Consul Cheat Sheet
Introduction
Welcome to the Consul Cheat Sheet, your quick reference guide for essential commands and operations in HashiCorp Consul. Consul is a powerful tool for service discovery, key-value store management, and network infrastructure automation. Whether you are a beginner exploring the basics or an experienced user in need of a quick reminder, this cheat sheet provides a concise overview of key Consul commands in a convenient table format.
How to Use
Each entry in this cheat sheet presents a specific Consul command along with a brief description of its purpose. The commands cover a range of functionalities, including starting a Consul agent, interacting with the key-value store, managing ACLs, monitoring the cluster, and utilizing Connect for service mesh capabilities.
Feel free to customize and expand upon these commands based on your specific requirements and use cases. Whether you are working with a single-node development setup or a production-scale Consul cluster, this cheat sheet serves as a handy reference to streamline your interactions with Consul.
Cheat Sheet
| No. | Command | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | consul agent -dev | Start a local development Consul agent |
| 2 | consul agent -server -bootstrap-expect=1 | Start a single-node Consul server in bootstrap mode |
| 3 | consul members | List members of the Consul cluster |
| 4 | consul info | Display information about the Consul agent |
| 5 | consul catalog services | List services registered with the Consul catalog |
| 6 | consul kv put key1 value1 | Put a key-value pair into the Consul key-value store |
| 7 | consul kv get key1 | Retrieve the value of a key from the key-value store |
| 8 | consul kv delete key1 | Delete a key from the Consul key-value store |
| 9 | consul monitor | Monitor Consul logs in real-time |
| 10 | consul leave | Gracefully leave the Consul cluster |
| 11 | consul reload | Trigger a configuration reload of the Consul agent |
| 12 | consul members -detailed | Display detailed information about Consul members |
| 13 | consul status leader | Show the current Consul leader |
| 14 | consul watch -type=key -key=key1 | Watch a key in the Consul key-value store |
| 15 | consul event -name=my-event | Fire a custom event in the Consul cluster |
| 16 | consul lock my-key my-command | Acquire a lock on a key for executing a command |
| 17 | consul lock -name=my-lock my-command | Acquire a named lock for executing a command |
| 18 | consul acl policy list | List ACL policies in Consul |
| 19 | consul acl role create -name=my-role | Create a new ACL role in Consul |
| 20 | consul acl token create -description=my-token | Create a new ACL token in Consul |
| 21 | consul acl binding rule -method=GET | Create an ACL binding rule for HTTP method |
| 22 | consul operator raft list-peers | List Raft peers in the Consul cluster |
| 23 | consul snapshot save snapshot.snap | Create a snapshot of the Consul server state |
| 24 | consul operator autopilot health | Check the health of the Autopilot subsystem |
| 25 | consul connect envoy -sidecar-for=web | Generate Envoy sidecar configuration for a service |
| 26 | consul connect proxy -service=web | Launch a proxy for a service in Connect |
| 27 | consul connect intentions -http | List HTTP intentions in Consul Connect |
| 28 | consul catalog nodes -service=web | List nodes providing a specific service |
| 29 | consul kv export > backup.json | Export the entire key-value store to a JSON file |
| 30 | consul acl bootstrap | Bootstrap ACLs on a new Consul server |
| 31 | consul connect intentions create -deny | Create a deny intention in Consul Connect |
| 32 | consul catalog services -tags=production | List services with specific tags in the Consul catalog |
| 33 | consul kv put -cas=0 key2 value2 | Put a key-value pair without check-and-set (CAS) |
| 34 | consul kv get -recurse key | Recursively retrieve all key-value pairs under a key |
| 35 | consul monitor -log-level=debug | Monitor Consul logs with debug log level |
| 36 | consul operator keyring use -keyring=my-keyring | Use a specific keyring for operator-related commands |
| 37 | consul config write config.hcl | Write a configuration file for Consul |
| 38 | consul connect proxy -sidecar-for=web | Launch a proxy sidecar for a service in Connect |
| 39 | consul agent -config-file=my-config.json | Start Consul agent with a specific configuration file |
| 40 | consul reload -rpc-addr=127.0.0.1:8400 | Trigger a configuration reload on a specific RPC address |
| 41 | consul operator keyring export -keyring=my-keyring | Export a keyring for backup or sharing |
| 42 | consul catalog services -health | List services with health checks in the Consul catalog |
| 43 | consul connect inject -sidecar-for=web | Inject Connect proxy configuration into a service |
| 44 | consul acl token update -id=my-token -name=new-name | Update the name of an ACL token |
| 45 | consul kv put -flags=42 key3 value3 | Put a key-value pair with a custom numeric flag |
| 46 | consul agent -retry-join=consul-server-1 | Join a specific Consul server using retry-join |
| 47 | consul config write -kind=service my-service.hcl | Write a service-specific configuration file |
| 48 | consul snapshot restore snapshot.snap | Restore Consul server state from a snapshot |
| 49 | consul connect intentions delete -id=my-intention | Delete a specific intention in Consul Connect |
| 50 | consul version | Display the version of Consul |