Discover services running on Docker containers

This topic provides an overview for deploying a Consul server when running Consul on Docker containers.

Use Consul DNS to discover the counting service

Now you can query Consul for the location of your service using the following dig command against Consul's DNS.

$ dig @127.0.0.1 -p 8600 counting.service.consul

; <<>> DiG 9.10.6 <<>> @127.0.0.1 -p 8600 counting.service.consul
; (1 server found)
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 61865
;; flags: qr aa rd; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1
;; WARNING: recursion requested but not available

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 4096
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;counting.service.consul.       IN      A

;; ANSWER SECTION:
counting.service.consul. 0      IN      A       172.17.0.3

;; Query time: 4 msec
;; SERVER: 127.0.0.1#8600(127.0.0.1)
;; WHEN: Thu Dec 15 13:03:30 CST 2022
;; MSG SIZE  rcvd: 68

You can also access your newly registered service from Consul's UI, http://localhost:8500.

Consul UI with Registered Service