Consul on Kubernetes with the Helm Chart

This is the Kubernetes lab for the Consul 101 course. You install and operate Consul on Kubernetes exactly the way it runs today: the consul-k8s Helm chart, a single Consul server, and the consul-dataplane sidecar model with no per-node client agents.

You will:

• Write a version-controlled values.yaml that pins the Consul image to a specific

tag, runs one server replica, and enables connect injection, then install the hashicorp/consul chart into its own namespace and watch the pods come up

• Deploy two minimal demo services with the connect-inject annotation and confirm

the mutating webhook automatically injected a consul-dataplane sidecar into each pod

• Verify that the endpoints controller registered both services into the Consul

catalog with no manual registration

• Turn on TLS, ACLs, and gossip encryption through Helm values and run a helm

upgrade, then confirm the mesh comes back up secured

• Confirm the architecture is the modern dataplane model by proving no client

DaemonSet exists and that each meshed pod carries its own dataplane sidecar

The lab runs on a single small VM: one Consul server, no client DaemonSet, and two lightweight demo pods, the deliberately trimmed footprint the Section 10 lessons describe.