Making an HTTP request within the same Docker network - docker

Question

I have a few services running in different docker containers, as per my docker-compose:
version: '3'
services:
rest:
build:
context: './service/'
image: persian_rest:latest
container_name: persian_rest
ports:
- 8080:8080
networks:
- persian_net
volumes:
- persian_volume:/data
scheduler:
build:
context: './scheduler/'
image: persian_scheduler:latest
container_name: persian_scheduler
networks:
- persian_net
ui:
build:
context: './ui/'
image: persian_ui:latest
container_name: persian_ui
ports:
- 5000:5000
networks:
- persian_net
database:
image: 'mongo:latest'
container_name: 'persian_database'
networks:
- persian_net
environment:
- MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME=persian_admin
- MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD=123456
ports:
- 27017:27017
volumes:
- persian_volume:/data
volumes:
persian_volume:
networks:
persian_net:
driver: bridge
I have my UI persian_ui service making HTTP request to the REST service persian_rest. I thought that since they were in the same network, I would just make a request to http://persian_rest:8080/api
However, when I do make that request, it fails to find that resource:
Does anyone know why my containers joined by the same network are not able to perform requests?

Answer 1

Currently you are looking at a webpage at localhost:5000. You requested the webpage from the server localhost:5000 and it complied and sent you a webpage which is now sitting on your computer.
If you now want to access an API on the same server as the webpage, you can make another request to localhost but this time port 8080. localhost:8080/api.
The webpage in the browser is on the client-side, and the names you've given your containers are for reference inside the server. From outside the server, currently the reference is localhost.