The curl GET command can be used to determine if a service exists.

On the Kong server

If Kong is running on docker, refer to Kong - Docker container command line for the steps on how to issue commands in the Kong Docker container. Assuming you are using the default kong.conf file, the Kong Admin API will listen on port 8001.

If issuing this command on the Kong server, this command will display every service.

curl -X GET "http://localhost:8001/services"

From a remote server

If issuing this command from a remote server, this command will display every service.

curl -X GET "http://hostname:8000/admin-api/services"

Exact service name unknown

If you do not know the exact name of the service, the following command can be used to determine if there are any services matching a certain string. In this example, we are searching for any service that contains "foo" in the name of the service.

curl --silent -i -X GET --url "http://localhost:8001/services" | sed 's|,|\n|g' | grep "\"name\":" | grep -i "foo"

If "foo-service" does not exist, since the --silent option is being used, there should be no output.

If "foo-service" exists, something like this should be displayed.

"name":"foo-service"

Exact service name known

In this example, the cURL command is used to determine if "foo-service" exists.

curl -i -X GET --url 'http://localhost:8001/services/example-service'

If the service exists, something like this should be displayed.

{
 "host":"www.example.com",
 "created_at":1584414186,
 "connect_timeout":60000,
 "id":"7a2081ea-f4f6-45bf-b9c2-85824d2a34a9",
 "protocol":"http",
 "name":"foo-service",
 "read_timeout":60000,
 "port":80,
 "path":null,
 "updated_at":1584414186,
 "retries":5,
 "write_timeout":60000,
 "tags":null,
 "client_certificate":null
}

If the service does not exist, the following JSON shold be displayed.

{
 "message":"Not found"
}