From 0208fd00a2b1ae5ff3932f5b05bead9084058cd6 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Luke Kysow <1034429+lkysow@users.noreply.github.com> Date: Tue, 22 Sep 2020 10:31:29 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] Reword docs to make k8s arch clear (#8723) * Reword docs to make k8s arch clear Co-authored-by: Iryna Shustava --- .../pages/docs/k8s/installation/install.mdx | 22 ++++++++++--------- 1 file changed, 12 insertions(+), 10 deletions(-) diff --git a/website/pages/docs/k8s/installation/install.mdx b/website/pages/docs/k8s/installation/install.mdx index d1998f81b2..48b42c3685 100644 --- a/website/pages/docs/k8s/installation/install.mdx +++ b/website/pages/docs/k8s/installation/install.mdx @@ -252,9 +252,9 @@ spec: ## Architecture -We recommend running Consul on Kubernetes with the same -[general architecture](/docs/internals/architecture) -as running it anywhere else. There are some benefits Kubernetes can provide +Consul runs on Kubernetes with the same +[architecture](/docs/internals/architecture) +as other platforms. There are some benefits Kubernetes can provide that eases operating a Consul cluster and we document those below. The standard [production deployment guide](https://learn.hashicorp.com/consul/datacenter-deploy/deployment-guide) is still an important read even if running Consul within Kubernetes. @@ -293,24 +293,26 @@ so this must done manually when removing servers. The client agents are run as a **DaemonSet**. This places one agent (within its own pod) on each Kubernetes node. -The clients expose the Consul HTTP API via a static port (default 8500) +The clients expose the Consul HTTP API via a static port (8500) bound to the host port. This enables all other pods on the node to connect to the node-local agent using the host IP that can be retrieved via the Kubernetes downward API. See [accessing the Consul HTTP API](/docs/k8s/installation/install#accessing-the-consul-http-api) for an example. -There is a major limitation to this: there is no way to bind to a local-only +We do not use a **NodePort** Kubernetes service because requests to node ports get randomly routed +to any pod in the service and we need to be able to route directly to the Consul +client running on our node. + +-> **Note:** There is no way to bind to a local-only host port. Therefore, any other node can connect to the agent. This should be considered for security. For a properly production-secured agent with TLS and ACLs, this is safe. -Some people prefer to run **Consul agent per pod** architectures, since this -makes it easy to register the pod as a service. However, this turns +We run Consul clients as a **DaemonSet** instead of running a client in each +application pod as a sidecar because this would turn a pod into a "node" in Consul and also causes an explosion of resource usage -since every pod needs a Consul agent. We recommend instead running an -agent (in a dedicated pod) per node, via the DaemonSet. This maintains the -node equivalence in Consul. Service registration should be handled via the +since every pod needs a Consul agent. Service registration should be handled via the catalog syncing feature with Services rather than pods. -> **Note:** Due to a limitation of anti-affinity rules with DaemonSets,