Version v3.1 of This version of etcd is no longer supported. For the latest version, please see the latest stable version. For the latest stable documentation, see v3.5.

Demo

This series of examples shows the basic procedures for working with an etcd cluster.

Set up a cluster

On each etcd node, specify the cluster members:

TOKEN=token-01
CLUSTER_STATE=new
NAME_1=machine-1
NAME_2=machine-2
NAME_3=machine-3
HOST_1=10.240.0.17
HOST_2=10.240.0.18
HOST_3=10.240.0.19
CLUSTER=${NAME_1}=http://${HOST_1}:2380,${NAME_2}=http://${HOST_2}:2380,${NAME_3}=http://${HOST_3}:2380

Run this on each machine:

# For machine 1
THIS_NAME=${NAME_1}
THIS_IP=${HOST_1}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 --listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 --listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} --initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

# For machine 2
THIS_NAME=${NAME_2}
THIS_IP=${HOST_2}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 --listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 --listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} --initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

# For machine 3
THIS_NAME=${NAME_3}
THIS_IP=${HOST_3}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 --listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 --listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} --initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

Or use our public discovery service:

curl https://discovery.etcd.io/new?size=3
https://discovery.etcd.io/a81b5818e67a6ea83e9d4daea5ecbc92

# grab this token
TOKEN=token-01
CLUSTER_STATE=new
NAME_1=machine-1
NAME_2=machine-2
NAME_3=machine-3
HOST_1=10.240.0.17
HOST_2=10.240.0.18
HOST_3=10.240.0.19
DISCOVERY=https://discovery.etcd.io/a81b5818e67a6ea83e9d4daea5ecbc92

THIS_NAME=${NAME_1}
THIS_IP=${HOST_1}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 --listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 --listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--discovery ${DISCOVERY} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} --initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

THIS_NAME=${NAME_2}
THIS_IP=${HOST_2}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 --listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 --listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--discovery ${DISCOVERY} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} --initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

THIS_NAME=${NAME_3}
THIS_IP=${HOST_3}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 --listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 --listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--discovery ${DISCOVERY} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} --initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

Now etcd is ready! To connect to etcd with etcdctl:

export ETCDCTL_API=3
HOST_1=10.240.0.17
HOST_2=10.240.0.18
HOST_3=10.240.0.19
ENDPOINTS=$HOST_1:2379,$HOST_2:2379,$HOST_3:2379

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS member list

Access etcd

put command to write:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put foo "Hello World!"

get to read from etcd:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS get foo
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS --write-out="json" get foo

Get by prefix

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put web1 value1
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put web2 value2
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put web3 value3

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS get web --prefix

Delete

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put key myvalue
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS del key

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put k1 value1
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put k2 value2
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS del k --prefix

Transactional write

txn to wrap multiple requests into one transaction:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put user1 bad
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS txn --interactive

compares:
value("user1") = "bad"

success requests (get, put, delete):
del user1

failure requests (get, put, delete):
put user1 good

Watch

watch to get notified of future changes:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS watch stock1
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put stock1 1000

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS watch stock --prefix
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put stock1 10
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put stock2 20

Lease

lease to write with TTL:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS lease grant 300
# lease 2be7547fbc6a5afa granted with TTL(300s)

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS put sample value --lease=2be7547fbc6a5afa
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS get sample

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS lease keep-alive 2be7547fbc6a5afa
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS lease revoke 2be7547fbc6a5afa
# or after 300 seconds
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS get sample

Distributed locks

lock for distributed lock:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS lock mutex1

# another client with the same name blocks
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS lock mutex1

Elections

elect for leader election:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS elect one p1

# another client with the same name blocks
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS elect one p2

Cluster status

Specify the initial cluster configuration for each machine:

etcdctl --write-out=table --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS endpoint status

+------------------+------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+------------+
|     ENDPOINT     |        ID        | VERSION | DB SIZE | IS LEADER | RAFT TERM | RAFT INDEX |
+------------------+------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+------------+
| 10.240.0.17:2379 | 4917a7ab173fabe7 | 3.0.0   | 45 kB   | true      |         4 |      16726 |
| 10.240.0.18:2379 | 59796ba9cd1bcd72 | 3.0.0   | 45 kB   | false     |         4 |      16726 |
| 10.240.0.19:2379 | 94df724b66343e6c | 3.0.0   | 45 kB   | false     |         4 |      16726 |
+------------------+------------------+---------+---------+-----------+-----------+------------+

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS endpoint health

10.240.0.17:2379 is healthy: successfully committed proposal: took = 3.345431ms
10.240.0.19:2379 is healthy: successfully committed proposal: took = 3.767967ms
10.240.0.18:2379 is healthy: successfully committed proposal: took = 4.025451ms

Snapshot

snapshot to save point-in-time snapshot of etcd database:

etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS snapshot save my.db

Snapshot saved at my.db

etcdctl --write-out=table --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS snapshot status my.db

+---------+----------+------------+------------+
|  HASH   | REVISION | TOTAL KEYS | TOTAL SIZE |
+---------+----------+------------+------------+
| c55e8b8 |        9 |         13 | 25 kB      |
+---------+----------+------------+------------+

Migrate

migrate to transform etcd v2 to v3 data:

# write key in etcd version 2 store
export ETCDCTL_API=2
etcdctl --endpoints=http://$ENDPOINT set foo bar

# read key in etcd v2
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS --output="json" get foo

# stop etcd node to migrate, one by one

# migrate v2 data
export ETCDCTL_API=3
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINT migrate --data-dir="default.etcd" --wal-dir="default.etcd/member/wal"

# restart etcd node after migrate, one by one

# confirm that the key got migrated
etcdctl --endpoints=$ENDPOINTS get /foo

Member

member to add,remove,update membership:

# For each machine
TOKEN=my-etcd-token-1
CLUSTER_STATE=new
NAME_1=etcd-node-1
NAME_2=etcd-node-2
NAME_3=etcd-node-3
HOST_1=10.240.0.13
HOST_2=10.240.0.14
HOST_3=10.240.0.15
CLUSTER=${NAME_1}=http://${HOST_1}:2380,${NAME_2}=http://${HOST_2}:2380,${NAME_3}=http://${HOST_3}:2380

# For node 1
THIS_NAME=${NAME_1}
THIS_IP=${HOST_1}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} \
	--initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

# For node 2
THIS_NAME=${NAME_2}
THIS_IP=${HOST_2}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} \
	--initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

# For node 3
THIS_NAME=${NAME_3}
THIS_IP=${HOST_3}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} \
	--initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

Then replace a member with member remove and member add commands:

# get member ID
export ETCDCTL_API=3
HOST_1=10.240.0.13
HOST_2=10.240.0.14
HOST_3=10.240.0.15
etcdctl --endpoints=${HOST_1}:2379,${HOST_2}:2379,${HOST_3}:2379 member list

# remove the member
MEMBER_ID=278c654c9a6dfd3b
etcdctl --endpoints=${HOST_1}:2379,${HOST_2}:2379,${HOST_3}:2379 \
	member remove ${MEMBER_ID}

# add a new member (node 4)
export ETCDCTL_API=3
NAME_1=etcd-node-1
NAME_2=etcd-node-2
NAME_4=etcd-node-4
HOST_1=10.240.0.13
HOST_2=10.240.0.14
HOST_4=10.240.0.16 # new member
etcdctl --endpoints=${HOST_1}:2379,${HOST_2}:2379 \
	member add ${NAME_4} \
	--peer-urls=http://${HOST_4}:2380

Next, start the new member with --initial-cluster-state existing flag:

# [WARNING] If the new member starts from the same disk space,
# make sure to remove the data directory of the old member
#
# restart with 'existing' flag
TOKEN=my-etcd-token-1
CLUSTER_STATE=existing
NAME_1=etcd-node-1
NAME_2=etcd-node-2
NAME_4=etcd-node-4
HOST_1=10.240.0.13
HOST_2=10.240.0.14
HOST_4=10.240.0.16 # new member
CLUSTER=${NAME_1}=http://${HOST_1}:2380,${NAME_2}=http://${HOST_2}:2380,${NAME_4}=http://${HOST_4}:2380

THIS_NAME=${NAME_4}
THIS_IP=${HOST_4}
etcd --data-dir=data.etcd --name ${THIS_NAME} \
	--initial-advertise-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--listen-peer-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2380 \
	--advertise-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--listen-client-urls http://${THIS_IP}:2379 \
	--initial-cluster ${CLUSTER} \
	--initial-cluster-state ${CLUSTER_STATE} \
	--initial-cluster-token ${TOKEN}

Auth

auth,user,role for authentication:

export ETCDCTL_API=3
ENDPOINTS=localhost:2379

etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} role add root
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} role get root

etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} user add root
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} user grant-role root root
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} user get root

etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} role add role0
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} role grant-permission role0 readwrite foo
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} user add user0
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} user grant-role user0 role0

etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} auth enable
# now all client requests go through auth

etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} --user=user0:123 put foo bar
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} get foo
# permission denied, user name is empty because the request does not issue an authentication request
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} --user=user0:123 get foo
# user0 can read the key foo
etcdctl --endpoints=${ENDPOINTS} --user=user0:123 get foo1
# permission denied, user0 does not have roles which can read foo1

Feedback

Was this page helpful?

Glad to hear it! Please tell us how we can improve.

Sorry to hear that. Please tell us how we can improve.

Last modified August 25, 2021: Remove the outdated gif screenshot and refine the behavior of auth (#446) (6d9af72)