Access the Neo4j cluster from outside Kubernetes

By default, server-side routing is used for accessing a Neo4j cluster from outside Kubernetes.

Access the Neo4j cluster using a load balancer and Cypher Shell

A LoadBalancer service is created to access a Neo4j cluster from outside Kubernetes.

  1. Check that the LoadBalancer service is available using the neo4j.name used for installation:

    export NEO4J_NAME=my-cluster
kubectl get service ${NEO4J_NAME}-lb-neo4j
    NAME                  TYPE           CLUSTER-IP     EXTERNAL-IP      PORT(S)                                        AGE
my-cluster-lb-neo4j   LoadBalancer   10.28.12.119   82.21.42.42      7474:32169/TCP,7473:32145/TCP,7687:32624/TCP   2m1s

  2. Use kubectl describe service to see the service details:

    kubectl describe service ${NEO4J_NAME}-lb-neo4j
    Name:                     my-cluster-lb-neo4j
Namespace:                neo4j
Labels:                   app=my-cluster
                          app.kubernetes.io/managed-by=Helm
                          helm.neo4j.com/neo4j.name=my-cluster
                          helm.neo4j.com/service=neo4j
Annotations:              cloud.google.com/neg: {"ingress":true}
                          meta.helm.sh/release-name: server-1
                          meta.helm.sh/release-namespace: neo4j
Selector:                 app=my-cluster,helm.neo4j.com/clustering=true,helm.neo4j.com/neo4j.loadbalancer=include
Type:                     LoadBalancer
IP Family Policy:         SingleStack
IP Families:              IPv4
IP:                       10.28.12.119
IPs:                      10.28.12.119
LoadBalancer Ingress:     82.21.42.42
Port:                     http  7474/TCP
TargetPort:               7474/TCP
NodePort:                 http  32169/TCP
Endpoints:                10.24.0.131:7474,10.24.1.3:7474,10.24.1.67:7474
Port:                     https  7473/TCP
TargetPort:               7473/TCP
NodePort:                 https  32145/TCP
Endpoints:                10.24.0.131:7473,10.24.1.3:7473,10.24.1.67:7473
Port:                     tcp-bolt  7687/TCP
TargetPort:               7687/TCP
NodePort:                 tcp-bolt  32624/TCP
Endpoints:                10.24.0.131:7687,10.24.1.3:7687,10.24.1.67:7687
Session Affinity:         None
External Traffic Policy:  Local
HealthCheck NodePort:     30621
Events:
  Type    Reason                Age    From                Message
  ----    ------                ----   ----                -------
  Normal  EnsuringLoadBalancer  3m11s  service-controller  Ensuring load balancer
  Normal  EnsuredLoadBalancer   2m36s  service-controller  Ensured load balancer

    The load-balancer service can send requests to all cluster servers.

  3. Run cypher-shell from the local machine and connect to the LoadBalancer Ingress address, in the example 82.21.42.42:

    ./cypher-shell -a neo4j://82.21.42.42 -u neo4j -p my-password
    If you don't see a command prompt, try pressing enter.
Connected to Neo4j using Bolt protocol version 2025.06 at neo4j://82.21.42.42:7687 as user neo4j.
Type :help for a list of available commands or :exit to exit the shell.
Note that Cypher queries must end with a semicolon.

  4. Run the Cypher command SHOW DATABASES to verify that all cluster members are online:

    SHOW DATABASES;
    +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| name     | type       | aliases | access       | address                                 | role      | writer | requestedStatus | currentStatus | statusMessage | default | home  | constituents |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "neo4j"  | "standard" | []      | "read-write" | "server-3.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "primary" | TRUE   | "online"        | "online"      | ""            | TRUE    | TRUE  | []           |
| "neo4j"  | "standard" | []      | "read-write" | "server-2.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "primary" | FALSE  | "online"        | "online"      | ""            | TRUE    | TRUE  | []           |
| "neo4j"  | "standard" | []      | "read-write" | "server-1.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "primary" | FALSE  | "online"        | "online"      | ""            | TRUE    | TRUE  | []           |
| "system" | "system"   | []      | "read-write" | "server-3.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "primary" | FALSE  | "online"        | "online"      | ""            | FALSE   | FALSE | []           |
| "system" | "system"   | []      | "read-write" | "server-2.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "primary" | FALSE  | "online"        | "online"      | ""            | FALSE   | FALSE | []           |
| "system" | "system"   | []      | "read-write" | "server-1.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "primary" | TRUE   | "online"        | "online"      | ""            | FALSE   | FALSE | []           |
+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

6 rows
ready to start consuming query after 110 ms, results consumed after another 109 ms

  5. Run the Cypher command SHOW SERVERS to verify that all cluster members are enabled:

    SHOW SERVERS;
    +----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| name                                   | address                                 | state     | health      | hosting             |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| "ad5c3cf1-541a-44f8-a19b-28bc36030914" | "server-3.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "Enabled" | "Available" | ["system", "neo4j"] |
| "cbdebc59-64c2-4542-a041-24a1f051e64f" | "server-1.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "Enabled" | "Available" | ["system", "neo4j"] |
| "f37e98a7-15ec-4dc4-a6bf-df9e418a7488" | "server-2.neo4j.svc.cluster.local:7687" | "Enabled" | "Available" | ["system", "neo4j"] |
+----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

3 rows
ready to start consuming query after 27 ms, results consumed after another 363 ms

    You can see that the nodes are advertising their internal addresses, but since you connected without using internal addresses, you use server-side routing.

Access the Neo4j cluster using a load balancer and Neo4j Browser

  1. Open a web browser and point it to the LoadBalancer Ingress address and port 7474, in this example, http://82.21.42.42:7474/browser.

  2. Once connected, verify that all databases are up and running using :sysinfo in the Browser Editor:

    :sysinfo

    helm sysinfo