Start with Docker

Before I embark on the road to explain docker, I want to define a few concepts. In the docker world, we have two structures: images and containers. At the base level, you can download (pull) an image from the hub.docker.com, and use it to build a container.

Pull a Image:

  • docker pull postgres
  • You will see something like this on your command line:
Using default tag: latest
latest: Pulling from library/postgres
Digest: sha256:ce0f6c28b5869ff166714d5ff9702e38b00f81ad348c6
  • This will provide an image on your local machine for use with building a container.

View Local Image:

  • You can run the docker image command to see this image on your local system:
  • docker image ls | grep postgres

Build a Container:

  • From here we can create a container with the docker run command:
  • docker run --name postgres_cont --rm -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password -d postgres
    • --name will name my container.
    • --rm tells my container to delete the container when it stops running.
      • Otherwise, my system will potentially build up a whole bunch of containers that use the same image.
    • -e will pass environmental values to my container.
      • In this case, Docker Hub's explanation for the postgres container says that the POSTGRES_PASSWORD is required for this image.
    • -d tells the container to run in the background.
    • postgres tells my container which image to use.
  • Now, I have a container named 'postgres_cont' on my local machine.
    • docker container ls | grep postgres_cont

Start and Connect to a Container:

  • I can start the container with a run command and then connect to a shell session by running a command similar to this:
  • docker run --name postgres_cont --rm -it -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password postgres bash
    • -it says to start an interactive terminal that stays open.
    • bash tells my container to run the bash shell.
      • In some cases, the image will not be based off of an image that includes bash, so you would have to use /bin/sh instead.
      • From inside this shell we could then interact with or database via psql.
  • We could also start an interactive shell session inside the container directly with the postgres terminal:
  • docker run --name postgres_cont --rm -it -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password postgres psql -U postgres
    • postgres psql -U postgres is saying when you attach to this container run psql and connect with the postgres user.

Connect to a Running Container:

  • I can connect to a running container by running the exec command.
    • This container could have been started by using run with the -d flag or it could have been started by running docker-compose up.
  • docker exec -it postgres_cont bash
    • -it says to start an interactive terminal that stays open.
    • postgres_cont is my container name.
    • bash is the process I want to use when I attach to my container.
    • This will give me an interactive terminal session within the container where I can run postgres commands.

Connect to the Container from the Host:

  • If I want to connect to my container from my host machine, I will need to expose the container's port to my host.
  • docker run --name postgres_cont -p 5432:5432 -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password -d postgres
  • Now instead of having to connect to my running container via the command line, I can use any postgres GUI and connect to my database from my host machine on port 5432.
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