Can't ping running server within container from localhost - node.js

Question

I have a running service within a container on my localhost machine
I Can't establish a connection with it even though I specified the port mapping within my docker-compose.yml here it is
version: '2.1'
services:
users-db:
container_name: users-db
build: ./services/users-service/src/db
ports:
- '27017:27017'
volumes:
- './services/users-service/src/db/:/data/db'
users-service:
container_name: users-service
build: './services/users-service/'
volumes:
- './services/users-service:/usr/src/app'
- './services/users-service/package.json:/usr/src/package.json'
ports:
- '3000:3000'
environment:
- NODE_ENV=test
- JWT_SECRET=fuckOffChinese
depends_on:
users-db:
condition: service_started
presence_db:
image: redis
presense_service:
container_name: presense_service
build: './services/presence-service/'
ports:
- "8081:8081"
environment:
- JWT_SECRET=thirdEyeSecret
- PORT=8081
volumes:
- './services/presence-service:/usr/src/app'
- './services/presence-service/package.json:/usr/src/package.json'
depends_on:
- presence_db
this is the command that I use to run this service
docker-compose run presense_service
and this is what I get every time I try to ping it from the terminal by simply doing an HTTP GET request
http: error: ConnectionError: HTTPConnectionPool(host='localhost', port=8081): Max retries exceeded with url: / (Caused by
NewConnectionError(': Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno
61] Connection refused',)) while doing GET request to URL:
http://localhost:8081/
I'm running macOS 10.13.5 and the server start noramally and here is the logs of it
> users-service#1.0.0 start /usr/src
> gulp --gulpfile app/gulpfile.js
[10:12:46] Working directory changed to /usr/src/app
[10:12:52] Using gulpfile /usr/src/app/gulpfile.js
[10:12:52] Starting 'start'...
[10:12:56] Finished 'start' after 3.99 s
[10:12:56] Starting 'lint'...
[10:12:57] Finished 'lint' after 239 ms
[10:12:57] Starting 'default'...
[10:12:57] Finished 'default' after 131 μs
[10:12:57] [nodemon] 1.18.2
[10:12:57] [nodemon] to restart at any time, enter `rs`
[10:12:57] [nodemon] watching: *.*
[10:12:57] [nodemon] starting `node ./index.js`
Server listening on: http://localhost:8081
Redis client connected

Answer 1

Try docker-compose run presense_service --service-ports, or better, use docker-compose up.
docker-compose run specifically doesn't apply the ports from your Compose file to "prevent port collisions with already-open ports" [1] - so you have to add this option, or specify them manually with the same options you would pass to docker run.
Ideally, use docker-compose up -d and then docker-compose logs -f presense_service to get logs. Shut your application down with docker-compose down.
If you really need to, you can comment services out of your docker-compose.yml file that you don't want started.
If you didn't know, the latest version of the compose format is 3.6 - 2.1 is over two years old (released with Docker v1.12.0 on 201607/28 [2]).
Proving this is easy - since I didn't have your code, I replaced all the image/build lines with image: nginx (and took the host path off any volumes).
Example modified compose file (just for reference):
version: '2.1'
services:
users-db:
container_name: users-db
image: nginx
ports:
- '27017:27017'
volumes:
- './services/users-service/src/db/:/data/db'
users-service:
container_name: users-service
image: nginx
volumes:
- '/usr/src/app'
- '/usr/src/package.json'
ports:
- '3000:3000'
environment:
- NODE_ENV=test
- JWT_SECRET=fuckOffChinese
depends_on:
users-db:
condition: service_started
presence_db:
image: redis
presense_service:
container_name: presense_service
image: nginx
ports:
- "8081:8081"
environment:
- JWT_SECRET=thirdEyeSecret
- PORT=8081
volumes:
- '/usr/src/app'
- '/usr/src/package.json'
depends_on:
- presence_db
Running docker ps after docker-compose up -d gives this (pay attention to the PORTS column):
my-machine$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
f1b89cf3d6c2 nginx "nginx -g 'daemon of…" 19 seconds ago Up 14 seconds 80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:3000->3000/tcp users-service
be0e9b2bb005 nginx "nginx -g 'daemon of…" 19 seconds ago Up 13 seconds 80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:8081->8081/tcp presense_service
2efed2546926 nginx "nginx -g 'daemon of…" 20 seconds ago Up 14 seconds 80/tcp, 0.0.0.0:27017->27017/tcp users-db
c7a88a84f422 redis "docker-entrypoint.s…" 20 seconds ago Up 14 seconds 6379/tcp test_presence_db_1
...so there's nothing wrong with your port configuration. docker ps after docker-compose run presense_service, then, shows:
my-machine$ docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
89e4a4f90a75 nginx "nginx -g 'daemon of…" 28 seconds ago Up 21 seconds 80/tcp test_presense_service_run_1
2c91fcb5091d redis "docker-entrypoint.s…" 29 seconds ago Up 24 seconds 6379/tcp test_presence_db_1
...and therefore it was your command causing the problem. Happy to help as I've learnt something new :)
[1] https://docs.docker.com/compose/reference/run/
[2] https://docs.docker.com/release-notes/docker-engine/#1120-2016-07-28

Answer 2

Try this to find out if port 8081 is open/occupied:
netstat -l | grep 8081

Answer 3

When your server logs say
Server listening on: http://localhost:8081
The server will be inaccessible outside the Docker container. It looks like this is the default behavior of the Express JavaScript Web server, and many other frameworks when run in “developer” mode. You need to set the server to listen on all IP addresses, probably by passing 0.0.0.0 as the “bind” address. (Note that you cannot connect to 0.0.0.0, and saying “listen to 0.0.0.0” means “accept connections from anywhere”.
If your server is in fact based on Express, https://superuser.com/questions/582624/how-to-access-nodejs-server-on-lan might be informative to you.