How to Install Consul on POP! OS Latest

Consul is a service mesh solution that provides a complete platform for networking, security and observability of your microservices. It helps you to connect and secure services across any runtime platform and public or private cloud.

In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to install Consul on POP! OS Latest.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have the following prerequisites:

• A running instance of POP! OS Latest.
• A user account with sudo privileges.
• A stable internet connection.

Step 1 - Update package lists

To get started, open a terminal window and update the package list of your system by running the following command.

sudo apt update

Step 2 - Download Consul binary

Next, you need to download the Consul binary. Head over to https://www.consul.io/downloads.html and check the latest version of Consul.

cd ~
wget https://releases.hashicorp.com/consul/<version>/consul_<version>_linux_amd64.zip

Replace with the latest version of Consul.

Once downloaded, extract the archive file using the following command.

unzip consul_<version>_linux_amd64.zip

Step 3 - Move the binary to /usr/local/bin directory

Now, you need to move the Consul binary to the /usr/local/bin directory using this command.

sudo mv consul /usr/local/bin/

Step 4 - Verify the Consul installation

To check if Consul is installed correctly, run the following command.

consul version

This command will show you the installed version of Consul.

Consul v1.11.1

Step 5 - Finalize the installation

Finally, you need to create a configuration file for Consul. You can use the following command to create a new configuration file.

sudo nano /etc/consul.d/config.json

Replace the content of the configuration file with the following minimum configuration.

{
  "datacenter": "<datacenter-name>",
  "server": true,
  "bootstrap_expect": 1,
  "node_name": "<node-name>"
}

Don’t forget to replace the and with your own values.

Save the changes and exit the editor.

Step 6 - Start the Consul service

Finally, you can start the Consul service using the following command.

sudo systemctl start consul

You can also check the Consul service status using this command.

sudo systemctl status consul

If everything is fine, you’ll see the Consul service is running without error.

● consul.service - Consul service discovery and configuration manager
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/consul.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Sat 2021-10-30 11:41:30 UTC; 15s ago
   Main PID: 12466 (consul)
      Tasks: 7 (limit: 4648)
     Memory: 21.7M
        CPU: 341ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/consul.service
             ├─12466 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0
             ├─12473 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0
             ├─12474 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0
             ├─12475 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0
             ├─12476 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0
             ├─12478 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0
             └─12480 /usr/local/bin/consul agent -config-dir /etc/consul.d -ui -client 0.0.0.0

Conclusion

In this tutorial, we showed you how to install Consul on POP! OS Latest. Consul is now installed and running as a service, ready to discover and manage your microservices.

If you want to self-host in an easy, hands free way, need an external IP address, or simply want your data in your own hands, give IPv6.rs a try!

Alternatively, for the best virtual desktop, try Shells!