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https://github.com/samrocketman/docker-compose-ha-consul-vault-ui

A docker-compose example of HA Consul + Vault + Vault UI
https://github.com/samrocketman/docker-compose-ha-consul-vault-ui

consul docker docker-compose high-availability vault

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A docker-compose example of HA Consul + Vault + Vault UI

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# HA Consul + Vault + Vault UI

Docker Logo Consul Logo Vault Logo VaultBoy Logo

This project is an example of using [Consul][c], [Vault][v], and [Vault UI][ui]
in a high availability (HA) configuration. Conveniently packaged as [Docker][d]
services for provisioning via [Docker Compose][dc].

Features:

- dnsmasq makes Consul DNS available to all containers. A secondary dnsmasq
server is provided which grants HA to the DNS available to all containers.
This allows consul-template to update DNS with zero DNS downtime.
consul-template will create a lock to ensure it is not possible for both
primary and secondary DNS servers to be down during DNS configuration updates
as part of service discovery.
- consul-template updates dnsmasq configuration and restarts dnsmasq when the
configuration has changed (e.g. consul cluster size is increased on the fly).
This makes consul DNS lookups HA.
- Vault is registered via service discovery which is exposed via Consul DNS.
- Persists data across restarts as long as the cluster is gracefully shut down.
See [`Starting and stopping` section][#starting-and-stopping].
- Local docker infrastructure is able to anonymously authenticate with Vault via
approle method and its CIDR address.
- Linux and Mac OS with docker supported.

# Prerequisites

* [Docker][d]
* [Docker Compose][dc]

Supplemental reading material:

- [Hitchhiker's guide to administering Vault](docs/vault-for-humans.md)
- [Vault Auth By CIDR](docs/vault-auth-by-cidr.md) enables anonymous login to
Vault from docker infrastructure.

# Getting started

### Start the cluster

> Remove `--scale vault=3` if you want to start one instance of Vault.
> `docker compose up -d` would bring only Consul up in HA configuration.

./scripts/consul-agent.sh --bootstrap
docker compose up --scale vault=3 -d

### Configure your web browser

Configure your browser to use the SOCKS5 proxy listening on `localhost:1080`.
With your browser configured to use the proxy visit
`http://consul.service.consul:8500/` and wait for the cluster to be ready.
After the vault service has all nodes available, it is time to initialize vault.

### Initialize Vault

If you wish to secure `secret.txt` with GPG, then set the `recipient_list`
environment variable. For example, the following.

export recipient_list=""

If you do not use GPG or do not want to, then skip setting `recipient_list`.
Initialize vault witht he following command.

./scripts/initialize-vault.sh

The credentials for vault are located in the file `secret.txt` which is created
when Vault is initialized. Alternately, `secret.txt.gpg` if using GPG
encryption.

# Visit the web UI

### Configure your browser

Configure your web browser to use the SOCKS5 proxy listening on
`localhost:1080`.

In Firefox, do the following:

1. Edit [connections settings][firefox-socks]
2. Set Manual proxy configuration
3. Set SOCKS host to `localhost`, set Port to `1080`, and check `SOCKS v5`
boolean.

Alternately install [FoxyProxy extension][foxyproxy] which is an extension for
quickly switching proxies on or off.

For other browsers, web search how to configure proxy settings or see what
extensions are available for managing proxy settings.

### Visit services via Consul DNS

Visit http://portal.service.consul/. It provides links to other web UIs and if
you configure additional portal services, then they will also show up
automatically.

Alternately, you can visit consul and vault directly at:

* http://consul.service.consul:8500/
* http://active.vault.service.consul:8200/

To log into Vault UI you must generate for yourself an admin token.

./scripts/get-admin-token.sh

The root user token for Vault is stored in `secret.txt` at the root of this
repository after you initialize Vault.

### Other portal services

For playing around with service discovery I have created other docker compose
files which will automatically register with this consul cluster. Here's a list
of what I have created so far.

- [consul-chronograf][consul-chronograf]
- [consul-grafana][consul-grafana]
- [consul-influxdb][consul-influxdb]
- [consul-kapacitor][consul-kapacitor]
- [consul-mysql][consul-mysql]
- [consul-nexus3][consul-nexus3]

# Experiment

With HA enabled, container instances of consul and vault can be terminated with
minor disruptions.

Consul can be scaled up on the fly. `consul-template` will automatically update
dnsmasq to include new services. dnsmasq will experience zero downtime.

docker compose up --scale vault=3 --scale consul-worker=6 -d

To play with failover for killing consul instances, it is recommended to review
[fault tolerance for consul HA deployments][ft].

# Starting and stopping

Because high availability clusters have to gossip across nodes you can't execute
a simple `docker compose down` without corrupting the clusters. Instead, you
have to gracefully shut down all clusters that depend on consul and then
gracefully shutdown consul itself. For this, I have provided a script.

Stop consul and vault cluster safely.

./scripts/graceful-shutdown.sh

Start the consul and vault clusters.

docker compose up -d

# Troubleshooting

### DNS

Currently, output from the `dnsmasq` and `dnsmasq-secondary` servers are
minimal. Verbosity of output can be increased for troubleshooting. Edit
`docker compose.yml` and add `--log-queries` to the dnsmasq command.

DNS client troubleshooting using Docker.

docker compose run dns-troubleshoot

Using the `dig` command inside of the container.

# rely on the internal container DNS
dig consul.service.consul

# specify the dnsmasq hostname as the DNS server
dig @dnsmasq vault.service.consul

# reference vault DNS by tags
dig active.vault.service.consul
dig standby.vault.service.consul

### Logs

View vault logs.

docker compose logs vault

User `docker exec` to log into container names. It allows you to poke around
the runtime of the container.

### SOCKS5 proxy

Run a [SOCKS5 proxy][socks] for use with your browser.

docker run --network docker-compose-ha-consul-vault-ui_internal --dns 172.16.238.2 --init -p 127.0.0.1:1080:1080 --rm serjs/go-socks5-proxy

Configure your browser to use SOCKS proxy at `127.0.0.1:1080`.

### Recovering data

It's possible a cluster was shutdown uncleanly and put into an irrecoverable
state with no leader. If you have ever cleanly shut down consul, then it's
possible you have a backup in the `backups/` directory.

If you're in this leaderless state, then wipe out your old cluster data with the
following command (this will permanently delete all old data).

docker compose down -v

Start a new cluster.

docker compose up -d

The latest backup can be restored via the following script.

./scripts/restore-consul.sh

If you have a specific backup you wish to restore, then you can call it as an
argument.

./scripts/restore-consul.sh backups/backup.snap

# Screenshots

![show portal before services are available](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/875669/69476734-cbeb8500-0dab-11ea-83a1-f46013438fc0.png)

---

![show portal after services are available](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/875669/69476742-dad23780-0dab-11ea-9b01-ec01574facab.png)

---

![consul screenshot of all discovered services](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/875669/69476746-e32a7280-0dab-11ea-99cb-d3a39426a299.png)

---

![consul screenshot of service metadata](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/875669/69476747-e9b8ea00-0dab-11ea-9bda-1abf3303e1fd.png)

---

# License

[MIT License](LICENSE)

[c]: https://www.consul.io/
[consul-chronograf]: https://github.com/samrocketman/consul-chronograf
[consul-grafana]: https://github.com/samrocketman/consul-grafana
[consul-influxdb]: https://github.com/samrocketman/consul-influxdb
[consul-kapacitor]: https://github.com/samrocketman/consul-kapacitor
[consul-mysql]: https://github.com/samrocketman/consul-mysql
[consul-nexus3]: https://github.com/samrocketman/consul-nexus3
[d]: https://www.docker.com/
[dc]: https://docs.docker.com/compose/
[firefox-socks]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/connection-settings-firefox
[foxyproxy]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/foxyproxy-standard/
[ft]: https://www.consul.io/docs/internals/consensus.html#deployment-table
[socks]: https://github.com/serjs/socks5-server
[ui]: https://github.com/djenriquez/vault-ui
[v]: https://www.vaultproject.io/