1# Documentation
2
3etcd is a distributed key-value store designed to reliably and quickly preserve and provide access to critical data. It enables reliable distributed coordination through distributed locking, leader elections, and write barriers. An etcd cluster is intended for high availability and permanent data storage and retrieval.
4
5## Getting started
6
7New etcd users and developers should get started by [downloading and building][download_build] etcd. After getting etcd, follow this [quick demo][demo] to see the basics of creating and working with an etcd cluster.
8
9## Developing with etcd
10
11The easiest way to get started using etcd as a distributed key-value store is to [set up a local cluster][local_cluster].
12
13 - [Setting up local clusters][local_cluster]
14 - [Interacting with etcd][interacting]
15 - gRPC [etcd core][api_ref] and [etcd concurrency][api_concurrency_ref] API references
16 - [HTTP JSON API through the gRPC gateway][api_grpc_gateway]
17 - [gRPC naming and discovery][grpc_naming]
18 - [Client][namespace_client] and [proxy][namespace_proxy] namespacing
19 - [Embedding etcd][embed_etcd]
20 - [Experimental features and APIs][experimental]
21 - [System limits][system-limit]
22
23## Operating etcd clusters
24
25Administrators who need a fault-tolerant etcd cluster for either development or production should begin with a [cluster on multiple machines][clustering].
26
27### Setting up etcd
28
29 - [Configuration flags][conf]
30 - [Multi-member cluster][clustering]
31 - [gRPC proxy][grpc_proxy]
32 - [L4 gateway][gateway]
33
34### System configuration
35
36 - [Supported systems][supported_platforms]
37 - [Hardware recommendations][hardware]
38 - [Performance benchmarking][performance]
39 - [Tuning][tuning]
40
41### Platform guides
42
43 - [Amazon Web Services][aws_platform]
44 - [Container Linux, systemd][container_linux_platform]
45 - [FreeBSD][freebsd_platform]
46 - [Docker container][container_docker]
47 - [rkt container][container_rkt]
48
49### Security
50
51 - [TLS][security]
52 - [Role-based access control][authentication]
53
54### Maintenance and troubleshooting
55
56 - [Frequently asked questions][faq]
57 - [Monitoring][monitoring]
58 - [Maintenance][maintenance]
59 - [Failure modes][failures]
60 - [Disaster recovery][recovery]
61 - [Upgrading][upgrading]
62
63## Learning
64
65To learn more about the concepts and internals behind etcd, read the following pages:
66
67 - [Why etcd?][why]
68 - [Understand data model][data_model]
69 - [Understand APIs][understand_apis]
70 - [Glossary][glossary]
71 - Design
72   - [Auth subsystem][design-auth-v3]
73   - [Client][design-client]
74   - [Learner][design-learner]
75
76[api_ref]: dev-guide/api_reference_v3.md
77[api_concurrency_ref]: dev-guide/api_concurrency_reference_v3.md
78[api_grpc_gateway]: dev-guide/api_grpc_gateway.md
79[clustering]: op-guide/clustering.md
80[conf]: op-guide/configuration.md
81[system-limit]: dev-guide/limit.md
82[faq]: faq.md
83[why]: learning/why.md
84[data_model]: learning/data_model.md
85[demo]: demo.md
86[download_build]: dl_build.md
87[embed_etcd]: https://godoc.org/github.com/etcd-io/etcd/embed
88[grpc_naming]: dev-guide/grpc_naming.md
89[failures]: op-guide/failures.md
90[gateway]: op-guide/gateway.md
91[glossary]: learning/glossary.md
92[namespace_client]: https://godoc.org/github.com/etcd-io/etcd/clientv3/namespace
93[namespace_proxy]: op-guide/grpc_proxy.md#namespacing
94[grpc_proxy]: op-guide/grpc_proxy.md
95[hardware]: op-guide/hardware.md
96[interacting]: dev-guide/interacting_v3.md
97[local_cluster]: dev-guide/local_cluster.md
98[performance]: op-guide/performance.md
99[recovery]: op-guide/recovery.md
100[maintenance]: op-guide/maintenance.md
101[security]: op-guide/security.md
102[monitoring]: op-guide/monitoring.md
103[v2_migration]: op-guide/v2-migration.md
104[container_rkt]: op-guide/container.md#rkt
105[container_docker]: op-guide/container.md#docker
106[understand_apis]: learning/api.md
107[versioning]: op-guide/versioning.md
108[supported_platforms]: op-guide/supported-platform.md
109[container_linux_platform]: platforms/container-linux-systemd.md
110[freebsd_platform]: platforms/freebsd.md
111[aws_platform]: platforms/aws.md
112[experimental]: dev-guide/experimental_apis.md
113[authentication]: op-guide/authentication.md
114[design-auth-v3]: learning/design-auth-v3.md
115[design-client]: learning/design-client.md
116[design-learner]: learning/design-learner.md
117[tuning]: tuning.md
118[upgrading]: upgrades/upgrading-etcd.md
119