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[BUG] App Platform adds unnecessary HTTP port 8080 to internal services

Posted on February 18, 2025

When deploying a “internal” service in App Platform that is intended to be internal-only, the platform automatically adds port 8080 as a public HTTP port, even though the service specification explicitly defines only internal ports.

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Create an App Platform deployment using the following spec:
spec:
  name: deploystack
  region: nyc
  services:
    - name: db
      image:
        registry_type: DOCKER_HUB
        registry: library
        repository: mariadb
        tag: "11.2"
      instance_count: 1
      instance_size_slug: basic-xxs
      health_check:
        port: 3306          
      internal_ports:
        - 3306
  1. Deploy the application

  2. Check the service configuration

Expected Behavior:

  • The database service should only expose the specified internal port (3306)

  • No public HTTP ports should be added when not explicitly configured

Actual Behavior:

  • App Platform automatically adds port 8080 as a public HTTP port

  • This happens despite only specifying internal_ports in the configuration

Impact:

  1. Unnecessarily exposes services to the public internet

  2. Violates the principle of least privilege

  3. Creates potential security concerns for internal-only services

  4. Makes it impossible to properly configure internal-only services without public exposure

Additional Context: This behavior appears to be hardcoded into App Platform and cannot be disabled through the service specification, which is problematic for deploying internal-only services like databases.



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Hey @piotrh,

This is an interesting finding, I recommend reaching out to DigitalOcean support to report it as a bug or request a feature to allow disabling the automatic HTTP port assignment.

You can also post this as a feature request on the DigitalOcean Product Ideas board, make sure to include as much information as possible for what you’d like to see implemented:

https://ideas.digitalocean.com/

- Bobby.

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