Unable to forward traffic using NodePort - kubernetes

Question

I have an application running inside minikube K8 cluster. It’s a simple REST endpoint. The issue is after deployment I am unable to access that application from my local computer.
Using http://{node ip}:{node port} endpoint.
However, if I do:
kubectl port-forward (actual pod name) 8000:8000
The application becomes accessible at: 127.0.0.1:8000 from my local desktop.
Is this the right way?
I believe this isn't the right way? as I am directly forwarding my traffic to the pod and this port forwarding won't remain once this pod is deleted.
What am I missing here and what is the right way to resolve this?
I have also configured a NodePort service, which should handle this but I am afraid it doesn’t seem to be working:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Service
metadata:
labels:
app: rest-api
name: rest-api-np
namespace: rest-api-namespace
spec:
type: NodePort
ports:
- port: 8000
selector:
app: rest-api
apiVersion: apps/v1
kind: Deployment
metadata:
labels:
app: rest-api
name: rest-api-deployment
namespace: rest-api-namespace
spec:
replicas: 1
selector:
matchLabels:
app: rest-api
strategy: {}
template:
metadata:
creationTimestamp: null
labels:
app: rest-api
spec:
containers:
- image: oneImage:latest
name: rest-api

Answer 1

You are having issues because your service is placed in default namespace while your deployment is in rest-api-namespace namespace.
I have deploy you yaml files and when the describe the service there were no endpoints:
➜ k describe svc rest-api-np
Name: rest-api-np
Namespace: default
Labels: app=rest-api
Annotations: <none>
Selector: app=rest-api
Type: NodePort
IP: 10.100.111.228
Port: <unset> 8000/TCP
TargetPort: 8000/TCP
NodePort: <unset> 31668/TCP
Endpoints: <none>
Session Affinity: None
External Traffic Policy: Cluster
Events: <none>
Solution for that is to create service in the the same namespace. Once you do that, an ip address and port will appear in the Endpoints field:
➜ k describe svc -n rest-api-namespace rest-api-np
Name: rest-api-np
Namespace: rest-api-namespace
Labels: app=rest-api
Annotations: <none>
Selector: app=rest-api
Type: NodePort
IP: 10.99.49.24
Port: <unset> 8000/TCP
TargetPort: 8000/TCP
NodePort: <unset> 32116/TCP
Endpoints: 172.18.0.3:8000
Session Affinity: None
External Traffic Policy: Cluster
Events: <none>
Alternative way is to add endpoints manually:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Endpoints
metadata:
name: my-service # please note that endpoints and service needs to have the same name
subsets:
- addresses:
- ip: 192.0.2.42 #ip of the pod
ports:
- port: 8000

Answer 2

Since you can do port forwarding the rest api service properly connected to your deployment. In that case the service can be resolved using the following way.
First find out the minikube ip
minikube ip
Then the node port of your service like
kubectl get service rest-api-np
Once you have these two details just do http://(minikube-ip):(node-port)