Connect an Android Device To a Web Service on Local Host

I implemented a web service for an Android application. The web service is running on my local host (192.168.1.2). Using the Android emulator I succeeded to connect to web service. The I tried to connect my Android device using debugging mode to web service but it didn't work. So my question is if it is possible to connect an Android device to this web service that is running on my local host (192.168.1.2) without using a real IP ?

It's much simpler way supported by google!

• Connect your phone via usb to computer and enable usb debugging
• On your computer open Chrome browser and type exactly this address: chrome://inspect/#devices
• Now you can link your computer port to your device port by port forwarding button. On my computer I have service on address localhost:61437 and I just linked it to device's 8081 port. Remeber to check 'Enable port forwarding' checkbox

• screen from service on my computer ( localhost:61437 )

• screen from my mobile browser with the same service ( localhost:8081). And that's it. Also you use this service address in your application

Did you already solve your problem? I also got a problem like you. These are the steps that I already done:

1. unplug lan cable or turn off any other internet connection from your pc.
2. connect your android mobile to your pc using usb.
3. turn on usb tethering
4. back to your pc. check your ip. mine is 192.168.42.37
5. check your webservice app in your pc. let's say http://192.168.42.37/webserviceapp
6. back to your android mobile. try this url http://192.168.42.37/webserviceapp

Now you can access your webservice app in your pc from your mobile phone.

Well your localhost is 127.0.0.1 (or ::1) and your LAN IP is 192.168.1.2. Each pc/device that are connected under your LAN could reach your webservice on IP 192.168.1.2

Your Android device must be so connected under the same LAN maybe through Wifi connection so it will be able to talk with 192.168.1.2.

If you can't connect your Android device under the same LAN eg you have just a 3g connection you need to play with your router/firewall to redirect all incoming traffic (maybe just the http traffic) from your public ip to you private ip (192.168.1.2)

Hope this help

I'll throw in my process, since nothing on SO worked for me. Here are the steps I took to connect my physical android device to the web service running on my laptop (connected to the phone) on localhost:

1. Enable USB debugging on your Android device

2. Run your web service on your machine. My web service runs on localhost, port 3000 in development: http://localhost:3000/api/...

3. Run ifconfig (Unix), or ipconfig (Windows)

4. Find your machine's inet address on your LAN interface. Mine is 10.0.0.121 for interface wlan0. Externally, it is 68.43.XX.XXX, which is not the address that you want to use.

5. Use the LAN IP since you are connecting to your service on LAN, otherwise you might get an econnrefused (connection refused) error due to firewall rules

6. Build your http URL with that IP address, and the port that your web service is running on. For me, it's http://10.0.0.121:3000/api/...

When you launch your app, you should connections to your local web service in logs, Wireshark, etc, and you should see the desired activity/data in your Android application.

I had the same issues, researched a lot then found out that you have to explicitly make changes in your firewall settings. Your firewall is blocking your code to be accessed from external source. So, all you need to do is, go to firewall settings, add port 80 (in my case since, I am using Apache http Server) for inbound and outbound. Now, you can test it on your phone's browser http://192.16*.*.**:80/

I agree with the other answers as good approaches if you don't want to expose your DEV webservice on the internet. However, it's much easier if you do just expose the webservice. There's a number of free DNS services, but I've found no-ip to be the easiest to set up. I use it for exactly the purpose that you asked about; so I can test with my DEV webservice on a real device.

If you choose to go with no-ip (I have no affiliation with that company, it's just the one I've used and am familiar with), you can get a free publicly accessible URL like http://MyExampleWebServer.no-ip-org, and no-ip has a utility you can install so even if you're behind a dynamic IP, it will always keep the correct external IP associated with that URL. If you're working from your house, then you'd just need to make sure you port forward traffic from port 80 to your internal 192.x.x.x IP address (or whatever port you use; maybe 443 for ssl).

It's as easy as that, and now you can hit that webservice from any device that can access the internet.

I haven't worked with it, but I believe dyndns also offers a similar service.

I've done that on a Mac using GasMask and Charles Proxy Server. Your phone and your computer have to be on the same network.

say the webservice url you want to access is at http://api.xyz.com, you first use GasMask to point that url to your localhost, then use Charles to set up a proxy server. Then you go to the settings on your phone, go into Wi-Fi, long-press the network you are connected to, choose Modify Network, and enter the proxy settings Charles gave you.

In my case, nothing of these solutions works because Windows firewall blocks it, but putting a rule on the firewall hasn't effect.

The problem in my case is that my laptop is connected with Wifi and Windows had the Wifi connection like a Public network. I must to change the network connection to Private network. http://www.comofuncionatodo.net/tecnologia/informatica/como-cambiar-de-red-publica-a-red-privada-en-windows-10/

This solution is for GAE development server in Eclipse

Step 1: Get the LAN IP

Goto your Windows Command Console (Press Win+R, then type "cmd"). In the console, enter "ipconfig". You will see a list of display. Under Wireless LAN adapter Wi-Fi, get the IPv4 Address. It will be something 192.168.x.x

LAN IP : 192.168.x.x

Step 2:

Go to Eclipse, Open the Configured server

Under Properties of GAE Development Server -> Local Interface address to bind to, enter the LAN IP address, and save.

Step 3:

Now you can access the GAE server by

http://192.168.x.x:8888/

8888 - Refers to the Port Number, as mentioned in the GAE development server

In order to access local web services using their own server hosts rather than IP addresses with ports, do these following steps:

1. Make sure your Android device and your local machine are on the same network.
2. Install SquidMan on your Mac, Linux, or any other Proxy Server.
3. Configure the proxy server's HTTPPort (ex. 5555) and clients (ex. 192.168.0.0/24) to your own network mask, and run the proxy server.
4. You are either using the web services in:

a. A web browser: Configure the proxy settings of your Android device from Modify WiFi networks.

b. Android application: Set up the Proxy for your HTTP client. If you are using Volley, check this out: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23914407/volley-behind-a-proxy-server.

5. You can now connect to it by using whatever URL you are using on your host to connect to the web service (ex. http://my-local-machine.com)

Hint: If you got 4xx response codes, make sure your web service allows connections from other non-local-hosts.

If you are referring your localhost on your system from the Android emulator then you have to use http://10.0.2.2:8080/ Because Android emulator runs inside a Virtual Machine(QEMU) therefore here 127.0.0.1 or localhost will be emulator's own loopback address.