how to access node api which is running as docker container - docker

Question

I have built a docker-compose file for my node js application that has been dockerized, But I don't know how to make the API call to that node js app which is running as a docker container, Please help me with this concern.
My DockerFile:
FROM node:10.15-slim
ENV NODE_ENV=production
WORKDIR /app
COPY package.json package-lock*.json ./
RUN npm install && npm cache clean --force
COPY . .
CMD ["node", "./bin/www"]
My Docker-compose file:
version: '2.4'
services:
express:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
command: /app/node_modules/.bin/nodemon ./bin/www
ports:
- 3000:3000
volumes:
- .:/app
environment:
- DEBUG=sample-express:*
- NODE_ENV=development

Answer 1

You'll need to expose the port from docker on which your application is running.
Let's say your application is running on port 8080 inside docker, here's how you can expose that specific port:
EXPOSE 8080
Then you'll need to map the port exposed by docker tthato your local port. Here's how you can do it in docker:
docker run -p 49160:8080 -d docker_image
And if you're working with docker-compose, you'll do it like this:
version: '3'
services:
nodejs:
build:
context: .
dockerfile: Dockerfile
image: nodejs
container_name: nodejs
ports:
- "8080:8080"
UPDATE
Let's say you want to send /api requests to back-end server. This is how you'll do it in nginx conf:
server {
listen 80
location /api {
proxy_pass http://backend:8080/;
}
}
I hope it helps.