Docker compose external volume not synced with uploaded files

Question

I have a Docker construct with two services: a mysql db and a nestJs application. Users can upload files. What I want to achieve is that these files and the database are persisted in docker volumes. Therefore, I create two named external volumes, starting with docker-compose up and running migration on nestJs. I've wrote a shell script for that case:

#!/bin/bash
docker volume create rrm_db_data_STAGING
docker volume create rrm_upload_data_STAGING
DB_PORT=3001 SERVER_PORT=5001 docker-compose -f docker-compose-stage.yml -p RRM_STAGING up --build -V --remove-orphans -d
docker exec rrm-app-api_STAGING npm run typeorm:migration:run

The script is working fine.

This is my docker-compose file:

version: '3.7'

services:
  api:
    container_name: 'rrm-app-api_STAGING'
    build:
      context: .
      target: production
    command: npm run start:prod
    restart: always
    env_file:
      - ./staging.env
    environment:
      - NODE_ENV=staging
    volumes:
      - type: volume
        source: rrm_upload_data_STAGING
        target: /uploads      
    ports:
      - ${SERVER_PORT}:3000
    networks:
      - rrm-app-api-network_STAGING
    depends_on:
      - db

  db:
    image: mysql
    container_name: 'rrm-app-mysql_STAGING'
    volumes:
      - rrm_db_data_STAGING:/var/lib/mysql
    networks:
      - rrm-app-api-network_STAGING
    command: --default-authentication-plugin=mysql_native_password
    restart: always
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=dbpassword
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=dbname
    ports:
      - ${DB_PORT}:3306

networks:
  rrm-app-api-network_STAGING:
volumes:
  rrm_db_data_STAGING:
    external: true
  rrm_upload_data_STAGING:
    external: true

This is the docker file:

#Development stage
FROM node:13 AS development
LABEL key="removeme"
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY package*.json ./
COPY . .
RUN rm -rf node_modules
RUN rm -rf dist
RUN npm install
RUN npm run build

FROM node:13 AS production
WORKDIR /usr/src/app
COPY . .
RUN rm -rf node_modules
RUN rm -rf dist
COPY package*.json ./
RUN npm install
COPY --from=development /usr/src/app/dist ./dist

The volumes are created and the one for the database works fine. The data is persistes / synced and is still there after I do docker-compose down.

This is not working for the /uploads folder!

The size of the volume is always 0. Files that are uploaded by users are not stored in the volume, but are present in the containers /uploads folder. As you can see I already tried to write the "long" version in the api service's volumes section.

There is no difference, if the /uploads folder exists in the container on start up or not. Btw. Is this necessary for binding? Because the folder is created when the first upload happens. Anyway, I think this is not the actual mistake.

Can you tell me what I'm doing wrong?

Thanks!

Answer 1

All credits to @DennisRuiter. I changed the location in the container from /uploads to the folder under the working directory specified in Dockerfile. Now it is working as expected.