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layout: docs
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page_title: Configuration Entry Overview
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description: >-
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Configuration entries define service mesh behaviors in order to secure and manage traffic. Learn about Consul’ s different config entry kinds and get links to configuration reference pages.
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---
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# Configuration Entry Overview
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Configuration entries can be used to configure the behavior of Consul service mesh.
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The following configuration entries are supported:
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- [Ingress Gateway](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/ingress-gateway) - defines the
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configuration for an ingress gateway
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- [Mesh](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/mesh) - controls
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mesh-wide configuration that applies across namespaces and federated datacenters.
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- [Exported Services](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/exported-services) - enables
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Consul to export service instances to other peers or to other admin partitions local or remote to the datacenter.
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- [Proxy Defaults](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/proxy-defaults) - controls
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proxy configuration
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- [Service Defaults](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/service-defaults) - configures
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defaults for all the instances of a given service
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- [Service Intentions](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/service-intentions) - defines
the [intentions](/consul/docs/connect/intentions) for a destination service
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- [Service Resolver](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/service-resolver) - matches
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service instances with a specific Connect upstream discovery requests
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- [Service Router](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/service-router) - defines
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where to send layer 7 traffic based on the HTTP route
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- [Service Splitter](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/service-splitter) - defines
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how to divide requests for a single HTTP route based on percentages
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- [Terminating Gateway](/consul/docs/connect/config-entries/terminating-gateway) - defines the
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services associated with terminating gateway
## Managing Configuration Entries
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See [Agent - Config Entries](/consul/docs/agent/config-entries).
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## Using Configuration Entries For Service Defaults
Outside of Kubernetes, when the agent is
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[configured](/consul/docs/agent/config/config-files#enable_central_service_config) to enable
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central service configurations, it will look for service configuration defaults
that match a registering service instance. If it finds any, the agent will merge
those defaults with the service instance configuration. This allows for things
like service protocol or proxy configuration to be defined globally and
inherited by any affected service registrations.