Postgres

TIL how to run postgresql in docker and persist the database

1 minute read Published:

Today I needed a postgres database for development that persisted its data when recreating the container. That’s not docker’s default behaviour, but docker volumes to the rescue!

This is the command to run a postgres container that persist it’s data in /var/yourpgdata:

docker run \
   --name pgresql \
   -d \
   -p 5432:5432 \
   -e POSTGRES_USER=yourpguser \
   -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=yourpgpass \
   -e POSTGRES_DB=yourpgdb \
   -v /var/yourpgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data

Fine… but what does this mean? Let me explain: