Debug Cloud‑Native Apps Locally with Alibaba EDAS in 3 Simple Steps

Overview

EDAS cloud‑native debugging allows a developer to run a Spring Cloud application locally while it communicates with services deployed in an Alibaba Cloud Kubernetes cluster. The tool creates a proxy on a remote SSH‑accessible node, so local calls are forwarded to the cloud and cloud calls can reach the local process. This eliminates the need to rebuild, redeploy, or open remote JVM debug ports.

1. Enable the Debug Switch in the Namespace

The cloud‑native debugging feature is disabled by default. In the Alibaba Cloud console, open the target EDAS namespace (e.g., the development namespace) and toggle the “Debug Switch” to ON. This setting is isolated per namespace, so production namespaces remain unaffected.

2. Prepare an SSH‑Accessible Kubernetes Node

The debugging proxy runs on a Kubernetes worker node that must be reachable via SSH from the developer’s workstation. If such a node already exists, skip this section; otherwise perform the following steps.

Select any node in the cluster and open its Elastic Compute Service (ECS) instance details in the Alibaba Cloud console.

Bind an Elastic IP address to the instance so it has a public IPv4 address.

Modify the instance’s security group to allow inbound TCP traffic on port 22. For maximum security, restrict the source CIDR to the developer’s public IP; the example uses 0.0.0.0/0.

Set a login password for the root (or a dedicated user) and restart the instance to apply the SSH configuration.

3. Configure the Alibaba Cloud Toolkit Plugin

The EDAS debugging feature is accessed through the Alibaba Cloud Toolkit plugin, which is available for IntelliJ IDEA and Eclipse. The configuration steps are identical for both IDEs; the example below uses IntelliJ IDEA.

Open Settings → Alibaba Cloud Toolkit → EDAS and enable Join EDAS Registry .

Provide the following fields:

Region : the Alibaba Cloud region where the Kubernetes cluster resides (e.g., cn-hangzhou).

Namespace : the EDAS namespace that has the debug switch enabled.

Gateway Host : the public IP or DNS of the SSH‑accessible node prepared in step 2.

Username : the SSH account name. If the account does not exist, the plugin will create it automatically.

Password : the SSH account password; used when the plugin creates the account.

Server Port : the port on which the local Spring Cloud service will listen (default 8080 unless overridden).

After filling the fields, click Add SSH Rule . The plugin will request sudo (root) privileges on the remote node to install an iptables‑based proxy that forwards traffic between the local process and the cloud services.

4. Run the Application in Cloud‑Native Debug Mode

Start the Spring Cloud application locally as usual (e.g., mvn spring-boot:run or via the IDE run configuration). The IDE status bar will indicate that “Cloud‑Native Debugging” is active.

In this mode:

Local service calls are automatically proxied to the corresponding cloud endpoints.

Cloud services can invoke the local service through the same proxy, enabling end‑to‑end testing without redeploying.

The application can be launched in the IDE’s debugger; breakpoints work normally because the proxy operates at the network layer, not the JVM.

5. Limitations and Next Steps

Cloud‑native debugging is most effective for reproducible issues that can be triggered locally. It does not help with:

Incidents that have already occurred and cannot be reproduced.

Problems that are intermittent or cannot be reliably triggered.

For such cases, Alibaba Cloud APM (Application Performance Management) provides runtime monitoring, trace collection, and anomaly detection. A subsequent tutorial will cover APM integration.