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Consul Agent Service Registration

Command: consul services register

Corresponding HTTP API Endpoint: [PUT] /v1/agent/service/register

The services register command registers a service with the local agent. This command returns after registration and must be paired with explicit service deregistration. This command simplifies service registration from scripts. Refer to Register Services and Health Checks for information about other service registration methods.

The following table shows the ACLs required to use the consul services register command:

ACL Required
service:write

You cannot use the Consul command line to configure blocking queries and agent caching, you can configure them from the corresponding HTTP endpoint.

Usage

Usage: consul services register [options] [FILE...]

This command can register either a single service using flags documented below, or one or more services using service definition files in HCL or JSON format. The service is registered against the specified Consul agent (defaults to the local agent). This agent will execute all registered health checks.

This command returns after registration succeeds. It must be paired with a deregistration command or API call to remove the service. To ensure that services are properly deregistered, it is highly recommended that a check is created with the DeregisterCriticalServiceAfter configuration set. This will ensure that even if deregistration failed for any reason, the agent will automatically deregister the service instance after it is unhealthy for the specified period of time.

Registered services are persisted in the agent state directory. If the state directory remains unmodified, registered services will persist across restarts.

Warning for Consul operators: The Consul agent persists registered services in the local state directory. If this state directory is deleted or lost, services registered with this command will need to be reregistered.

Command Options

The flags below should only be set if no arguments are given. If no arguments are given, the flags below can be used to register a single service.

The following fields specify identical parameters in a standard service definition file. Refer to Services Configuration Reference for details about each configuration option.

  • -id - The ID of the service. This will default to -name if not set.

  • -name - The name of the service to register.

  • -address - The address of the service. If this isn't specified, it will default to the address registered with the local agent.

  • -port - The port of the service.

  • -socket - The Unix Domain socket of the service. Conflicts with address and port flags.

  • -meta key=value - Specify arbitrary KV metadata to associate with the service instance. This can be specified multiple times.

  • -tag value - Associate a tag with the service instance. This flag can be specified multiples times.

Enterprise Options

  • -partition=<string> - Enterprise Specifies the admin partition to query. If not provided, the partition is inferred from the request's ACL token, or defaults to the default partition.
  • -namespace=<string> - Specifies the namespace to query. If not provided, the namespace will be inferred from the request's ACL token, or will default to the default namespace. Namespaces are a Consul Enterprise feature added in v1.7.0.

API Options

  • -ca-file=<value> - Path to a CA file to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CACERT environment variable.

  • -ca-path=<value> - Path to a directory of CA certificates to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CAPATH environment variable.

  • -client-cert=<value> - Path to a client cert file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT environment variable.

  • -client-key=<value> - Path to a client key file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY environment variable.

  • -http-addr=<addr> - Address of the Consul agent with the port. This can be an IP address or DNS address, but it must include the port. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR environment variable. In Consul 0.8 and later, the default value is http://127.0.0.1:8500, and https can optionally be used instead. The scheme can also be set to HTTPS by setting the environment variable CONSUL_HTTP_SSL=true. This may be a unix domain socket using unix:///path/to/socket if the agent is configured to listen that way.

  • -tls-server-name=<value> - The server name to use as the SNI host when connecting via TLS. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_TLS_SERVER_NAME environment variable.

  • -token=<value> - ACL token to use in the request. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. If unspecified, the query will default to the token of the Consul agent at the HTTP address.

  • -token-file=<value> - File containing the ACL token to use in the request instead of one specified via the -token argument or CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN_FILE environment variable.

Examples

To create a simple service:

$ consul services register -name=web

To create a service from a configuration file:

$ cat web.json
{
  "Service": {
    "Name": "web"
  }
}

$ consul services register web.json
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