services with the name "web".

Kind = "service-defaults"
Name = "web"
MeshGateway {
   Mode = "local"
}

Enabling Gateways for a Service Instance

The following Proxy Service Registration definition will enable gateways for the service instance in the remote mode.

service {
   name = "web-sidecar-proxy"
   kind = "connect-proxy"
   port = 8181
   proxy {
      destination_service_name = "web"
      mesh_gateway {
         mode = "remote"
      }
      upstreams = [
         {
            destination_name = "api"
            datacenter = "secondary"
            local_bind_port = 10000
         }
      ]
   }
}

Or alternatively inline with the service definition:

service {
  name = "web"
  port = 8181
  connect {
    sidecar_service {
      proxy {
        mesh_gateway {
         mode = "remote"
        }
        upstreams = [
          {
            destination_name = "api"
            datacenter = "secondary"
            local_bind_port = 10000
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  }
}

Enabling Gateways for a Proxy Upstream

The following service definition will enable gateways in the local mode for one upstream, the remote mode for a second upstream and will disable gateways for a third upstream.

service {
   name = "web-sidecar-proxy"
   kind = "connect-proxy"
   port = 8181
   proxy {
      destination_service_name = "web"
      upstreams = [
         {
            destination_name = "api"
            local_bind_port = 10000
            mesh_gateway {
               mode = "remote"
            }
         },
         {
            destination_name = "db"
            local_bind_port = 10001
            mesh_gateway {
               mode = "local"
            }
         },
         {
            destination_name = "logging"
            local_bind_port = 10002
            mesh_gateway {
               mode = "none"
            }
         },
      ]
   }
}

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