How to publish a web service from an application inside a docker container?

Question

I have an application which publishes a web service and I tried to deploy it on a docker container but it doesn't work. I used @WebService and @WebMethod from javax.jws to declare my service and I published it with

Endpoint.publish("http://localhost:8081/doctorservice",
                new DoctorServiceImplementation());

The contents of my Dockerfile are

FROM openjdk:8
ADD target/service-publisher.jar service-publisher.jar
EXPOSE 8081
ENTRYPOINT ["java","-jar","service-publisher.jar"]

I created the docker image with

docker build -f Dockerfile -t webservice .

And run it with

docker run --name webservice -p 8081:8081 -d webservice

The container runs and the ports are exposed but when I try to access http://localhost:8081/doctorservice?wsdl from the browser it doesn't work.

What error message do you get when you connect to the browser? — joonghyup cha, Jan 03 '20 at 14:19
see the container's log (`docker logs -f webservice`) - there might be runtime exceptions ... — Shekhar Rai, Jan 03 '20 at 14:21
you are sure you application listens on 8081? Normally java application server listens on port 8080 — Jens, Jan 03 '20 at 14:27
i had to use 8081 because I have another application which uses 8080 and I have to make them run concurrently — Daniel Muresan, Jan 03 '20 at 14:30
try `docker run --name webservice -p 8080:8081 -d webservice` — Jens, Jan 03 '20 at 14:31
Before running `docker run --name webservice -p 8080:8081 -d webservice` please update your dockerfile as well -> `expose 8080` — Shekhar Rai, Jan 03 '20 at 14:38

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 03 '20 at 16:48

I found the solution to my problem: I had to publish the service to 0.0.0.0 instead of localhost so I replaced

Endpoint.publish("http://localhost:8081/doctorservice",
                new DoctorServiceImplementation());

with

Endpoint.publish("http://0.0.0.0:8081/doctorservice",
                new DoctorServiceImplementation());

for the app running inside the docker container

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 03 '20 at 14:49

-1

At first glance, you did everything correct except for the address you are trying to reach. Even if the service is exposed you are not in the "localhost" of the container, hence you should use the ip of the container.

TLDR, instead of http://localhost:8081/doctorservice?wsdl try this http://<_CONTAINER_IP_ADDRESS_>:8081/doctorservice?wsdl

Check this answer to fetch the IP address of your container:

How to get a Docker container's IP address from the host

answered Jan 03 '20 at 14:49

Marco Massetti

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4
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I still get ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED – Daniel Muresan Jan 03 '20 at 15:56
The container-internal IP addresses are useless, except on one specific Docker/host OS configuration, and then only from the same physical host. I would not recommend trying to look them up or directly using them. – David Maze Jan 03 '20 at 17:56
You can also try with 127.0.0.1 instead of 0.0.0.0, and verify that the problem is related to the hostname – Marco Massetti Jan 03 '20 at 18:06

How to publish a web service from an application inside a docker container?

2 Answers2