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158 lines
7.3 KiB
Plaintext
---
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layout: docs
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page_title: Connect - Native Application Integration
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description: >-
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Applications can natively integrate with the Connect API to support accepting
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and establishing connections to other Connect services without the overhead of
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a proxy sidecar.
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---
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# Connect-Native App Integration
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~> **Note:** The Native App Integration does not support many of the Connect service
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mesh features, and is not under active development.
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The [Envoy proxy](/docs/connect/proxies/envoy) should be used for most production
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environments.
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Applications can natively integrate with the Connect API to support accepting
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and establishing connections to other Connect services without the overhead of a
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[proxy sidecar](/docs/connect/proxies). This option is especially useful
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for applications that may be experiencing performance issues with the proxy
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sidecar deployment. This page will cover the high-level overview of
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integration, registering the service, etc. For language-specific examples, see
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the sidebar navigation to the left. It is also required if your service uses
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relies on a dynamic set of upstream services.
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Connect is just basic mutual TLS. This means that almost any application
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can easily integrate with Connect. There is no custom protocol in use;
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any language that supports TLS can accept and establish Connect-based
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connections.
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We currently provide an easy-to-use [Go integration](/docs/connect/native/go)
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to assist with the getting the proper certificates, verifying connections,
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etc. We plan to add helper libraries for other languages in the future.
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However, without library support, it is still possible for any major language
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to integrate with Connect.
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## Overview
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The primary work involved in natively integrating with Connect is
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[acquiring the proper TLS certificate](/api/agent/connect#service-leaf-certificate),
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[verifying TLS certificates](/api/agent/connect#certificate-authority-ca-roots),
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and [authorizing inbound connections or requests](/api/connect/intentions#list-matching-intentions).
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All of this is done using the Consul HTTP APIs linked above.
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An overview of the sequence is shown below. The diagram and the following
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details may seem complex, but this is a _regular mutual TLS connection_ with
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an API call to verify the incoming client certificate.
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-> **Note:** This diagram depicts the simpler networking layer 4 (e.g. TCP) [integration
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mechanism](/api/agent/connect#authorize).
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Details on the steps are below:
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- **Service discovery** - This is normal service discovery using Consul,
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a static IP, or any other mechanism. If you're using Consul DNS, the
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[`<service>.connect`](/docs/discovery/dns#connect-capable-service-lookups)
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syntax to find Connect-capable endpoints for a service. After service
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discovery, choose one address from the list of **service addresses**.
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- **Mutual TLS** - As a client, connect to the discovered service address
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over normal TLS. As part of the TLS connection, provide the
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[service certificate](/api/agent/connect#service-leaf-certificate)
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as the client certificate. Verify the remote certificate against the
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[public CA roots](/api/agent/connect#certificate-authority-ca-roots).
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As a client, if the connection is established then you've established
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a Connect-based connection and there are no further steps!
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- **Authorization** - As a server accepting connections, verify the client
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certificate against the [public CA
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roots](/api/agent/connect#certificate-authority-ca-roots). After verifying
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the certificate, parse some basic fields from it and use those to determine
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if the connection should be allowed. How this is done is dependent on
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the level of integration desired:
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- **Simple integration (TCP-only)** - Call the [authorizing
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API](/api/agent/connect#authorize) against the local agent. If this returns
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successfully, complete the TLS handshake and establish the connection. If
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authorization fails, close the connection.
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-> **NOTE:** This API call is expected to be called in the connection path,
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so if the local Consul agent is down or unresponsive it will effect the
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success rate of new connections. The agent uses locally cached data to
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authorize the connection and typically responds in microseconds. Therefore,
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the impact to the TLS handshake is typically microseconds.
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- **Complete integration** - Like how the calls to acquire the leaf
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certificate and CA roots are expected to be done out of band and reused, so
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should the [intention match
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API](/api/connect/intentions#list-matching-intentions). With all of the
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relevant intentions cached for the destination, all enforcement operations
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can be done entirely by the service without calling any Consul APIs in the
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connection or request path. If the service is networking layer 7 (e.g.
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HTTP) aware it can safely enforce intentions per _request_ instead of the
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coarser per _connection_ model.
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## Updating Certificates and Certificate Roots
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The leaf certificate and CA roots can be updated at any time and the
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natively integrated application must react to this relatively quickly
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so that new connections are not disrupted. This can be done through
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Consul blocking queries (HTTP long polling) or through periodic polling.
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The API calls for
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[acquiring a leaf TLS certificate](/api/agent/connect#service-leaf-certificate)
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and [reading CA roots](/api/agent/connect#certificate-authority-ca-roots)
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both support
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[blocking queries](/api/features/blocking). By using blocking
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queries, an application can efficiently wait for an updated value. For example,
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the leaf certificate API will block until the certificate is near expiration
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or the signing certificates have changed and will issue and return a new
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certificate.
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In some languages, using blocking queries may not be simple. In that case,
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we still recommend using the blocking query parameters but with a very short
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`timeout` value set. Doing this is documented with
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[blocking queries](/api/features/blocking). The low timeout will
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ensure the API responds quickly. We recommend that applications poll the
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certificate endpoints frequently, such as multiple times per minute.
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The overhead for the blocking queries (long or periodic polling) is minimal.
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The API calls are to the local agent and the local agent uses locally
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cached data multiplexed over a single TCP connection to the Consul leader.
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Even if a single machine has 1,000 Connect-enabled services all blocking
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on certificate updates, this translates to only one TCP connection to the
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Consul server.
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Some language libraries such as the
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[Go library](/docs/connect/native/go) automatically handle updating
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and locally caching the certificates.
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## Service Registration
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Connect-native applications must tell Consul that they support Connect
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natively. This enables the service to be returned as part of service
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discovery for Connect-capable services, used by other Connect-native applications
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and client [proxies](/docs/connect/proxies).
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This can be specified directly in the [service definition](/docs/discovery/services):
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```json
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{
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"service": {
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"name": "redis",
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"port": 8000,
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"connect": {
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"native": true
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}
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}
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}
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```
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Services that support Connect natively are still returned through the standard
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service discovery mechanisms in addition to the Connect-only service discovery
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mechanisms.
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