Simple Postgres Docker for local development

This is a docker-compose.yml file and setup instructions for running postgreSQL in docker for local development.

This installs the latest postgres version by default. If you want a different version you will need to edit the docker-compose.yml file and change postgres:latest to the version you want.

This stores your actual data in a docker volume, which means you can destroy the container and recreate it as much as you would like.

The container is set to automatically start when docker starts, so if docker is set to start on boot, so will your postgres database, unless you have manually stopped the contaienr.

If you want to easily start and stop this, you will need to keep this cloned repo around and go into the directory before running docker-compose commands.

Before you start it the first time

Make sure before you start this the first time, edit the docker-compose.yml file and change the postgres user password from password to something more secure.

Install Docker Desktop

Install Docker Desktop

Clone this repository

git clone <repo url>

Start the container with docker-compose in the background

docker-compose up -d

If your container doesn't start

you can find out more info about what happened with this command

docker-compose logs

Stopping the container

docker-compose down

Connecting via psql

To connect via psql you need to connect to localhost using the postgres user with the default password password (You should change this in the docker-compose.yml file before you run the container for the first time)

psql -h localhost -U postgres

If you want to be able to type psql without specifying localhost or the user you can set the following environment variables in your shell startup file:

export PGHOST=localhost
export PGUSER=postgres

Then you can simply type psql by itself and it will connect

If you want to not have to type the password copy the .pgpass file to your home directory. (If you've changed the password in docker-compose.yml you'll also need to change it in this file)

cp -v .pgpass ~/.pgpass

You also have to give this file proper permissions for it to work with this command once you've copied it.

chmod 0600 ~/.pgpass

After this should you be able to type psql and it should connect without prompting you for anything.

Starting over

This docker-compose.yml keeps your postgres data in a docker volume called postgres-data. If you want to start over with a clean postgres database, you can remove the container AND volume with this docker command:

docker-compose down -v

and then just start it back up.

docker-compose up