Private services

A private service is a web service with no public address. Your other services can reach it, and so can your own devices over private access, but nothing on the internet can. Use one for an internal API, an admin tool or a back office.

Make a service private

1. Open the web service's Settings.
2. Under Who can reach it, turn on Private.

The public address closes within a minute. Turn Private off to open it again at the same address.

Reach it

Your other services reach it at http:// followed by its name, for example http://api. Spaces and capitals become dashes and lower case, so Admin Tool is http://admin-tool. The Private setting shows the exact address.

import requests

response = requests.get("http://api/orders")

This works from every zone the project has machines in.

Over private access it has a name of its own, shown on the Private access tab, for example http://api.5295cbea4203.private.appentic.app.

What a private service doesn't have

• An appentic.app address or custom domains. Remove the service's custom domains before you make it private.
• A load balancer. A load balancer is a way in from the internet, so a service in one can't be private (its Who can reach it section is hidden), and a private service can't join one.
• Firewall protection. There's no internet traffic for the firewall to check.

Deploys, logs, metrics and the shell work as for any web service.

To also choose which of your services may reach it, see Traffic rules.