Docker Compose and PostgreSQL DB in a Flash

This article shows you how to get a PostgreSQL DB running in 5 minutes and only 4 easy steps. This article has nothing to do with with Aaron Taylor-Johnson’s Quicksilver.

Im assuming the following:

• You have Docker installed
• You have Docker Compose installed

If you do not have these installed, check out these articles:

• Setting up Docker on Windows
• Installing docker and docker-compose on CentOS 7

Step 1: Create Directories

Run the following commands to create necessary directories

mkdir -m 777 -p ./data/postgresql/ ./data/db/ ./data/pgadmin/

Step 2: (Optional) Additional Configuration

There is no step two :)

Step 3: The Compose

Create a file called docker-compose.yml and copy and paste the following piece of code.

Run the following command to bring up the containers

docker-compose up -d

You should see the following:

Note:

This compose file includes two additional containers called adminer and pg-admin to help connect and view contents of the database

- The compose file forwards the default PostgreSQL port (5432) to itself

- Adminer is mapped to port 8088

- Pgadmin is on port 8080

Step 4: Connect to the Database

• Navigate to: http://localhost:8088/
• Login with the database details specified in the compose file in db section

• Once you login, you should see contents of your database as shown below, we got nothing.

• (Optional) You could also use pgadmin to connect to your db, Navigate to: http://localhost:8080/, and login with details specified in the compose file in pgadmin section

• Now you can connect your pgadmin instance by clicking add server as shown below:

• Give it a name and then click the connection tab to provide database details (specified in the compose file) as shown below:

• Please note that the host name is what you named the database service in the compose file — in this case: db.
• Now hit save and start interacting with you database. The pgadmin UI is much better than the adminer one.

This article is part of a series called:

“Devil’s in the Database: A Short Story of Docker and Databases”.

This series looks at how to use docker-compose to set up different database.