Ecosyste.ms: Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

Awesome Lists | Featured Topics | Projects

https://github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl

Like cURL, but for gRPC: Command-line tool for interacting with gRPC servers
https://github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl

golang grpc protobuf

Last synced: 4 days ago
JSON representation

Like cURL, but for gRPC: Command-line tool for interacting with gRPC servers

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

        
# gRPCurl

[![Build Status](https://circleci.com/gh/fullstorydev/grpcurl/tree/master.svg?style=svg)](https://circleci.com/gh/fullstorydev/grpcurl/tree/master)

[![Go Report Card](https://goreportcard.com/badge/github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl)](https://goreportcard.com/report/github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl)



`grpcurl` is a command-line tool that lets you interact with gRPC servers. It's

basically `curl` for gRPC servers.



The main purpose for this tool is to invoke RPC methods on a gRPC server from the

command-line. gRPC servers use a binary encoding on the wire

([protocol buffers](https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/), or "protobufs"

for short). So they are basically impossible to interact with using regular `curl`

(and older versions of `curl` that do not support HTTP/2 are of course non-starters).

This program accepts messages using JSON encoding, which is much more friendly for both

humans and scripts.



With this tool you can also browse the schema for gRPC services, either by querying

a server that supports [server reflection](https://github.com/grpc/grpc/blob/master/src/proto/grpc/reflection/v1/reflection.proto),

by reading proto source files, or by loading in compiled "protoset" files (files that contain

encoded file [descriptor protos](https://github.com/google/protobuf/blob/master/src/google/protobuf/descriptor.proto)).

In fact, the way the tool transforms JSON request data into a binary encoded protobuf

is using that very same schema. So, if the server you interact with does not support

reflection, you will either need the proto source files that define the service or need

protoset files that `grpcurl` can use.



This repo also provides a library package, `github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl`, that has

functions for simplifying the construction of other command-line tools that dynamically

invoke gRPC endpoints. This code is a great example of how to use the various packages of

the [protoreflect](https://godoc.org/github.com/jhump/protoreflect) library, and shows

off what they can do.



See also the [`grpcurl` talk at GopherCon 2018](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDr-8kbMnaw).



## Features

`grpcurl` supports all kinds of RPC methods, including streaming methods. You can even

operate bi-directional streaming methods interactively by running `grpcurl` from an

interactive terminal and using stdin as the request body!



`grpcurl` supports both secure/TLS servers _and_ plain-text servers (i.e. no TLS) and has

numerous options for TLS configuration. It also supports mutual TLS, where the client is

required to present a client certificate.



As mentioned above, `grpcurl` works seamlessly if the server supports the reflection

service. If not, you can supply the `.proto` source files or you can supply protoset

files (containing compiled descriptors, produced by `protoc`) to `grpcurl`.



## Installation



### Binaries



Download the binary from the [releases](https://github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl/releases) page.



### Homebrew (macOS)



On macOS, `grpcurl` is available via Homebrew:

```shell

brew install grpcurl

```



### Docker



For platforms that support Docker, you can download an image that lets you run `grpcurl`:

```shell

# Download image

docker pull fullstorydev/grpcurl:latest

# Run the tool

docker run fullstorydev/grpcurl api.grpc.me:443 list

```

Note that there are some pitfalls when using docker:

- If you need to interact with a server listening on the host's loopback network, you must specify the host as `host.docker.internal` instead of `localhost` (for Mac or Windows) _OR_ have the container use the host network with `-network="host"` (Linux only).

- If you need to provide proto source files or descriptor sets, you must mount the folder containing the files as a volume (`-v $(pwd):/protos`) and adjust the import paths to container paths accordingly.

- If you want to provide the request message via stdin, using the `-d @` option, you need to use the `-i` flag on the docker command.



### Other Packages



There are numerous other ways to install `grpcurl`, thanks to support from third parties that

have created recipes/packages for it. These include other ways to install `grpcurl` on a variety

of environments, including Windows and myriad Linux distributions.



You can see more details and the full list of other packages for `grpcurl` at _repology.org_:

https://repology.org/project/grpcurl/information



### From Source

If you already have the [Go SDK](https://golang.org/doc/install) installed, you can use the `go`

tool to install `grpcurl`:

```shell

go install github.com/fullstorydev/grpcurl/cmd/grpcurl@latest

```



This installs the command into the `bin` sub-folder of wherever your `$GOPATH`

environment variable points. (If you have no `GOPATH` environment variable set,

the default install location is `$HOME/go/bin`). If this directory is already in

your `$PATH`, then you should be good to go.



If you have already pulled down this repo to a location that is not in your

`$GOPATH` and want to build from the sources, you can `cd` into the repo and then

run `make install`.



If you encounter compile errors and are using a version of the Go SDK older than 1.13,

you could have out-dated versions of `grpcurl`'s dependencies. You can update the

dependencies by running `make updatedeps`. Or, if you are using Go 1.11 or 1.12, you

can add `GO111MODULE=on` as a prefix to the commands above, which will also build using

the right versions of dependencies (vs. whatever you may already have in your `GOPATH`).



## Usage

The usage doc for the tool explains the numerous options:

```shell

grpcurl -help

```



In the sections below, you will find numerous examples demonstrating how to use

`grpcurl`.



### Invoking RPCs

Invoking an RPC on a trusted server (e.g. TLS without self-signed key or custom CA)

that requires no client certs and supports server reflection is the simplest thing to

do with `grpcurl`. This minimal invocation sends an empty request body:

```shell

grpcurl grpc.server.com:443 my.custom.server.Service/Method



# no TLS

grpcurl -plaintext grpc.server.com:80 my.custom.server.Service/Method

```



To send a non-empty request, use the `-d` argument. Note that all arguments must come

*before* the server address and method name:

```shell

grpcurl -d '{"id": 1234, "tags": ["foo","bar"]}' \

    grpc.server.com:443 my.custom.server.Service/Method

```



As can be seen in the example, the supplied body must be in JSON format. The body will

be parsed and then transmitted to the server in the protobuf binary format.



If you want to include `grpcurl` in a command pipeline, such as when using `jq` to

create a request body, you can use `-d @`, which tells `grpcurl` to read the actual

request body from stdin:

```shell

grpcurl -d @ grpc.server.com:443 my.custom.server.Service/Method <