Why gRPC gateway

Why you should consider using the gRPC gateway

etcd v3 uses gRPC for its messaging protocol. The etcd project includes a gRPC-based Go client and a command line utility, etcdctl, for communicating with an etcd cluster through gRPC. For languages with no gRPC support, etcd provides a JSON gRPC gateway. This gateway serves a RESTful proxy that translates HTTP/JSON requests into gRPC messages.

Using gRPC gateway

The gateway accepts a JSON mapping for etcd’s protocol buffer message definitions. Note that key and value fields are defined as byte arrays and therefore must be base64 encoded in JSON. The following examples use curl, but any HTTP/JSON client should work all the same.

Notes

gRPC gateway endpoint has changed since etcd v3.3:

  • etcd v3.2 or before uses only [CLIENT-URL]/v3alpha/*.
  • etcd v3.3 uses [CLIENT-URL]/v3beta/* while keeping [CLIENT-URL]/v3alpha/*.
  • etcd v3.4 uses [CLIENT-URL]/v3/* while keeping [CLIENT-URL]/v3beta/*.
    • [CLIENT-URL]/v3alpha/* is deprecated.
  • etcd v3.5 or later uses only [CLIENT-URL]/v3/*.
    • [CLIENT-URL]/v3beta/* is deprecated.

gRPC-gateway does not support authentication using TLS Common Name.

Put and get keys

Use the /v3/kv/range and /v3/kv/put services to read and write keys:

<<COMMENT
https://www.base64encode.org/
foo is 'Zm9v' in Base64
bar is 'YmFy'
COMMENT

curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/put \
  -X POST -d '{"key": "Zm9v", "value": "YmFy"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"12585971608760269493","member_id":"13847567121247652255","revision":"2","raft_term":"3"}}

curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/range \
  -X POST -d '{"key": "Zm9v"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"12585971608760269493","member_id":"13847567121247652255","revision":"2","raft_term":"3"},"kvs":[{"key":"Zm9v","create_revision":"2","mod_revision":"2","version":"1","value":"YmFy"}],"count":"1"}

# get all keys prefixed with "foo"
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/range \
  -X POST -d '{"key": "Zm9v", "range_end": "Zm9w"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"12585971608760269493","member_id":"13847567121247652255","revision":"2","raft_term":"3"},"kvs":[{"key":"Zm9v","create_revision":"2","mod_revision":"2","version":"1","value":"YmFy"}],"count":"1"}

Watch keys

Use the /v3/watch service to watch keys:

curl -N http://localhost:2379/v3/watch \
  -X POST -d '{"create_request": {"key":"Zm9v"} }' &
# {"result":{"header":{"cluster_id":"12585971608760269493","member_id":"13847567121247652255","revision":"1","raft_term":"2"},"created":true}}

curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/put \
  -X POST -d '{"key": "Zm9v", "value": "YmFy"}' >/dev/null 2>&1
# {"result":{"header":{"cluster_id":"12585971608760269493","member_id":"13847567121247652255","revision":"2","raft_term":"2"},"events":[{"kv":{"key":"Zm9v","create_revision":"2","mod_revision":"2","version":"1","value":"YmFy"}}]}}

Transactions

Issue a transaction with /v3/kv/txn:

# target CREATE
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/txn \
  -X POST \
  -d '{"compare":[{"target":"CREATE","key":"Zm9v","createRevision":"2"}],"success":[{"requestPut":{"key":"Zm9v","value":"YmFy"}}]}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"12585971608760269493","member_id":"13847567121247652255","revision":"3","raft_term":"2"},"succeeded":true,"responses":[{"response_put":{"header":{"revision":"3"}}}]}

# target VERSION
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/txn \
  -X POST \
  -d '{"compare":[{"version":"4","result":"EQUAL","target":"VERSION","key":"Zm9v"}],"success":[{"requestRange":{"key":"Zm9v"}}]}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"6","raft_term":"3"},"succeeded":true,"responses":[{"response_range":{"header":{"revision":"6"},"kvs":[{"key":"Zm9v","create_revision":"2","mod_revision":"6","version":"4","value":"YmF6"}],"count":"1"}}]}

Authentication

Set up authentication with the /v3/auth service:

# create root user
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/auth/user/add \
  -X POST -d '{"name": "root", "password": "pass"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"1","raft_term":"2"}}

# create root role
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/auth/role/add \
  -X POST -d '{"name": "root"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"1","raft_term":"2"}}

# grant root role
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/auth/user/grant \
  -X POST -d '{"user": "root", "role": "root"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"1","raft_term":"2"}}

# enable auth
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/auth/enable -X POST -d '{}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"1","raft_term":"2"}}

Authenticate with etcd for an authentication token using /v3/auth/authenticate:

# get the auth token for the root user
curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/auth/authenticate \
  -X POST -d '{"name": "root", "password": "pass"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"1","raft_term":"2"},"token":"sssvIpwfnLAcWAQH.9"}

Set the Authorization header to the authentication token to fetch a key using authentication credentials:

curl -L http://localhost:2379/v3/kv/put \
  -H 'Authorization: sssvIpwfnLAcWAQH.9' \
  -X POST -d '{"key": "Zm9v", "value": "YmFy"}'
# {"header":{"cluster_id":"14841639068965178418","member_id":"10276657743932975437","revision":"2","raft_term":"2"}}

Error responses

The gRPC gateway translates gRPC status into HTTP status codes and a JSON error body. In etcd v3.6, the upgrade to grpc-gateway v2 changed error handling (see the v2 migration guide’s error-handling note), and the gateway behavior now aligns with google.rpc.Status (code, message, details) as described in Google’s API error model. Historically, older grpc-gateway versions also included a top-level error field, but this field is not supported in etcd v3.6 and higher versions.

Clients should treat the HTTP status code as the primary indicator of success or failure. If a request fails, clients should rely on the message field as the primary source of error information and use any additional details for further context.

Swagger

Generated Swagger API definitions can be found at rpc.swagger.json.


Last modified January 23, 2026: docs: clarify grpc-gateway error response format in v3.6/v3.7 (19cf6fb)