Consul Leave

Command: consul leave

Corresponding HTTP API Endpoint: [PUT] /v1/agent/leave

The leave command 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.

Depending on how many Consul servers are running, running consul leave on a server explicitly can reduce the quorum size (which is derived from the number of Consul servers, see deployment_table). Even if the cluster used bootstrap_expect to set a number of servers and thus quorum size initially, issuing consul leave on a server will reconfigure the cluster to have fewer servers. This means you could end up with just one server that is still able to commit writes because the quorum size for 1-server setup is only 1, but those writes might be lost if that server fails before more are added.

The table below shows this command's required ACLs. Configuration of blocking queries and agent caching are not supported from commands, but may be from the corresponding HTTP endpoint.

ACL Required
`agent:write`

Usage

Usage: consul leave [options]

API Options

-ca-file=<value> - Path to a CA file to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CACERT environment variable.
-ca-path=<value> - Path to a directory of CA certificates to use for TLS when communicating with Consul. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CAPATH environment variable.
-client-cert=<value> - Path to a client cert file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_CERT environment variable.
-client-key=<value> - Path to a client key file to use for TLS when verify_incoming is enabled. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_CLIENT_KEY environment variable.
-http-addr=<addr> - Address of the Consul agent with the port. This can be an IP address or DNS address, but it must include the port. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_ADDR environment variable. In Consul 0.8 and later, the default value is http://127.0.0.1:8500, and https can optionally be used instead. The scheme can also be set to HTTPS by setting the environment variable CONSUL_HTTP_SSL=true. This may be a unix domain socket using unix:///path/to/socket if the agent is configured to listen that way.
-tls-server-name=<value> - The server name to use as the SNI host when connecting via TLS. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_TLS_SERVER_NAME environment variable.
-token=<value> - ACL token to use in the request. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. If unspecified, the query will default to the token of the Consul agent at the HTTP address.
-token-file=<value> - File containing the ACL token to use in the request instead of one specified via the -token argument or CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN environment variable. This can also be specified via the CONSUL_HTTP_TOKEN_FILE environment variable.