I have a main service in my docker-compose file that uses postgres's image and, though I seem to be successfully connecting to the database, the data that I'm writing to it is not being kept beyond the lifetime of the container (what I did is based on this tutorial).
Here's my docker-compose file:
main:
build: .
volumes:
- .:/code
links:
- postgresdb
command: python manage.py insert_into_database
environment:
- DEBUG=true
postgresdb:
build: utils/sql/
volumes_from:
- postgresdbdata
ports:
- "5432"
environment:
- DEBUG=true
postgresdbdata:
build: utils/sql/
volumes:
- /var/lib/postgresql
command: true
environment:
- DEBUG=true
and here's the Dockerfile I'm using for the postgresdb and postgresdbdata services (which essentially creates the database and adds a user):
FROM postgres
ADD make-db.sh /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/
How can I get the data to stay after the main service has finished running, in order to be able to use it in the future (such as when I call something like python manage.py retrieve_from_database)? Is /var/lib/postgresql even the right directory, and would boot2docker have access to it given that it's apparently limited to /Users/?
Thank you!
The problem is that Compose creates a new version of the postgresdbdata container each time it restarts, so the old container and its data gets lost.
A secondary issue is that your data container shouldn't actually be running; data containers are really just a namespace for a volume that can be imported with --volumes-from, which still works with stopped containers.
For the time being the best solution is to take the postgresdbdata container out of the Compose config. Do something like:
$ docker run --name postgresdbdata postgresdb echo "Postgres data container"
Postgres data container
The echo command will run and the container will exit, but as long as don't docker rm it, you will still be able to refer to it in --volumes-from and your Compose application should work fine.