Accessing LocalStack via the endpoint URL

This documentation provides step-by-step guidance on how to access LocalStack services via the endpoint URL and troubleshoot common issues.

From the same computer

Suppose you have LocalStack installed on your machine and want to access it using the AWS CLI. To connect, you must expose port 4566 from your LocalStack instance and connect to localhost or a domain name that points to localhost. While the LocalStack CLI does this automatically, when running the Docker container directly or with docker compose, you must configure it manually. Check out the getting started documentation for more information.

You can also use the EDGE_PORT configuration variable to change the exposed port if necessary.

From a container LocalStack created

Suppose your code is running inside an ECS container that LocalStack has created. To enable access to the LocalStack instance, it’s advisable to start LocalStack in a user-defined network, and then set the MAIN_DOCKER_NETWORK environment variable to this network’s name. This allows the code running inside the container to access the LocalStack instance using its hostname. For example:

• CLI
• Docker
• docker-compose.yml

# create the network
docker network create my-network
# launch localstack
MAIN_DOCKER_NETWORK=my-network DOCKER_FLAGS="--network my-network" localstack start
# then your code can access localstack at its container name (by default: localstack_main)
aws --endpoint-url http://localstack_main:4566 s3api list-buckets

# create the network
docker network create my-network
# launch localstack
docker run --rm -it --network my-network -e MAIN_DOCKER_NETWORK=my-network <other flags> localstack/localstack[-pro]
# then your code can access localstack at its container name (by default: localstack_main)
aws --endpoint-url http://localstack_main:4566 s3api list-buckets

services:
  localstack:
    # ... other configuration here
    environment:
      MAIN_DOCKER_NETWORK=ls
    networks:
    - ls
networks:
  ls:
    name: ls

# Your application code can then use
# http://localstack:4566 for the
# endpoint url

From your container

Suppose you’re accessing AWS resources such as S3 in LocalStack by running your application code in a container. To facilitate access to LocalStack from within the container, it’s recommended to start LocalStack in a user-defined network and set the MAIN_DOCKER_NETWORK environment variable to the network’s name. Doing so enables the containerized code to connect to the LocalStack instance using its hostname. For instance:

• CLI
• Docker
• docker-compose.yml

# create the network
docker network create my-network
# launch localstack
DOCKER_FLAGS="--network my-network" localstack start
# launch your container
docker run --rm it --network my-network <image name>
# then your code can access localstack at its container name (by default: localstack_main)

# create the network
docker network create my-network
# launch localstack
docker run --rm -it --network my-network <other flags> localstack/localstack[-pro]
# launch your container
docker run --rm it --network my-network <image name>
# then your code can access localstack at its container name (by default: localstack_main)

services:
  localstack:
    # ... other configuration here
    networks:
    - ls
  your_container:
    # ... other configuration here
    networks:
    - ls
networks:
  ls:
    name: ls

# Your application code can then use
# http://localstack:4566 for the
# endpoint url

From a separate host

LocalStack must listen to the address of the host, or 0.0.0.0.

• CLI
• Docker
• docker-compose

EDGE_BIND_HOST="0.0.0.0" localstack start

# this command exposes ports on all interfaces by default
docker run --rm -it -p 4566:4566 <additional arguments> localstack

services:
  localstack:
    # ... other configuration here
    ports:
      - "4566:4566"
      # ... other ports

Check out our FAQ article on accessing LocalStack from another computer.