How to deal with persistent storage e g databases in Docker

Question

How do people deal with persistent storage for your Docker containers   I am currently using this approach  build the image  e g  for PostgreSQL  and then start the container with  docker run --volumes-from c0dbc34fd631 -d app name postgres   IMHO  that has the drawback  that I must not ever  by accident  delete container  c0dbc34fd631    Another idea would be to mount host volumes  -v  into the container  however  the userid within the container does not necessarily match the userid from the host  and then permissions might be messed up   Note  Instead of --volumes-from  cryptic id  you can also use --volumes-from my-data-container where my-data-container is a name you assigned to a data-only container  e g  docker run --name my-data-container      see the accepted answer

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In Docker release v1 0  binding a mount of a file or directory on the host machine can be done by the given command     docker run -v  host  container       The above volume could be used as a persistent storage on the host running Docker

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Docker 1 9 0 and above  Use volume API  docker volume create --name hello docker run -d -v hello  container path for volume container image my command   This means that the data-only container pattern must be abandoned in favour of the new volumes   Actually the volume API is only a better way to achieve what was the data-container pattern   If you create a container with a -v volume name  container fs path Docker will automatically create a named volume for you that can    Be listed through the docker volume ls Be identified through the docker volume inspect volume name Backed up as a normal directory Backed up as before through a --volumes-from connection   The new volume API adds a useful command that lets you identify dangling volumes   docker volume ls -f dangling true   And then remove it through its name   docker volume rm  lt volume name gt    As  mpugach underlines in the comments  you can get rid of all the dangling volumes with a nice one-liner   docker volume rm   docker volume ls -f dangling true -q    Or using 1 13 x docker volume prune   Docker 1 8 x and below  The approach that seems to work best for production is to use a data only container   The data only container is run on a barebones image and actually does nothing except exposing a data volume   Then you can run any other container to have access to the data container volumes   docker run --volumes-from data-container some-other-container command-to-execute    Here you can get a good picture of how to arrange the different containers  Here there is a good insight on how volumes work    In this blog post there is a good description of the so-called container as volume pattern which clarifies the main point of having data only containers   Docker documentation has now the DEFINITIVE description of the container as volume s pattern   Following is the backup restore procedure for Docker 1 8 x and below   BACKUP   sudo docker run --rm --volumes-from DATA -v   pwd   backup busybox tar cvf  backup backup tar  data    --rm  remove the container when it exits --volumes-from DATA  attach to the volumes shared by the DATA container -v   pwd   backup  bind mount the current directory into the container  to write the tar file to busybox  a small simpler image - good for quick maintenance tar cvf  backup backup tar  data  creates an uncompressed tar file of all the files in the  data directory   RESTORE     Create a new data container   sudo docker run -v  data -name DATA2 busybox true   untar the backup files into the new container s data volume   sudo docker run --rm --volumes-from DATA2 -v   pwd   backup busybox tar xvf  backup backup tar data  data sven txt   Compare to the original container   sudo docker run --rm --volumes-from DATA -v  pwd   backup busybox ls  data sven txt   Here is a nice article from the excellent Brian Goff explaining why it is good to use the same image for a container and a data container

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As of Docker Compose 1 6  there is now improved support for data volumes in Docker Compose  The following compose file will create a data image which will persist between restarts  or even removal  of parent containers   Here is the blog announcement  Compose 1 6  New Compose file for defining networks and volumes  Here s an example compose file   version   2   services    db      restart  on-failure 10     image  postgres 9 4     volumes        -  db-data  var lib postgresql data    web      restart  on-failure 10     build        command  gunicorn mypythonapp wsgi application -b  8000 --reload     volumes        -    code     ports        -  8000 8000      links        - db  volumes    db-data    As far as I can understand  This will create a data volume container  db data  which will persist between restarts   If you run  docker volume ls you should see your volume listed   local               mypthonapp db-data       You can get some more details about the data volume   docker volume inspect mypthonapp db-data            Name    mypthonapp db-data        Driver    local        Mountpoint     mnt sda1 var lib docker volumes mypthonapp db-data  data          Some testing     Start the containers docker-compose up -d       input some data into the database docker-compose run --rm web python manage py migrate docker-compose run --rm web python manage py createsuperuser        Stop and remove the containers  docker-compose stop docker-compose rm -f    Start it back up again docker-compose up -d    Verify the data is still there      it is     Stop and remove with the -v  volumes  tag   docker-compose stop docker compose rm -f -v    Up again    docker-compose up -d    Check the data is still there       it is     Notes    You can also specify various drivers in the volumes block  For example  You could specify the Flocker driver for db data   volumes    db-data      driver  flocker  As they improve the integration between Docker Swarm and Docker Compose  and possibly start integrating Flocker into the Docker eco-system  I heard a rumor that Docker has bought Flocker   I think this approach should become increasingly powerful    Disclaimer  This approach is promising  and I m using it successfully in a development environment  I would be apprehensive to use this in production just yet

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I recently wrote about a potential solution and an application demonstrating the technique  I find it to be pretty efficient during development and in production  Hope it helps or sparks some ideas   Repo  https   github com LevInteractive docker-nodejs-example Article  http   lev-interactive com 2015 03 30 docker-load-balanced-mongodb-persistence

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If you want to move your volumes around you should also look at Flocker  From the README   Flocker is a data volume manager and multi-host Docker cluster management tool  With it you can control your data using the same tools you use for your stateless applications by harnessing the power of ZFS on Linux  This means that you can run your databases  queues and key-value stores in Docker and move them around as easily as the rest of your application

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It depends on your scenario  this isn t really suitable for a production environment   but here is one way   Creating a MySQL Docker Container  This gist of it is to use a directory on your host for data persistence

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My solution is to get use of the new docker cp  which is now able to copy data out from containers  not matter if it s running or not and share a host volume to the exact same location where the database application is creating its database files inside the container  This double solution works without a data-only container  straight from the original database container   So my systemd init script is taking the job of backuping the database into an archive on the host  I placed a timestamp in the filename to never rewrite a file   It s doing it on the ExecStartPre   ExecStartPre - usr bin docker cp lanti-debian-mariadb  var lib mysql  home core sql ExecStartPre - bin bash -c   usr bin tar -zcvf  home core sql sqlbackup    date    Y-  m-  d   H-  M-  S  ExecStartPre tar gz  home core sql mysql --remove-files    And it is doing the same thing on ExecStopPost too   ExecStopPost - usr bin docker cp lanti-debian-mariadb  var lib mysql  home core sql ExecStopPost - bin bash -c  tar -zcvf  home core sql sqlbackup    date    Y-  m-  d   H-  M-  S  ExecStopPost tar gz  home core sql mysql --remove-files    Plus I exposed a folder from the host as a volume to the exact same location where the database is stored   mariadb    build    mariadb   volumes      -  HOME server mysql   var lib mysql  rw   It works great on my VM  I building a LEMP stack for myself   https   github com DJviolin LEMP  But I just don t know if is it a  bulletproof  solution when your life depends on it actually  for example  webshop with transactions in any possible miliseconds    At 20 min 20 secs from this official Docker keynote video  the presenter does the same thing with the database   Getting Started with Docker      For the database we have a volume  so we can make sure that  as the database goes up and down  we don t loose data  when the database container stopped

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To preserve or storing database data make sure your docker-compose yml will look like if you want to use Dockerfile version   3 1   services    php      build        context          dockerfile  Dockerfile     ports        - 80 80     volumes        -   src  var www html    db      image  mysql     command  --default-authentication-plugin mysql native password     restart  always     environment        MYSQL ROOT PASSWORD  example     volumes        - mysql-data  var lib mysql    adminer      image  adminer     restart  always     ports        - 8080 8080 volumes    mysql-data   your docker-compose yml will looks like if you want to use your image instead of Dockerfile version   3 1      services    php      image  php 7 4-apache     ports        - 80 80     volumes        -   src  var www html    db      image  mysql     command  --default-authentication-plugin mysql native password     restart  always     environment        MYSQL ROOT PASSWORD  example     volumes        - mysql-data  var lib mysql    adminer      image  adminer     restart  always     ports        - 8080 8080 volumes   if you want to store or preserve data of mysql then must remember to add two lines in your docker-compose yml volumes    - mysql-data  var lib mysql  and volumes    mysql-data   after that use this command docker-compose up -d  now your data will persistent and will not be deleted even after using this command docker-compose down  extra - but if you want to delete all data then you will use docker-compose down -v  plus you can check your database data list by using this command docker volume ls  DRIVER              VOLUME NAME local               35c819179d883cf8a4355ae2ce391844fcaa534cb71dc9a3fd5c6a4ed862b0d4 local               133db2cc48919575fc35457d104cb126b1e7eb3792b8e69249c1cfd20826aac4 local               483d7b8fe09d9e96b483295c6e7e4a9d58443b2321e0862818159ba8cf0e1d39 local               725aa19ad0e864688788576c5f46e1f62dfc8cdf154f243d68fa186da04bc5ec local               de265ce8fc271fc0ae49850650f9d3bf0492b6f58162698c26fce35694e6231c local               phphelloworld mysql-data

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tommasop s answer is good  and explains some of the mechanics of using data-only containers  But as someone who initially thought that data containers were silly when one could just bind mount a volume to the host  as suggested by several other answers   but now realizes that in fact data-only containers are pretty neat  I can suggest my own blog post on this topic  Why Docker Data Containers  Volumes   are Good  See also  my answer to the question  What is the  best  way to manage permissions for Docker shared volumes   for an example of how to use data containers to avoid problems like permissions and uid gid mapping with the host   To address one of the OP s original concerns  that the data container must not be deleted  Even if the data container is deleted  the data itself will not be lost as long as any container has a reference to that volume i e  any container that mounted the volume via --volumes-from  So unless all the related containers are stopped and deleted  one could consider this the equivalent of an accidental rm -fr    the data is safe  You can always recreate the data container by doing --volumes-from any container that has a reference to that volume   As always  make backups though   UPDATE  Docker now has volumes that can be managed independently of containers  which further makes this easier to manage

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While this is still a part of Docker that needs some work  you should put the volume in the Dockerfile with the VOLUME instruction so you don t need to copy the volumes from another container   That will make your containers less inter-dependent and you don t have to worry about the deletion of one container affecting another

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I m just using a predefined directory on the host to persist data for PostgreSQL  Also  this way it is possible to easily migrate existing PostgreSQL installations to Docker containers  https   crondev com persistent-postgresql-inside-docker

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There are several levels of managing persistent data  depending on your needs    Store it on your host   Use the flag -v host-path container-path to persist container directory data to a host directory  Backups restores happen by running a backup restore container  such as tutumcloud dockup  mounted to the same directory   Create a data container and mount its volumes to your application container   Create a container that exports a data volume  use --volumes-from to mount that data into your application container  Backup restore the same as the above solution   Use a Docker volume plugin that backs an external third-party service   Docker volume plugins allow your datasource to come from anywhere - NFS  AWS  S3  EFS  and EBS  Depending on the plugin service  you can attach single or multiple containers to a single volume  Depending on the service  backups restores may be automated for you  While this can be cumbersome to do manually  some orchestration solutions - such as Rancher - have it baked in and simple to use  Convoy is the easiest solution for doing this manually

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In case it is not clear from update 5 of the selected answer  as of Docker 1 9  you can create volumes that can exist without being associated with a specific container  thus making the  data-only container  pattern obsolete   See Data-only containers obsolete with docker 1 9 0   17798   I think the Docker maintainers realized the data-only container pattern was a bit of a design smell and decided to make volumes a separate entity that can exist without an associated container

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When using Docker Compose  simply attach a named volume  for example   version   2  services    db      image  mysql 5 6     volumes        - db data  var lib mysql rw     environment        MYSQL ROOT PASSWORD  root volumes    db data

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Use Persistent Volume Claim  PVC  from Kubernetes  which is a Docker container management and scheduling tool   Persistent Volumes  The advantages of using Kubernetes for this purpose are that    You can use any storage like NFS or other storage and even when the node is down  the storage need not be  Moreover the data in such volumes can be configured to be retained even after the container itself is destroyed - so that it can be reclaimed  if necessary  by another container

[docker] How to deal with persistent storage (e.g. databases) in Docker

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