How to expose Neo4j Browser from embedded instance?

Question

When I run my Spring web application, I want Neo4J Browser to be available in my web browser to examine state of database. But I wasn't able to achieve it with or without servlet container.

Based on these neo4j doc sections:

I've created simple Spring Boot project:

Spring Boot project

pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>3.1.2</version>
        <!-- <version>2.7.14</version> -->
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    
    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>demo</name>
    
    <description>
    </description>
    
    <properties>
        <java.version>17</java.version>
    </properties>
    
    <dependencies>
        <!-- <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-neo4j</artifactId>
        </dependency> -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.neo4j/neo4j-kernel -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.neo4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>neo4j</artifactId>
            <version>5.10.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.neo4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>neo4j-bolt</artifactId>
            <version>5.10.0</version>
          </dependency>
          
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
    

</project>

src\main\java\myapp\Application.java:

package myapp;

import static org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.DEFAULT_DATABASE_NAME;

import java.io.File;
import java.time.Duration;

import org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings;
import org.neo4j.configuration.connectors.BoltConnector;
import org.neo4j.configuration.connectors.HttpConnector;
import org.neo4j.configuration.helpers.SocketAddress;
import org.neo4j.dbms.api.DatabaseManagementService;
import org.neo4j.dbms.api.DatabaseManagementServiceBuilder;
import org.neo4j.graphdb.GraphDatabaseService;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Bean;
// import org.springframework.data.neo4j.repository.config.EnableNeo4jRepositories;
// import org.springframework.transaction.annotation.EnableTransactionManagement;

@SpringBootApplication
// @EnableNeo4jRepositories
// @EnableTransactionManagement
public class Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }

    
    @Bean
    public DatabaseManagementService databaseManagementService() {
        DatabaseManagementService managementService = new 
        DatabaseManagementServiceBuilder(new File("target/mydb").toPath())
            .setConfig(GraphDatabaseSettings.transaction_timeout, Duration.ofSeconds( 60 ) )
            // .loadPropertiesFromFile( Path.of("C:\\Users\\user\\Desktop\\neo4j.conf") )
            .setConfig( BoltConnector.enabled, true )
            .setConfig( BoltConnector.listen_address, new SocketAddress( "localhost", 7687 ) )
            .setConfig( HttpConnector.enabled, true )
            .setConfig( HttpConnector.listen_address, new SocketAddress( "localhost", 7474) )
            
        .build();

        return managementService;
    }

    @Bean
    public GraphDatabaseService graphDatabaseService(DatabaseManagementService managementService) {
        GraphDatabaseService graphDb = managementService.database(DEFAULT_DATABASE_NAME);
        return graphDb;
    }
}

Expectations and reality

I expected I will see Neo4j Browser GUI by following one of these links:

localhost:7687
localhost:7474

But what I've got with Spring Boot project is this stack trace:

ERROR 19796 --- [           main] o.s.boot.SpringApplication               : Application run failed

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'databaseManagementService' defined in myapp.Application: Failed to instantiate [org.neo4j.dbms.api.DatabaseManagementService]: Factory method 'databaseManagementService' threw exception with message: Error starting Neo4j database server at ___\target\mydb\data\databases
Caused by: org.neo4j.kernel.lifecycle.LifecycleException: Component 'org.neo4j.server.AbstractNeoWebServer$ServerComponentsLifecycleAdapter@3514237f' failed to initialize. Please see the attached cause exception "javax.servlet.Filter".
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/Filter
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.servlet.Filter

With older version of spring-boot-parent this exception isn't thrown, but one of mentioned links shows blank page, and other one redirects to /browser and prints 404.

How to expose Neo4j Browser from embedded instance?

Spring Boot project

Expectations and reality

0 Answers0