Starting an etcd cluster statically requires that each member knows another in the cluster. In a number of cases, you might not know the IPs of your cluster members ahead of time. In these cases, you can bootstrap an etcd cluster with the help of a discovery service.
Each of the bootstrapping mechanisms will be used to create a three machine etcd cluster with the following details:
|Name|Address|Hostname|
|------|---------|------------------|
|infra0|10.0.1.10|infra0.example.com|
|infra1|10.0.1.11|infra1.example.com|
|infra2|10.0.1.12|infra2.example.com|
## Static
As we know the cluster members, their addresses and the size of the cluster before starting, we can use an offline bootstrap configuration by setting the `initial-cluster` flag. Each machine will get either the following command line or environment variables:
Note that the URLs specified in `initial-cluster` are the _advertised peer URLs_, i.e. they should match the value of `initial-advertise-peer-urls` on the respective nodes.
If you are spinning up multiple clusters (or creating and destroying a single cluster) with same configuration for testing purpose, it is highly recommended that you specify a unique `initial-cluster-token` for the different clusters. By doing this, etcd can generate unique cluster IDs and member IDs for the clusters even if they otherwise have the exact same configuration. This can protect you from cross-cluster-interaction, which might corrupt your clusters.
On each machine you would start etcd with these flags:
The command line parameters starting with `-initial-cluster` will be ignored on subsequent runs of etcd. You are free to remove the environment variables or command line flags after the initial bootstrap process. If you need to make changes to the configuration later (for example, adding or removing members to/from the cluster), see the [runtime configuration](runtime-configuration.md) guide.
### Error Cases
In the following example, we have not included our new host in the list of enumerated nodes. If this is a new cluster, the node _must_ be added to the list of initial cluster members.
etcd: infra1 not listed in the initial cluster config
exit 1
```
In this example, we are attempting to map a node (infra0) on a different address (127.0.0.1:2380) than its enumerated address in the cluster list (10.0.1.10:2380). If this node is to listen on multiple addresses, all addresses _must_ be reflected in the "initial-cluster" configuration directive.
etcd: conflicting cluster ID to the target cluster (c6ab534d07e8fcc4 != bc25ea2a74fb18b0). Exiting.
exit 1
```
## Discovery
In a number of cases, you might not know the IPs of your cluster peers ahead of time. This is common when utilizing cloud providers or when your network uses DHCP. In these cases, rather than specifying a static configuration, you can use an existing etcd cluster to bootstrap a new one. We call this process "discovery".
There two methods that can be used for discovery:
* etcd discovery service
* DNS SRV records
### etcd Discovery
#### Lifetime of a Discovery URL
A discovery URL identifies a unique etcd cluster. Instead of reusing a discovery URL, you should always create discovery URLs for new clusters.
Moreover, discovery URLs should ONLY be used for the initial bootstrapping of a cluster. To change cluster membership after the cluster is already running, see the [runtime reconfiguration][runtime] guide.
Discovery uses an existing cluster to bootstrap itself. If you are using your own etcd cluster you can create a URL like so:
```
$ curl -X PUT https://myetcd.local/v2/keys/discovery/6c007a14875d53d9bf0ef5a6fc0257c817f0fb83/_config/size -d value=3
```
By setting the size key to the URL, you create a discovery URL with an expected cluster size of 3.
If you bootstrap an etcd cluster using discovery service with more than the expected number of etcd members, the extra etcd processes will [fall back][fall-back] to being [proxies][proxy] by default.
The URL you will use in this case will be `https://myetcd.local/v2/keys/discovery/6c007a14875d53d9bf0ef5a6fc0257c817f0fb83` and the etcd members will use the `https://myetcd.local/v2/keys/discovery/6c007a14875d53d9bf0ef5a6fc0257c817f0fb83` directory for registration as they start.
Now we start etcd with those relevant flags for each member:
This will cause each member to register itself with the custom etcd discovery service and begin the cluster once all machines have been registered.
#### Public etcd Discovery Service
If you do not have access to an existing cluster, you can use the public discovery service hosted at `discovery.etcd.io`. You can create a private discovery URL using the "new" endpoint like so:
This will create the cluster with an initial expected size of 3 members. If you do not specify a size, a default of 3 will be used.
If you bootstrap an etcd cluster using discovery service with more than the expected number of etcd members, the extra etcd processes will [fall back][fall-back] to being [proxies][proxy] by default.
DNS SRV records can also be used to configure the list of peers for an etcd server running in proxy mode:
```
$ etcd --proxy on -discovery-srv example.com
```
# 0.4 to 2.0+ Migration Guide
In etcd 2.0 we introduced the ability to listen on more than one address and to advertise multiple addresses. This makes using etcd easier when you have complex networking, such as private and public networks on various cloud providers.
To make understanding this feature easier, we changed the naming of some flags, but we support the old flags to make the migration from the old to new version easier.
|-peer-addr |-initial-advertise-peer-urls |If specified, peer-addr will be used as the only peer URL. Error if both flags specified.|
|-addr |-advertise-client-urls |If specified, addr will be used as the only client URL. Error if both flags specified.|
|-peer-bind-addr |-listen-peer-urls |If specified, peer-bind-addr will be used as the only peer bind URL. Error if both flags specified.|
|-bind-addr |-listen-client-urls |If specified, bind-addr will be used as the only client bind URL. Error if both flags specified.|
|-peers |none |Deprecated. The -initial-cluster flag provides a similar concept with different semantics. Please read this guide on cluster startup.|
|-peers-file |none |Deprecated. The -initial-cluster flag provides a similar concept with different semantics. Please read this guide on cluster startup.|