How to make gRPC request through Traefik from external network (outside docker container)?

Question

I implemented configuration in docker-compose file which looks like this (all containers are in a public repositories, so you can try this config by you own):

version: '3'

services:
  reverse-proxy:
    # The official v2.0 Traefik docker image
    image: traefik:v2.2
    # Enables the web UI and tells Traefik to listen to docker
    command: --api.insecure=true --providers.docker
    depends_on:
      - ping-service
      - whoami
    ports:
      # The HTTP port
      - "80:80"
      # The Web UI (enabled by --api.insecure=true)
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      # So that Traefik can listen to the Docker events
      - /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
  whoami:
    # A container that exposes an API to show its IP address
    image: containous/whoami
    labels:
      -  "traefik.http.routers.whoami.rule=PathPrefix(`/foo`)"
  ping-service:
    image: deadok/vma:pingsvc1.1
    environment:
      - ms_GrpcServer__Port=80
      - ms_GrpcServer__Hostname=0.0.0.0
      - GRPC_TRACE=tcp,api,http
      - GRPC_VERBOSITY=debug
    ports:
      - "81:80"
    labels:
      - "traefik.http.services.ping-service.loadbalancer.server.scheme=h2c"
      - "traefik.http.routers.ping-service.rule=PathPrefix(`/ping`)"
  rabbit-mq:
    image: rabbitmq:3.8.3-management
    environment:
      - RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER=rabbitmq
      - RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS=rabbitmq
      - RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_VHOST=/
    ports:
      - "15672:15672"
      - "5672:5672"

In this configuration we have whoami service that serves http requests, with path prefix rule: /foo And my own gRPC service written on C# (.NET Core), with route prefix rule: /ping . gRPC Server implements proto contract that listed below:

syntax = "proto3";

package com.example.grpc;

option java_multiple_files = true;

enum Sentiment {
    HAPPY = 0;
    SLEEPY = 1;
    ANGRY = 2;
}

message HelloRequest {
    string name = 1;
    int32 age = 2;
    repeated string hobbies = 3;
    map<string, string> bagOfTricks = 4;
    Sentiment sentiment = 5;
}

message HelloResponse {
    string greeting = 1;
}

message GreetingEmpty {}

// 4. service, unary request/response
service GreetingService {
    rpc greeting(HelloRequest) returns (HelloResponse);
    rpc greetingNew(GreetingEmpty) returns (HelloResponse);
}

When I make "GET" request with the following link (in web browser for example): http://<my.server.ip.here>/foo everything goes fine, and i recive whoami response;

But when i tying access gRPC via C# client:

static void Main(string[] args)
{
    AppContext.SetSwitch("System.Net.Http.SocketsHttpHandler.   Http2UnencryptedSupport", true);
    using var channel = GrpcChannel.ForAddress("http://<my.server.ip.here>/ping");
    var svc = new Com.Example.Grpc.GreetingService.GreetingServiceClient(channel);
    var reply = svc.greetingNew(new Com.Example.Grpc.GreetingEmpty());
}

I've got an error (404, page not found). And i got same error for HTTP "GET" request using http://<my.server.ip.here>/ping url.

But when I make a gRPC request to exposed port 81, using url: http://<my.server.ip.here>:81, everything works fine.

What i am doing wrong? How can i access gRPC service through traefik outside of docker network, without SSL cert (for debugging purposes) or even with SSL?

P.S. Thank you for reading my question to the end.

Answer 1

So, after a few day of "debugging" of gRPC library we discover, that gRPC client make request to url assosiated with name space in proto contract, so for my example:

http://<my.server.ip.here>/com.example.grpc/greetingNew

So we should set PathPrefix for this type of requests to PathPrefix(/com.example.grpc) and everything start working.