github.com/sl1pm4t/consul@v1.4.5-0.20190325224627-74c31c540f9c/website/source/docs/platform/k8s/index.html.md (about)

     1  ---
     2  layout: "docs"
     3  page_title: "Kubernetes"
     4  sidebar_current: "docs-platform-k8s-index"
     5  description: |-
     6    Consul has many integrations with Kubernetes. You can deploy Consul to Kubernetes using the Helm chart, sync services between Consul and Kubernetes, automatically secure Pod communication with Connect, and more. This section documents the official integrations between Consul and Kubernetes.
     7  ---
     8  
     9  # Kubernetes
    10  
    11  Consul has many integrations with Kubernetes. You can deploy Consul
    12  to Kubernetes using the Helm chart, sync services between Consul and
    13  Kubernetes, automatically secure Pod communication with Connect, and more.
    14  This section documents the official integrations between Consul and Kubernetes.
    15  
    16  -> A step-by-step beginner tutorial and accompanying video can be found at the [Minikube with Consul guide](/docs/guides/minikube.html)
    17  
    18  ## Use Cases
    19  
    20  **Running a Consul server cluster:** The Consul server cluster can run directly
    21  on Kubernetes. This can be used by both nodes within Kubernetes as well as
    22  nodes external to Kubernetes, as long as they can communicate to the server
    23  nodes via the network.
    24  
    25  **Running Consul clients:** Consul clients can run as pods on every node
    26  and expose the Consul API to running pods. This enables many Consul tools
    27  such as envconsul, consul-template, and more to work on Kubernetes since a
    28  local agent is available. This will also register each Kubernetes node with
    29  the Consul catalog for full visibility into your infrastructure
    30  
    31  **Service sync to enable Kubernetes and non-Kubernetes services to communicate:**
    32  Consul can sync Kubernetes services with its own service registry. This allows
    33  Kubernetes services to use native Kubernetes service discovery to discover
    34  and connect to external services, and for external services to use Consul
    35  service discovery to discover and connect to Kubernetes services.
    36  
    37  **Automatic encryption and authorization for pod network connections:**
    38  Consul can automatically inject the [Connect](/docs/connect/index.html)
    39  sidecar into pods so that they can accept and establish encrypted
    40  and authorized network connections via mutual TLS. And because Connect
    41  can run anywhere, pods can also communicate with external services (and
    42  vice versa) over a fully encrypted connection.
    43  
    44  **And more!** Consul can run directly on Kubernetes, so in addition to the
    45  native integrations provided by Consul itself, any other tool built for
    46  Kubernetes can choose to leverage Consul.
    47  
    48  ## "consul-k8s" Project
    49  
    50  The dedicated [consul-k8s project](https://github.com/hashicorp/consul-k8s)
    51  contains the integration functionality between Consul and Kubernetes.
    52  You generally will not need to invoke this project directly since the
    53  [Helm chart](/docs/platform/k8s/helm.html) automates the installation and
    54  configuration of the project when necessary.
    55  
    56  We may integrate this functionality directly into Consul in the future,
    57  but the separate project allows us to iterate and version the Kubernetes
    58  functionality separately. Additionally, a lot of the functionality works
    59  across multiple Consul versions, so you're able to update and resolve any
    60  Kubernetes integration issues without also upgrading Consul itself which
    61  can be more difficult.