Labels & discovery

Keep routing close to the application it belongs to.

Two labels to discover a route

Set dr.enable to true and provide dr.host. By default, DockRouter detects the backend port. Set dr.port explicitly when the container exposes multiple ports or you want a different target.

labels:
  dr.enable: "true"
  dr.host: "api.example.com"
  dr.port: "8080"
  dr.tls: "auto"

Route by hostname and path

Use dr.path for a path prefix and dr.priority to resolve route precedence. Higher priorities win. The prefix can be stripped or added through middleware labels.

labels:
  dr.enable: "true"
  dr.host: "example.com"
  dr.path: "/api"
  dr.priority: "10"
  dr.stripprefix: "/api"

Routes follow container lifecycle

Docker discovery updates the router when containers start or stop. Enabled replicas are collected in backend pools. Your router and target containers need network connectivity; labels do not create Docker networks.

Routing label reference

Optional routing labels let you override the defaults on each service.

Label	Purpose	Default
dr.enable	Discover this container	Required
dr.host	Incoming hostname	Required
dr.port	Backend port	Auto-detected
dr.path	Path prefix	/
dr.priority	Route precedence	0
dr.address	Explicit backend address	Auto
dr.loadbalancer	Backend selection policy	roundrobin
dr.weight	Weighted backend preference	1