clients

Deploy Clients

You can deploy Consul clients in your infrastructure environment and connect them to the Consul servers managed in HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP).

As of Consul v1.14.0, Kubernetes deployments use Consul dataplanes instead of client agents. If you use Kubernetes with HCP Consul, refer to Consul Dataplane for deployment information.

Prerequisites

Before you deploy Consul clients, you need to create:

• A HashiCorp virtual network (HVN)
  • Create and Manage an HVN on AWS
  • Create and Manage an HVN on Azure
• A peering connection or transit gateway attachment
  • Peering Connections on AWS
  • Transit Gateway Attachments on AWS
  • Peering Connections on Azure
• Routes for directing network traffic between the HVN and a target connection
  • Routes on AWS
  • Routes on Azure
• A Consul server cluster

Download the Client Configuration

You can download an archive that contains the necessary files to connect your client agents to the cluster. The archive includes a default client configuration and certificate. To protect your cluster from unwanted connections, you should keep both the configuration file and the certificate in a secure location.

1. Sign in to the HCP Portal and select your organization.
2. From the sidebar, click Consul.
3. Click on a cluster in the ID column.
4. From the Access Consul menu, click Download to install Client Agents.

You can use these files to deploy clients to your connected infrastrastructure environment.

Deploy Clients to AWS

You can deploy Consul clients to the AWS runtime solution that operates in the virtual private cloud (VPC) you connected.

Amazon Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS)

EKS is the managed Kubernetes service for AWS. You can use Consul’s helm chart to install Consul clients and connect them to the HCP Consul cluster.

For guidance on how to deploy clients to EKS, complete the Connect an Elastic Kubernetes Service Cluster to HCP Consul tutorial.

Amazon EC2

EC2 is the virtual machine service for AWS. For guidance on how to deploy clients to EC2, complete the Connect a Consul Client to HCP Consul tutorial.

Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS)

ECS is the native container orchestration platform for AWS. For guidance on how to use Terraform to install Consul clients on ECS nodes, complete the Serverless Consul service mesh with ECS and HCP tutorial.

Deploy Clients to Azure

Azure VM

Azure VM is the virtual machine service for Azure. For guidance on how to deploy clients to Azure VM, complete the Connect a Consul Client to Azure VM Tutorial.

Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS)

AKS is the managed Kubernetes service for Azure. You can use Consul’s helm chart to install Consul clients and connect them to the HCP Consul cluster.

For guidance on how to deploy clients to AKS, complete the Connect a Consul Client to AKS tutorial.