Creating a running Postgres service inside a docker container - postgresql

I'm a bit new to Docker.
I have two containers running using docker-compose.
One is the API and the other is the actual application.
I want to add a new DB container using the Postgres official image.
It's a bit hard to find a simple tutorial on how to create the container and populate it with a predefined sql file (of schemas and data).
When I start with "CMD /etc/init.d/postgresql start" in the Dockerfile I get an error saying: "No PostgreSQL clusters exist; see "man pg_createcluster" ... (warning)."
Since it takes me too much time to get things going I was wondering if it might be better to get an Ubuntu image and install Postgres on my own since there is only one source on how to use the image - docker hub, and I don't seem to understand it that well.
Any ideas or simple steps on how to compose and 'configure' this image?

If you want populate your database with some file, A simply way to do this is:
How to extend this image
If you would like to do additional initialization in an image derived
from this one, add one or more *.sql, *.sql.gz, or *.sh scripts under
/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d (creating the directory if necessary).
After the entrypoint calls initdb to create the default postgres user
and database, it will run any *.sql files and source any *.sh scripts
found in that directory to do further initialization before starting
the service.
Dockerfile
FROM postgres:alpine
COPY init.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/init.sql
docker-compose.yml
version: '3'
services:
app:
//your app definition
postgres:
build: .

Pull the postgres image
docker pull postges:14.2
Create the service with the below command
docker service create --name postgres --network my_overlay --env "POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password" --publish 5432:5432 postgres:14.2
Try to connect using userName as postgres and password as password to the default postgres db.
jdbc:postgresql://127.0.0.1:5432/postgres // JDBC connection

Related

Docker Postgres data host volume mapping

I'm trying to docker-containerize PostgreSQL server and this container will have many other applications as well. The need is that, PostgreSQL server data should be mapped to the host volume so that when container is stopped, we won't lose the data. Also that, the next time when we start the container, the same directory can be mapped again and postgres can use the old data. Below is the DOCKERFILE. Note that I'm using ubuntu 22.04 on the host.
FROM ubuntu:22.04
ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND noninteractive
RUN apt install -y postgresql
ENTRYPOINT ["tail", "-f", "/dev/null"]
Docker image is built using the command
docker build -t pg_test .
and the container is run using the command
docker run --name test -v /home/me/data:/var/lib/postgresql/14/main pg_test
'/home/me/data' is the host directory which is empty where I want to map the postgres server data. '/var/lib/postgresql/14/main' is the directory inside the docker container where the postgres is supposed to store the data.
Once the docker container starts, I enter the docker container using the command
docker exec -it test bash
and once I'm inside, I'm trying to start the PostgreSQL service. But PostgreSQL fails to start as there is no data in '/var/lib/postgresql/14/main' directory. I understand that since I have mapped an empty host directory to '/var/lib/postgresql/14/main' directory, postgres doesn't have the files required to start.
I understand that I'm doing it the wrong way, but I couldn't find a way around it. Can anyone please help me to do this the right way, if there is one?
Any help would be appreciable.
You should use the postgres docker image, it will set up the db for you when you start the container, you can find instructions on https://hub.docker.com/_/postgres
If you must use a custom image, you will need to initialize the db yourself, usually by running initdb or whatever your system provides.
But really you should use the appropriate docker image, and if you need more services you start them in their own container and connect them to the postgres one

Wait service postgres start dockerfile

I'm using docker file to build ubuntu image have install postgresql. But I can't wait for service postgres status OK
FROM ubuntu:18.04
....
RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y postgresql-11
RUN service postgresql start
RUN su postgres
RUN psql
RUN CREATE USER kong; CREATE DATABASE kong OWNER kong;
RUN \q
RUN exit
Everything seem okay, but RUN su postgres will throw error because service postgresql not yet started after RUN service postgresql start. How can I do that?
First thing, each RUN command in Dockerfile run in a separate shell and RUN command should be used for installation or configuration not for starting the process. The process should be started at CMD or entrypoint.
RUN vs CMD
Better to use offical postgress docker image.
docker run --name some-postgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword -d postgres
The default postgres user and database are created in the entrypoint with initdb.
or you can build your image based on postgress.
FROM postgres:11
ENV POSTGRES_USER=kong
ENV POSTGRES_PASSWORD=example
COPY seed.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/seed.sql
This will create an image with user, password and also the entrypoint will insert seed data as well when container started.
POSTGRES_USER
This optional environment variable is used in conjunction with
POSTGRES_PASSWORD to set a user and its password. This variable will
create the specified user with superuser power and a database with the
same name. If it is not specified, then the default user of postgres
will be used.
Some advantage with offical docker image
Create DB from ENV
Create DB user from ENV
Start container with seed data
Will wait for postgres to be up and running
All you need
# Use postgres/example user/password credentials
version: '3.1'
services:
db:
image: postgres
restart: always
environment:
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: example
Initialization scripts
If you would like to do additional initialization in an image derived
from this one, add one or more *.sql, *.sql.gz, or *.sh scripts under
/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d (creating the directory if necessary).
After the entrypoint calls initdb to create the default postgres user
and database, it will run any *.sql files, run any executable *.sh
scripts, and source any non-executable *.sh scripts found in that
directory to do further initialization before starting the service.

How to copy and use existing postgres data folder into docker postgres container

I want to build postgres docker container for testing some issue.
I have:
Archived folder of postgres files(/var/lib/postgres/data/)
Dockerfile that place folder into doccker postgres:latest.
I want:
Docker image that reset self-state after recreate image.
Container that have database state based on passed into the container postgres files
I don't want to wait for a long time operation of backup and restore existing database in /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d initialization script.
I DON'T WANT TO USE VOLUMES because I don't need to store new data between restart (That's why this post is different from How to use a PostgreSQL container with existing data?. In that post volumes are used)
My suggestion is to copy postgres files(/var/lib/postgres/data/) from host machine into docker's /var/lib/postgres/data/ in build phase.
But postgres docker replace this files when initdb phase is executing.
How to ask Postgres docker not overriding database files?
e.g.
Dockerfile
FROM postgres:latest
COPY ./postgres-data.tar.gz /opt/pg-data/
WORKDIR /opt/pg-data
RUN tar -xzf postgres-data.tar.gz
RUN mv ./data/ /var/lib/postgresql/data/pg-data/
Run command
docker run -p 5432:5432 -e PGDATA=/var/lib/postgresql/data/pg-data --name database-immage1 database-docker
If you don't really need to create a custom image with the database snapshot you could use volumes. Un-tar the database files somewhere on the host say ~/pgdata then run the image. Example:
docker run -v ~/pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data/ -p 5432:5432 postgres:9.5
The files must be compatible with the postgres version of the image so use the same image version as the archived database.
If, instead, you must recreate the image you don't need to uncompress the database archive. The ADD instruction will do
that for you. Make sure the tar does not contain any leading directory.
The Dockerfile:
FROM postgres:latest
ADD ./postgres-data.tar.gz /var/lib/postgresql/data/
Build it:
docker build . -t database-docker
Run without overriding the environment variable PGDATA. Note that you copy the files in /var/lib/postgresql/data but the PGDATA points to /var/lib/postgresql/data/pg-data.
Run the container:
docker run -p 5432:5432 --name database-image1 database-docker

How can i persist my data in docker/postgres container?

I know there are probably many ways to do this. What I am looking for is a way to do it using (preferably) only my DockerFile and one container.
Here is my current dockerfile:
FROM postgres:latest
ENV POSTGRES_USER=myuser
ENV POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mypassword
Here is the command I used to build this container:
docker built -t my_db .
And here is the command that I use to run the container:
docker run -p 5432:5432 my_db
What I would like to do is have the data stored in the container if possible, but I don't seem to understand how or where postgres stores it's data. I saw on another stack overflow post that postgres will store it by default in /var/lib/postgresql/data however when I look in that folder I see nothing. I can however verify that postgres is running because I am using a client called teamSQL and from that client I can create tables and insert/read data.
I can also verify that when i stop the container and restart the data is definitely not persisted.
Note: this is running in OSx but I don't think that is relevant.
You should use Docker volumes, so when you stop your container, data will persist on host machine, and when you start container again data will be mounted to it
docker volume create pgdata
docker run -p 5432:5432 -v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data my_db

Build postgres docker container with initial schema

I'm looking to build dockerfiles that represent company databases that already exist. Similarly, I'd like create a docker file that starts by restoring a psql dump.
I have my psql_dump.sql in the . directory.
FROM postgres
ADD . /init_data
run "createdb" "--template=template0" "my_database"
run "psql" "-d" "my_database" --command="create role my_admin superuser"
run "psql" "my_database" "<" "init_data/psql_dump.sql"
I thought this would be good enough to do it. I'd like to avoid solutions that use a .sh script. Like this solution.
I use template0 since the psql documentation says you need the same users created that were in the original database, and you need to create the database with template0 before you restore.
However, it gives me an error:
createdb: could not connect to database template1: could not connect to server: No such file or directory
Is the server running locally and accepting
I'm also using docker compose for the overall application, if solving this problem in docker-compose is better, I'd be happy to use the base psql image and use docker compose to do this.
According to the usage guide for the official PostreSQL Docker image, all you need is:
Dockerfile
FROM postgres
ENV POSTGRES_DB my_database
COPY psql_dump.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/
The POSTGRES_DB environment variable will instruct the container to create a my_database schema on first run.
And any .sql file found in the /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/ of the container will be executed.
If you want to execute .sh scripts, you can also provide them in the /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/ directory.
As said in the comments, #Thomasleveil answer is great and simple if your schema recreation is fast.
But in my case it's slow, and I wanted to use docker volumes, so here is what I did
First use docker image as in #Thomasleveil answer to create a container with postgres with all the schema initialization
Dockerfile:
FROM postgres
WORKDIR /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d
ADD psql_dump.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d
EXPOSE 5432
then run it and create new local dir which contains the postgres data after its populated from the “psql_dump.sql” file: docker cp mypg:/var/lib/postgresql/data ./postgres-data
Copy the data to a temp data folder, and start a new postgres docker-compose container whose volume is at the new temp data folder:
startPostgres.sh:
rm -r ./temp-postgres-data/data
mkdir -p ./temp-postgres-data/data
cp -r ./postgres-data/data ./temp-postgres-data/
docker-compose -p mini-postgres-project up
and the docker-compose.yml file is:
version: '3'
services:
postgres:
container_name: mini-postgres
image: postgres:9.5
ports:
- "5432:5432"
volumes:
- ./temp-postgres-data/data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
Now you can run steps #1 and #2 on a new machine or if your psql_dump.sql changes. And each time you want a new clean (but already initialized) db, you can only run startPostgres.sh from step #3.
And it still uses docker volumes.
#Thomasleveil's answer will re-create the database schema at runtime, which is fine for most cases.
If you want to recreate the database schema at buildtime (i.e. if your schema initialization is really slow) you can invoke the stock docker_entrypoint.sh from within your Dockerfile.
However, since the docker_entrypoint.sh is designed to start a long-running database server, you have to add an extra script to exit the process after database initialization but before booting the long-running server.
Dockerfile (with build time database initialization)
# STAGE 1 - Equivalent to #Thomasleveil
FROM postgres AS runtime_init
ENV POSTGRES_DB my_database
COPY 1-psql_dump.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/
# STAGE 2 - Initialize the database during the build
FROM runtime_init AS buildtime_init_builder
RUN echo "exit 0" > /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/100-exit_before_boot.sh
ENV PGDATA=/pgdata
RUN docker-entrypoint.sh postgres
# STAGE 3 - Copy the initialized db to a new image to reduce size.
FROM postgres AS buildtime_init
ENV PGDATA=/pgdata
COPY --chown=postgres:postgres --from=buildtime_init_builder /pgdata /pgdata
Important Notes
The stock postgres image will run initialization scripts in alphabetical order, so ensure that your database restoration scripts appear earlier than the exit_before_boot.sh script created in the Dockerfile.
This is demonstrated by the 1 and 100 prefixes shown above. Modify them to your liking.
Database updates to a running instance of this image will not be persisted across reboots since the PGDATA path where the database files are stored no longer maps to a volume mounted from the host machine.
Further Reading
Instructions from the authors of the official postgres image about writing your own custom_entrypoint.sh. This is arguably the more "official" way to solve this problem, but I personally find my approach easier to understand and implement.
A demo of this concept for PostgreSQL 9, which uses the --help flag to exit the docker-entrypoint.sh before the long-running server boots. Unfortunately, this no longer works as of December 3, 2019
Two discussions (1) (2) of this same question from the official docker postgres repository.