HashiCorp Networking Automation Certification

Prerequisites

• Containerization knowledge
• Basic terminal skills
• Networking skills including load balancing and distributed systems
• Understand the purpose of ACLs
• Experience with TLS certificate lifecycle

Product Version Tested

Consul 1.8 or higher

Preparing for the Exam

You will be tested based on the objectives below. The Consul Associate exam has both a study guide and a review guide. While much of the information in these two guides are the same, they are presented differently for different uses. Use the study guide if you want to study all the exam objectives. Use the review guide if you already have Consul experience and/or training and want to pick and choose which objectives to review before taking the exam. There are also sample questions available so you can get a feel for what the exam will be like.

Exam Details

Assessment Type	Multiple choice
Format	Online proctored
Duration	1 hour
Price	$70.50 USD plus locally applicable taxes and fees Free retake not included
Language	English
Expiration	2 years

Exam Objectives

1	Explain Consul architecture
1a	Identify the components of Consul datacenter, including agents and communication protocols
1b	Prepare Consul for high availability and performance
1c	Identify Consul's core functionality
1d	Differentiate agent roles

2	Deploy a single datacenter
2a	Start and manage the Consul process
2b	Interpret a Consul agent configuration
2c	Configure Consul network addresses and ports
2d	Describe and configure agent join and leave behaviors

3	Register services and use service discovery
3a	Interpret a service registration
3b	Differentiate ways to register a single service
3c	Interpret a service configuration with health check
3d	Check the service catalog status from the output of the DNS/API interface or via the Consul UI
3e	Interpret a prepared query
3f	Use a prepared query

4	Access the Consul key/value (KV)
4a	Understand the capabilities and limitations of the KV store
4b	Interact with the KV store using both the Consul CLI and UI
4c	Monitor KV changes using watch
4d	Monitor KV changes using envconsul and consul-template

5	Back up and restore
5a	Describe the content of a snapshot
5b	Back up and restore the datacenter
5c	[Enterprise] Describe the benefits of snapshot agent features

6	Use Consul service mesh
6a	Understand Consul Connect service mesh high level architecture
6b	Describe configuration for registering a service proxy
6c	Describe intentions for Consul Connect service mesh
6d	Check intentions in both the Consul CLI and UI

7	Secure agent communication
7a	Understanding Consul security/threat model
7b	Differentiate certificate types needed for TLS encryption
7c	Understand the different TLS encryption settings for a fully secure datacenter

8	Secure services with basic access control lists (ACL)
8a	Set up and configure a basic ACL system
8b	Create policies
8c	Manage token lifecycle: multiple policies, token revoking, ACL roles, service identities
8d	Perform a CLI request using a token
8e	Perform an API request using a token

9	Use gossip encryption
9a	Understanding the Consul security/threat model
9b	Configure gossip encryption for the existing data center
9c	Manage the lifecycle of encryption keys