Accessing Neo4j

A Neo4j running on Kubernetes is accessible via Kubernetes Services. Neo4j has a number of different interfaces for different application and operational purposes. For more details, see Neo4j ports.

Supported Kubernetes services

Neo4j supports the following Kubernetes services:

  • Default Service — a ClusterIP service for application neo4j/bolt and http(s) connections to the Neo4j database, originating from inside the Kubernetes cluster.

  • Admin Service — a “Headless” (DNS only) service that includes all Neo4j ports for admin connections to Neo4j inside Kubernetes. It is only available inside the Kubernetes cluster and access to it should be guarded. The Admin service can be used for Neo4j DBMS administration, performing backups, and collecting metrics.

  • Internal Service — a “Headless” (DNS only) internal service that includes all Neo4j ports required for the Neo4j cluster.

  • Neo4j — a LoadBalancer service for application neo4j/bolt and http(s) connections originating from outside the Kubernetes cluster.

The following is a list of the default Kubernetes services per Neo4j interface and deployment type:

Neo4j Interface Default Port Default Service Admin Service Neo4j Service

Bolt (neo4j:// and bolt:// protocols)

7687

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Neo4j Browser HTTP

7474

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Neo4j Browser HTTPS

7473

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Neo4j Cypher HTTP API

7474

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Neo4j Cypher HTTPS API

7473

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Neo4j Backup

6362

No

Yes

No but configurable

Graphite Monitoring

2003

No

Yes

No

Prometheus Metrics

2004

No

Yes

No

Java Management Extensions (JMX)

3637

No

No but configurable

No
Neo4j Interface Default Port Default Service Admin Service Internal Service Neo4j Service

Bolt (neo4j:// and bolt:// protocols)

7687

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Yes

Neo4j Browser HTTP

7474

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Yes

Neo4j Browser HTTPS

7473

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Yes

Neo4j Cypher HTTP API

7474

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Yes

Neo4j Cypher HTTPS API

7473

Yes

Yes*

Yes

Yes

Neo4j Backup

6362

No

Yes

Yes

No

Graphite Monitoring

2003

No

No but configurable

No but configurable

No

Prometheus Metrics

2004

No

No but configurable

No but configurable

No

Java Management Extensions (JMX)

3637

No

No but configurable

No but configurable

No

Cluster discovery management

5000

No

No

Yes

No

Cluster transaction

6000

No

No

Yes

No

Cluster RAFT

7000

No

No

Yes

No

Cluster routing connector

7688

No

No

Yes

No

*The Admin service bypasses health checks. This allows it to be used to make connections for administrative purposes when the database is in an unhealthy state. However, you must not use it to connect from applications that require the database to be in a healthy state.

Applications accessing Neo4j from inside Kubernetes

Access Neo4j using DNS

To access Neo4j from an application in the same Kubernetes cluster use the Neo4j service DNS address <release-name>.<namespace>.svc.<cluster domain>.

The default cluster domain is cluster.local and the default namespace is default. Generally, the Neo4j service DNS address is <release-name>.default.svc.cluster.local.

For example, if using the release name my-release in the default namespace, the cluster’s DNS address would be my-release.default.svc.cluster.local, and the bolt address for use with Neo4j drivers would be neo4j://my-release.default.svc.cluster.local:7687.

To allow for an application running inside Kubernetes to access a Neo4j cluster, you can also use the Neo4j headless service that is installed via the neo4j/neo4j-cluster-headless-service Helm chart. For more information and a detailed example, see Access the Neo4j cluster using headless service.

Access Neo4j using K8s label selector

Alternatively, the Neo4j service (default) in Kubernetes can be located using Kubernetes service discovery by searching with the label selector:

helm.neo4j.com/service=default/admin/internals,helm.neo4j.com/instance=<release-name>

For example:

# install neo4j
helm install "my-release" …
# lookup installed service
kubectl get service -l helm.neo4j.com/service=default,helm.neo4j.com/instance=my-release
helm.neo4j.com/service=neo4j,helm.neo4j.com/instance=<release-name>

The following is an example of how to look up the installed services:

# Neo4j service:

kubectl get service -l helm.neo4j.com/service=default,helm.neo4j.com/instance=my-release

# Admin service:

kubectl get service -l helm.neo4j.com/service=admin,helm.neo4j.com/instance=my-release

# internals service:

kubectl get service -l helm.neo4j.com/service=internals,helm.neo4j.com/instance=my-release

Applications accessing Neo4j from outside Kubernetes

To access Neo4j from an application outside the Kubernetes cluster, you can use a LoadBalancer service or an Ingress controller.

Access Neo4j using a LoadBalancer

Neo4j Helm chart provides a LoadBalancer service for accessing Neo4j from outside the Kubernetes cluster. The LoadBalancer service is created by default when installing the Neo4j Helm chart. The LoadBalancer service is configured to expose the Neo4j ports 7687, 7474, 7473, and 6362 (backup) by default.

The external IP(s) of the LoadBalancer can be found using kubectl:

  • The service name is based on the value of the neo4j.name — <my-neo4j-name>-lb-neo4j:

    kubectl get service `<my-neo4j-name>-lb-neo4j` -ocustom-columns=ip:.status.loadBalancer.ingress[].ip

  • Using a label selector:

    kubectl get service -l helm.neo4j.com/service=neo4j,helm.neo4j.com/name=<release-name> -ocustom-columns=ip:.status.loadBalancer.ingress[].ip

If the Kubernetes LoadBalancer implementation that you are using supports setting a static IP, the IP address of the LoadBalancer can be configured in the Neo4j Helm release by setting services.neo4j.spec.loadBalancerIP. If a static IP address is not explicitly set, then Kubernetes does not guarantee that a dynamically assigned IP address will not change.

When exposing a Neo4j database on the Internet, it is recommended to use a static IP and configure SSL on the exposed services. For more information, see Configuring SSL.

If you have static IPs, you can associate DNS with them and obtain trusted certificates.

The ports that are exposed on the external service can be configured in the Helm release by changing the services.neo4j object. The default values are:

services:
  neo4j:
    enabled: true
    annotations: { }
    spec:
      type: LoadBalancer
      loadBalancerIP: NULL
    ports:
      http:
        enabled: true # Set this to false to remove HTTP from this service (this does not affect whether http is enabled for the neo4j process)
        # uncomment to publish http on port 80 (neo4j default is 7474)
        #port: 80
        #targetPort: 7474
        #name: http
        #nodePort: <your-nodeport>, enabled only when type set to NodePort
      https:
        enabled: true # Set this to false to remove HTTPS from this service (this does not affect whether https is enabled for the neo4j process)
        # uncomment to publish http on port 443 (neo4j default is 7473)
        #port: 443
        #targetPort: 7473
        #name: https
        #nodePort: <your-nodeport>, enabled only when type set to NodePort
      bolt:
        enabled: true # Set this to false to remove BOLT from this service (this does not affect whether https is enabled for the neo4j process)
        # Uncomment to explicitly specify the port to publish Neo4j Bolt (7687 is the default)
        #port: 7687
        #targetPort: 7687
        #name: tcp-bolt
        #nodePort: <your-nodeport>, enabled only when type set to NodePort
      backup:
        enabled: false # Set this to true to expose backup port externally (n.b. this could have security implications. Backup is not authenticated by default)
        # Uncomment to explicitly specify the port to publish Neo4j Backup (6362 is the default)
        #port: 6362
        #targetPort: 6362
        #name: tcp-backup
        #nodePort: <your-nodeport>, enabled only when type set to NodePort

Disabling/enabling a port on the services.neo4j object removes it from the load balancer but does not affect whether it is disabled/enabled in Neo4j.

Backup is not secure unless SSL-with-client-auth is enforced in the Neo4j configuration.

For a detailed example, see Access the Neo4j cluster from outside Kubernetes.

Customizing Kubernetes Resources

The Neo4j Helm chart creates various Kubernetes resources. Some of them can be customized by adding extra configuration to the helm deployment values file.

The following is a list of the supported K8s resources customizations:

Customization values.yaml field Type

Setting a pod securityContext for the Neo4j Pod

securityContext

PodSecurityContext

Adding annotations to Services

services.default.annotations

Annotations object for ClusterIP service.

services.admin.annotations

Annotations object for headless (DNS) service.

services.neo4j.annotations

Annotations object for LoadBalancer service.
Customization values.yaml field Type

Setting a pod securityContext for the Neo4j Pod

securityContext

PodSecurityContext

Adding annotations to Services

services.default.annotations

Annotations object for ClusterIP service.

services.admin.annotations

Annotations object for headless (DNS) service.

services.internal.annotations

Annotations object for internal service.

Adding annotations to Load Balancer Service

services.neo4j.annotations

Annotations object for LoadBalancer service.

Accessing Neo4j for DBMS administration and monitoring

The Neo4j Helm chart creates the admin service for the purposes of Neo4j administration. The admin service is a “Headless” service in Kubernetes and does not depend on Neo4j health checks. Therefore, it permits connections to Neo4j even if Neo4j is not healthy. In general, that is not desirable for applications but can be useful for administration and debugging.

Access Neo4j using DNS

To access the admin service inside Kubernetes use the DNS address <release-name>-admin.<namespace>.svc.<cluster domain>.

For example, if using the release name my-release in the default namespace, the cluster’s DNS address would be my-release-admin.default.svc.cluster.local.

The admin service can be used to access a range of Neo4j interfaces:

  • Neo4j Bolt for Neo4j administration via Cypher commands.

  • Neo4j Backup for taking database backups.

  • Graphite for metrics collection.

  • Prometheus for metrics collection.

  • Java Management Extensions (JMX) for metrics collection and JVM administration.

Access Neo4j using kubectl for troubleshooting

To get an interactive cypher-shell console for troubleshooting, use this command:

kubectl run -it --rm --image neo4j:2026.8.1 cypher-shell -- cypher-shell -a bolt://my-release-admin.default.svc.cluster.local

Generally, the neo4j:// protocol is used for connecting to Neo4j. For troubleshooting, though, the direct bolt:// protocol is used because it allows a connection in some situations where a neo4j:// connection will not succeed.

Glossary

allocator

A component in the cluster that allocates databases to servers according to the topology constraints specified and an allocation strategy.

asynchronous replication

Asynchronous replication is used by secondary copies to poll for new transactions, which means they cannot be guaranteed to have received the most recent transactions. This enables efficient scale-out of read-performance.

Aura instance

A fully-managed DBMS represented by a single instance ID, that is running in the Neo4j Aura cloud.

auto-commit transaction

An automatically committed transaction that contains a single query.

Bolt protocol

Bolt is a protocol used for interaction between Neo4j instances and drivers.

bookmark

A marker the client can request from the cluster to ensure that it is able to read its own writes so that the application’s state is consistent and only databases that have a copy of the bookmark are permitted to respond.

category (Bloom)

A category is based on a node label and is defined in a Perspective as a way of visually distinguishing nodes with the same label(s).

causal consistency

All servers in a cluster agree on the order in which transactions take place. The position of a server on the causal chain can be guaranteed using a bookmark.

cluster

A Neo4j DBMS that spans multiple servers working together to increase fault tolerance and/or read scalability. Databases on a cluster may be configured to replicate across servers in the cluster thus achieving read scalability or high availability.

client application

Software that interacts with a Neo4j server.

commit

A commit is the successful completion of a transaction, which ensures durability of any changes made. For more details, visit Operations Manual → Transaction management.

composite database

Composite databases are the means to access partitioned graph data with a single Cypher query.

constraint

Constraints are sets of data modeling rules that ensure the data is consistent and reliable.

Cypher®

Neo4j’s graph query language.

data model

A data model defines how information is organized in a database. A good data model will make querying and understanding your data easier. In Neo4j, the data models have a graph structure.

database

A database is a container used by the DBMS to manage and store graph data. The physical structure of data is controlled by the database.

database vs graph

Databases are the physical containers of graph data. Graphs are the logical structure of data in Neo4j.

Database Management System

Database Management System, or DBMS, capable of managing multiple databases. A DBMS may run on a single server, or span several servers configured as a cluster.

database schema

The prescribed property existence and datatypes for nodes and relationships.

deallocate

An act of removing a database from a server or a server from a cluster without loss of data or reduced fault tolerance.

degree (of a node)

The number of relationships of a specific node; loops are counted twice.

disaster recovery

A manual intervention to restore availability of a cluster, or databases within a cluster.

driver

A software library that provides access to Neo4j from a particular programming language.

election

In the event that the Raft leader becomes unresponsive, followers automatically trigger an election and vote for a new leader.

entity

A node or a relationship.

expression (Cypher)

A component of a Cypher query which produces values. It may be used in projections, as a predicate, or when setting properties on graph elements.

fabric

Fabric is the architectural design of a unified system that provides a single access point to local or distributed graph data.

fault tolerance

A guarantee that a cluster can maintain a database’s persistence and availability in the event of one or more servers failing.

follower

A primary copy of a database acting as a follower, receives and acknowledges synchronous writes from the leader.

Generative AI (GenAI)

A type of artificial intelligence (AI) system that generates text, images, or other media in response to prompts.

graph

A logical representation of a set of nodes where some pairs are connected by relationships.

index

Data structure that improves read performance of a database.

knowledge graph

A specific type of graph that has an organizing principle so that a user (or a computer system) can reason about the underlying data. The organizing principle provides an additional layer of structure that adds context to support knowledge discovery.

label

Marks a node as a member of a named and indexed subset. A node may be assigned zero or more labels.

leader

A single primary copy of a database is designated as the leader. It receives all write transactions from clients and replicates writes synchronously to followers and asynchronously to secondary copies of the database.

main database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database(s) containing the user’s data. Can exist in the same Neo4j deployment as the tool asset database.

motif

A description of a specific pattern within a graph.

node

A node represents an entity or discrete object in your graph data model. Nodes can be connected by relationships, hold data in properties, and are classified by labels.

operator

A symbol representing a mathematical or logical operation.

parameter

Named value provided when running a Cypher statement.

path

A sequence of nodes and the relationships connecting them, that does not contain duplicate relationships. Several paths can match a pattern.

pattern

A specific arrangement of nodes and relationships that can be matched in a graph. A pattern follows a motif.

perspective (Bloom)

A Perspective defines a certain business view or domain that can be found in the target Neo4j graph. A single Neo4j graph can be viewed through different Perspectives, each tailored for a different business purpose.

primary

A copy of the database that is able to process write transactions and is eligible to be elected as a leader. It participates in fault tolerant writes as it is part of the majority required to acknowledge and commit write transactions.

primary vs secondary

In a cluster, databases can operate in either primary or secondary mode. Primary databases are able to process write and read transactions, ensuring fault tolerance. Secondary databases are replicated asynchronously from primaries, and their main purpose is to provide read scaling within the cluster.

project (Aura)

An isolated environment in the unified Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Preceded by tenant in the classic Aura console.

property

Properties are key-value pairs that are used for storing data on nodes and relationships.

query (Cypher)

A statement that retrieves or writes information to a database.

Raft group

A group of servers that are participating in hosting a particular database in primary mode.

Raft group member

A server that is participating in a Raft group. A server can be a member of one or more groups.

Raft log

A shared log between all Raft group members that is guaranteed to be consistently updated and viewed by those members. The log contains both database data and operational state of the Raft group.

Raft protocol

The networking mechanism that enables a database to replicate its data across multiple servers to give high availability for accessing the data and high durability to the data stored.

read scaling

Distributing query load by creating additional database copies hosted in secondary mode (read-only).

relationship

A relationship represents a connection between nodes in your graph data model. Relationships connect a source node to a target node, hold data in properties, and are classified by type.

secondary

An asynchronously replicated copy of the database that provides read scaling within the cluster.

seed

A seed is a database dump or a full backup used to create a database on a cluster. This is sometimes called seeding.

server

A physical machine, a virtual machine, or a container running an instance of Neo4j. Servers can be standalone or part of a cluster.

session

A causally linked sequence of transactions.

session consistency

An alternative name for Neo4j’s causal consistency.

standalone

A single server running Neo4j and not part of a cluster.

synchronous replication

Synchronous replication requires the leader primary to replicate a transaction and block the commit until a quorum of the follower primaries acknowledges that the transaction is successfully replicated. Once the transaction is replicated, the commit is allowed to proceed. This ensures data durability and consistency within the cluster.

system database

A database used by Neo4j to store system information.

tenant (Aura)

An isolated environment in the classic Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Replaced by project in the unified Aura console.

tool asset database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database where tools' assets are stored. This can be in the same Neo4j deployment as the main database(s) or in a separate deployment.

topology

A configuration that describes how the copies of a database should be spread across the servers in a cluster, see primary mode and secondary mode.

transaction

A transaction comprises a unit of work performed against a database. It is treated in a coherent and reliable way, independent of other transactions. Transactions comply with the ACID consistency model (atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable).