consul/website/source/api/agent.html.md

layout	page_title	sidebar_current	description
api	Agent - HTTP API	api-agent	The /agent endpoints interact with the local Consul agent to register services, checks, list members, and more.

Agent HTTP API

The /agent endpoints are used to interact with the local Consul agent. Usually, services and checks are registered with an agent which then takes on the burden of keeping that data synchronized with the cluster. For example, the agent registers services and checks with the Catalog and performs anti-entropy to recover from outages.

In addition to these endpoints, additional endpoints are grouped in the navigation for Checks and Services.

List Members

This endpoint returns the members the agent sees in the cluster gossip pool. Due to the nature of gossip, this is eventually consistent: the results may differ by agent. The strongly consistent view of nodes is instead provided by /v1/catalog/nodes.

Method	Path	Produces
GET	/agent/members	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	node:read

Parameters

• wan (bool: false) - Specifies to list WAN members instead of the LAN members (which is the default). This is only eligible for agents running in server mode. This is specified as part of the URL as a query parameter.

• segment (string: "") - (Enterprise-only) Specifies the segment to list members for. If left blank, this will query for the default segment when connecting to a server and the agent's own segment when connecting to a client (clients can only be part of one network segment). When querying a server, setting this to the special string _all will show members in all segments.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/members

Sample Response

[
  {
    "Name": "foobar",
    "Addr": "10.1.10.12",
    "Port": 8301,
    "Tags": {
      "bootstrap": "1",
      "dc": "dc1",
      "port": "8300",
      "role": "consul"
    },
    "Status": 1,
    "ProtocolMin": 1,
    "ProtocolMax": 2,
    "ProtocolCur": 2,
    "DelegateMin": 1,
    "DelegateMax": 3,
    "DelegateCur": 3
  }
]

Read Configuration

This endpoint returns the configuration and member information of the local agent. The Config element contains a subset of the configuration and its format will not change in a backwards incompatible way between releases. DebugConfig contains the full runtime configuration but its format is subject to change without notice or deprecation.

Method	Path	Produces
GET	/agent/self	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:read

Sample Request

$ curl \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/self

Sample Response

{
  "Config": {
    "Datacenter": "dc1",
    "NodeName": "foobar",
    "NodeID": "9d754d17-d864-b1d3-e758-f3fe25a9874f",
    "Server": true,
    "Revision": "deadbeef",
    "Version": "1.0.0"
  },
  "DebugConfig": {
    ... full runtime configuration ...
    ... format subject to change ...
  },
  "Coord": {
    "Adjustment": 0,
    "Error": 1.5,
    "Vec": [0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0]
  },
  "Member": {
    "Name": "foobar",
    "Addr": "10.1.10.12",
    "Port": 8301,
    "Tags": {
      "bootstrap": "1",
      "dc": "dc1",
      "id": "40e4a748-2192-161a-0510-9bf59fe950b5",
      "port": "8300",
      "role": "consul",
      "vsn": "1",
      "vsn_max": "1",
      "vsn_min": "1"
    },
    "Status": 1,
    "ProtocolMin": 1,
    "ProtocolMax": 2,
    "ProtocolCur": 2,
    "DelegateMin": 2,
    "DelegateMax": 4,
    "DelegateCur": 4
  },
  "Meta": {
    "instance_type": "i2.xlarge",
    "os_version": "ubuntu_16.04"
  }
}

Reload Agent

This endpoint instructs the agent to reload its configuration. Any errors encountered during this process are returned.

Not all configuration options are reloadable. See the Reloadable Configuration section on the agent options page for details on which options are supported.

Method	Path	Produces
PUT	/agent/reload	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:write

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/reload

Enable Maintenance Mode

This endpoint places the agent into "maintenance mode". During maintenance mode, the node will be marked as unavailable and will not be present in DNS or API queries. This API call is idempotent.

Maintenance mode is persistent and will be automatically restored on agent restart.

Method	Path	Produces
PUT	/agent/maintenance	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	node:write

Parameters

• enable (bool: <required>) - Specifies whether to enable or disable maintenance mode. This is specified as part of the URL as a query string parameter.

• reason (string: "") - Specifies a text string explaining the reason for placing the node into maintenance mode. This is simply to aid human operators. If no reason is provided, a default value will be used instead. This is specified as part of the URL as a query string parameter, and, as such, must be URI-encoded.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/maintenance?enable=true&reason=For+API+docs

View Metrics

This endpoint returns the configuration and member information of the local agent.

Method	Path	Produces
GET	/agent/metrics	application/json
GET	/agent/metrics?format=prometheus	text/plain; version=0.0.4; charset=utf-8

This endpoint will dump the metrics for the most recent finished interval. For more information about metrics, see the telemetry page.

In order to enable Prometheus support, you need to use the configuration directive prometheus_retention_time.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:read

Sample Request

$ curl \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/metrics

Sample Response

{
    "Timestamp": "2017-08-08 02:55:10 +0000 UTC",
    "Gauges": [
        {
            "Name": "consul.consul.session_ttl.active",
            "Value": 0,
            "Labels": {}
        },
        {
            "Name": "consul.runtime.alloc_bytes",
            "Value": 4704344,
            "Labels": {}
        },
        {
            "Name": "consul.runtime.free_count",
            "Value": 74063,
            "Labels": {}
        }
    ],
    "Points": [],
    "Counters": [
        {
            "Name": "consul.consul.catalog.service.query",
            "Count": 1,
            "Sum": 1,
            "Min": 1,
            "Max": 1,
            "Mean": 1,
            "Stddev": 0,
            "Labels": {
                "service": "consul"
            }
        },
        {
            "Name": "consul.raft.apply",
            "Count": 1,
            "Sum": 1,
            "Min": 1,
            "Max": 1,
            "Mean": 1,
            "Stddev": 0,
            "Labels": {}
        }
    ],
    "Samples": [
        {
            "Name": "consul.consul.http.GET.v1.agent.metrics",
            "Count": 1,
            "Sum": 0.1817069947719574,
            "Min": 0.1817069947719574,
            "Max": 0.1817069947719574,
            "Mean": 0.1817069947719574,
            "Stddev": 0,
            "Labels": {}
        },
        {
            "Name": "consul.consul.http.GET.v1.catalog.service._",
            "Count": 1,
            "Sum": 0.23342099785804749,
            "Min": 0.23342099785804749,
            "Max": 0.23342099785804749,
            "Mean": 0.23342099785804749,
            "Stddev": 0,
            "Labels": {}
        },
        {
            "Name": "consul.serf.queue.Query",
            "Count": 20,
            "Sum": 0,
            "Min": 0,
            "Max": 0,
            "Mean": 0,
            "Stddev": 0,
            "Labels": {}
        }
    ]
}

• Timestamp is the timestamp of the interval for the displayed metrics. Metrics are aggregated on a ten second interval, so this value (along with the displayed metrics) will change every ten seconds.

• Gauges is a list of gauges which store one value that is updated as time goes on, such as the amount of memory allocated.

• Points is a list of point metrics, which each store a series of points under a given name.

• Counters is a list of counters, which store info about a metric that is incremented over time such as the number of requests to an HTTP endpoint.

• Samples is a list of samples, which store info about the amount of time spent on an operation, such as the time taken to serve a request to a specific http endpoint.

Stream Logs

This endpoint streams logs from the local agent until the connection is closed.

Method	Path	Produces
GET	/agent/monitor	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:read

Parameters

• loglevel (string: "info") - Specifies a text string containing a log level to filter on, such as info.

Sample Request

$ curl \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/monitor

Sample Response

YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS [INFO] raft: Initial configuration (index=1): [{Suffrage:Voter ID:127.0.0.1:8300 Address:127.0.0.1:8300}]
YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS [INFO] raft: Node at 127.0.0.1:8300 [Follower] entering Follower state (Leader: "")
YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS [INFO] serf: EventMemberJoin: machine-osx 127.0.0.1
YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS [INFO] consul: Adding LAN server machine-osx (Addr: tcp/127.0.0.1:8300) (DC: dc1)
YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS [INFO] serf: EventMemberJoin: machine-osx.dc1 127.0.0.1
YYYY/MM/DD HH:MM:SS [INFO] consul: Handled member-join event for server "machine-osx.dc1" in area "wan"
# ...

Join Agent

This endpoint instructs the agent to attempt to connect to a given address.

Method	Path	Produces
PUT	/agent/join/:address	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:write

Parameters

• address (string: <required>) - Specifies the address of the other agent to join. This is specified as part of the URL.

• wan (bool: false) - Specifies to try and join over the WAN pool. This is only optional for agents running in server mode. This is specified as part of the URL as a query parameter

Sample Request

$ curl \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/join/1.2.3.4

Graceful Leave and Shutdown

This endpoint triggers a graceful leave and shutdown of the agent. It is used to ensure other nodes see the agent as "left" instead of "failed". Nodes that leave will not attempt to re-join the cluster on restarting with a snapshot.

For nodes in server mode, the node is removed from the Raft peer set in a graceful manner. This is critical, as in certain situations a non-graceful leave can affect cluster availability.

Method	Path	Produces
PUT	/agent/leave	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:write

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/leave

Force Leave and Shutdown

This endpoint instructs the agent to force a node into the left state. If a node fails unexpectedly, then it will be in a failed state. Once in the failed state, Consul will attempt to reconnect, and the services and checks belonging to that node will not be cleaned up. Forcing a node into the left state allows its old entries to be removed.

Method	Path	Produces
PUT	/agent/force-leave	application/json

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:write

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/force-leave

Update ACL Tokens

This endpoint updates the ACL tokens currently in use by the agent. It can be used to introduce ACL tokens to the agent for the first time, or to update tokens that were initially loaded from the agent's configuration. Tokens are not persisted, so will need to be updated again if the agent is restarted.

Method	Path	Produces
PUT	/agent/token/acl_token	application/json
PUT	/agent/token/acl_agent_token	application/json
PUT	/agent/token/acl_agent_master_token	application/json
PUT	/agent/token/acl_replication_token	application/json

The paths above correspond to the token names as found in the agent configuration: acl_token, acl_agent_token, acl_agent_master_token, and acl_replication_token.

The table below shows this endpoint's support for blocking queries, consistency modes, and required ACLs.

Blocking Queries	Consistency Modes	ACL Required
NO	none	agent:write

Parameters

• Token (string: "") - Specifies the ACL token to set.

Sample Payload

{
  "Token": "adf4238a-882b-9ddc-4a9d-5b6758e4159e"
}

Sample Request

$ curl \
    --request PUT \
    --data @payload.json \
    https://consul.rocks/v1/agent/token/acl_token