Spring Boot Admin Client

The Steeltoe Spring Boot Admin client provides a way to integrate with Spring Boot Admin Server, which enables monitoring and management of applications in any environment.

Add NuGet Reference

Add a reference to the Steeltoe.Management.Endpoint NuGet package.

Add Spring Boot Admin Client

The extension method AddSpringBootAdminClient adds an IHostedService and necessary components to register and un-register the application when it starts up and shuts down. It can be used in Program.cs as follows:

using Steeltoe.Management.Endpoint.SpringBootAdminClient;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);
builder.Services.AddSpringBootAdminClient();

Configure Settings

The following table describes the configuration settings that you can apply to the client. Each key must be prefixed with Spring:Boot:Admin:Client:.

Key	Description	Default
Url	The URL of the Spring Boot Admin server.
ApplicationName	The name of the Steeltoe app being registered.	computed
BasePath	Base path to find endpoints for integration.	computed
ValidateCertificates	Whether server certificates should be validated.	true
ConnectionTimeoutMS	Connection timeout (in milliseconds).	100_000
Metadata	Dictionary of metadata to use when registering.

Connecting to dockerized Spring Boot Admin Server

For successful communication between your app and Spring Boot Admin Server running inside a docker container, a few additional steps are needed:

• Register your app using host.docker.internal

  Once your app has registered itself with Spring Boot Admin Server, the server tries to connect to your app and send requests to its actuator endpoints. This fails when your app registers itself using localhost, because the server runs in a docker container that has its own network. Instead, you need to register using the special host.docker.internal address, which enables the server inside the container to connect to your app outside the container.

• Bind your app to a wildcard address

  By default, your app listens only on localhost, which is not accessible from the Spring Boot Admin Server running in a container. To make the app accessible, bind it to a wildcard address, which allows it to listen on all available network interfaces. This can be done by updating the launchSettings.json file.

• Use HTTP instead of HTTPS

  The server doesn't trust the self-signed certificate used by your app, so you need to use HTTP instead of HTTPS. This requires removing app.UseHttpsRedirection() from your Program.cs file.

• Register additional actuator endpoints

  For the server to report the app as "UP", you need to add at least the hypermedia and health actuators in Program.cs.

Tip

You can use the Steeltoe docker image for SBA for testing purposes.

Putting it all together, your appsettings.Development.json file should look like this:

{
  "Spring": {
    "Application": {
      "Name": "ExampleSteeltoeApp"
    },
    "Boot": {
      "Admin": {
        "Client": {
          // This is the URL of the Spring Boot Admin Server.
          "Url": "http://localhost:9099",
          // This is what the Spring Boot Admin Server uses to connect to your app.
          "BasePath": "http://host.docker.internal:5258"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

With the following contents in launchsettings.json:

{
  "$schema": "http://json.schemastore.org/launchsettings.json",
  "profiles": {
    "http": {
      "commandName": "Project",
      "dotnetRunMessages": true,
      // Listen on all network interfaces by using a wildcard for the hostname.
      "applicationUrl": "http://*:5258",
      "environmentVariables": {
        "ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT": "Development"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note

If you'd like your app to listen on a different port number, replace 5258 in both files above with the desired port.

And the following code in Program.cs:

using Steeltoe.Management.Endpoint.Actuators.Health;
using Steeltoe.Management.Endpoint.Actuators.Hypermedia;
using Steeltoe.Management.Endpoint.SpringBootAdminClient;

var builder = WebApplication.CreateBuilder(args);

// Add services to the container.

builder.Services.AddSpringBootAdminClient();
builder.Services.AddHypermediaActuator();
builder.Services.AddHealthActuator();

builder.Services.AddControllers();

var app = builder.Build();

// In order to avoid trust issues with self-signed certificates, do not automatically redirect to https.
//app.UseHttpsRedirection();

app.MapControllers();

app.Run();

Tip

To see all the Spring Boot Admin features in action, replace the Add*Actuator() calls in Program.cs with AddAllActuators() and expose all endpoints.