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Postgres in Docker

Docker makes it easy to spin up a Postgre Database on your server or local machine. With the following command you can start your PostgreSQL Docker container

# Name, password and local port(54320) can be changed, based on your preference 
# We are using postgres alphine image here.
docker run --name mypostgres -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password -d -p 54320:5432 postgres:alpine

# To keep the data persistant, volume reference can be added
# Data will be saved under "data" directory in the current path
docker run --name mypostgres -v "$PWD"/data:/var/lib/postgresql/data -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password -d -p 54320:5432 postgres:alpine

Accessing the container can be done in multiple ways

To create container more conveniently we can use a docker-compose.yml file instead of running Docker CLI commands.

version: "3"
services:
  # Create a service named postgresdb.
  postgresdb:
    # Use the Docker Image postgres alpine. This will pull the newest release.
    image: postgres:alpine
    # Give a name for the container.
    container_name: "mypostgres"
    # Setup the username, password, and database name. You can changes these values.
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: 'postgres'
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: 'pgpass'
      POSTGRES_DB: 'postgres'
    # Maps port 54320 (localhost) to port 5432 on the container. You can change the ports to fix your needs.
    ports:
      - "54320:5432"
    # Set a volume to keep the data persistant (data is not lost after shutting down the container).
    # You can use different directory name other than "db-data" if you want
    volumes:
      - ./db-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data

Once docker-compose.yml is created.Open a terminal in the same directory and use following commands to start and stop the container.

# Start the container
docker-compose up -d

# Stop the container
docker-compose down

pgAdmin service can be added to the docker-compose file to make pgAdmin run as a docker container alongside the postgresDB container. Complete docker-compose file can be found here

  # Create a service for pgadmin.
  pgadmin:
    # Use pgadmin4 Docker image, https://hub.docker.com/r/dpage/pgadmin4/
    image: dpage/pgadmin4

    # Expose the web UI on localhost port 8080
    ports:
      - '8080:80'
    # Link this container to the "mypostgres" container created above with hostname 'postgres'
    external_links:
      - mypostgres:postgres
    # Login details for pgadmin can be set as per your preference
    environment:
      PGADMIN_DEFAULT_EMAIL: 'admin@example.com'
      PGADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD: 'admin'

Next time when you run docker compose, pgAdmin console can be accessed via localhost:8080 in the browser.

To connect to the postgresDB, click on “add new server”. Then specify a name for connection under General. Under connections put the details for the postgres docker container and click save. placeholder

New connection can be seen on left hand sidebar placeholder