Build a Spring Boot 2.7 Dubbo RPC Service: Step‑by‑Step Guide

1. Introduction

Apache Dubbo is an RPC framework that solves service governance and communication in micro‑service architectures. It supports multiple languages and provides features such as service discovery, load balancing, and traffic routing. The following example demonstrates how to integrate Dubbo with Spring Boot 2.7.

Environment: SpringBoot 2.7.16, Dubbo 3.2.7, JDK 17.

2. Project Structure

The demo consists of three modules:

dubbo-spring-boot-interface : defines the service interface.

dubbo-spring-boot-provider : implements the interface and exposes the service.

dubbo-spring-boot-consumer : consumes the remote service via Dubbo.

2.1 Parent Project Dependency Management

<properties>
  <java.version>17</java.version>
  <dubbo.version>3.2.10</dubbo.version>
  <nacos.client.version/>
  <maven.compiler.source>17</maven.compiler.source>
  <maven.compiler.target>17</maven.compiler.target>
  <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
</properties>

<dependencies>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
  </dependency>
  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
    <scope>test</scope>
  </dependency>
</dependencies>

<dependencyManagement>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.dubbo</groupId>
      <artifactId>dubbo-dependencies-bom</artifactId>
      <version>${dubbo.version}</version>
      <type>pom</type>
      <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.dubbo</groupId>
      <artifactId>dubbo-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
      <version>3.2.7</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.pack</groupId>
      <artifactId>dubbo-spring-boot-interface</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
      <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
      <version>30.1-jre</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

2.2 Interface Definition

public interface DemoService {
  String sayHello(String name);
}

2.3 Provider Implementation

@DubboService
public class DemoServiceImpl implements DemoService {
  @Override
  public String sayHello(String name) {
    return "Hello, " + name;
  }
}

The @DubboService annotation exposes the service.

Provider Application

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableDubbo
public class ProviderApplication {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(ProviderApplication.class, args);
  }
}

The @EnableDubbo annotation registers Dubbo components as Spring beans.

Provider Configuration (application.yml)

spring:
  application:
    name: dubbo-provider
---
server:
  port: 8081
---
dubbo:
  application:
    name: ${spring.application.name}
  protocol:
    name: dubbo
    port: -1
  registry:
    address: nacos://127.0.0.1:8848
    parameters:
      username: nacos
      password: nacos
      group: dubbo
      namespace: a4be0946-9e32-4414-b844-7c91299f5d78

Provider setup is now complete.

2.4 Consumer Implementation

Consumer Dependencies

<dependency>
  <groupId>com.pack</groupId>
  <artifactId>dubbo-spring-boot-interface</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.dubbo</groupId>
  <artifactId>dubbo-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
  <groupId>com.alibaba.nacos</groupId>
  <artifactId>nacos-client</artifactId>
</dependency>

Consumer Application

@SpringBootApplication
@EnableDubbo
public class ConsumerApplication implements CommandLineRunner {
  @DubboReference
  private DemoService demoService;

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    SpringApplication.run(ConsumerApplication.class, args);
  }

  @Override
  public void run(String... args) throws Exception {
    System.out.println(this.demoService.sayHello("张三"));
  }
}

The @DubboReference annotation injects a proxy for the remote service.

Consumer Configuration (application.yml)

spring:
  application:
    name: dubbo-consumer
---
server:
  port: 8082
---
dubbo:
  application:
    name: ${spring.application.name}
    qos-port: 33333
  protocol:
    name: dubbo
    port: -1
  registry:
    address: nacos://127.0.0.1:8848
    parameters:
      username: nacos
      password: nacos
      group: dubbo
      namespace: a4be0946-9e32-4414-b844-7c91299f5d78
    register-consumer-url: true

2.5 Testing

Start the provider module first. If a JVM error occurs, add the following VM option: --add-opens java.base/java.lang=ALL-UNNAMED After the provider starts, you can see it registered in the Nacos console:

Next, start the consumer module. The console shows the remote call result:

The consumer successfully invokes the provider’s sayHello method.

This completes a full end‑to‑end Spring Boot + Dubbo integration example.