[Question] External ports in docker-compose

[emirot]

In the documentation here https://docs.localstack.cloud/getting-started/installation/

I can see that

services:
  localstack:
    container_name: "${LOCALSTACK_DOCKER_NAME:-localstack-main}"
    image: localstack/localstack
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:4566:4566"            # LocalStack Gateway
      - "127.0.0.1:4510-4559:4510-4559"  # external services port range
    environment:
      # LocalStack configuration: https://docs.localstack.cloud/references/configuration/
      - DEBUG=${DEBUG:-0}
    volumes:
      - "${LOCALSTACK_VOLUME_DIR:-./volume}:/var/lib/localstack"
      - "/var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock"

However I do not understand the purpose of the external-service port.

I tried and create and create a record in a kinesis stream and the only endpoint I could reach is 4566.

I have tried removing this line 127.0.0.1:4510-4559:4510-4559" relaunched, and it still worked.

So maybe it is just for some internals?

[emirot]

@bentsku I would be happy to add that in the doc

[bentsku]

Hello @emirot,

This is the page in the documentation about External Service Port Range: https://docs.localstack.cloud/references/external-ports/

If you're only using Kinesis, you don't have to use it. It is used when LocalStack is starting services like RDS instances, or like the documentation mentions, OpenSearch.