In this post, I will briefly explain the steps to getup and running PostgreSQL docker image. I have explained in Docker post the basics and how to configure and run MySQL.

Identifying the Image

Let’s begin by searching on DockerHub and pick the official PostgreSQL version.

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docker pull postgresql:9

If the pull is successful, you must see postgresql in the list of docker images.

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manju@MANJUTHINK C:\workspace\BLOGS
> docker images
REPOSITORY          TAG                 IMAGE ID            CREATED             SIZE
mysql               5.5                 89f8142697a0        10 days ago         255.8 MB
mongo               latest              48b8b08dca4d        2 weeks ago         366.4 MB
postgres            9                   6f86882e145d        2 weeks ago         265.9 MB
mongo               2.2                 8558fe135d54        5 months ago        236.9 MB

Start PostgreSQL

The official documentation touch up on the configuration parameters that are available. Let’s start the server now by exposing it on laptop port 5433.

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docker run --name pg-server -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgres  -v C:/Users/manju/docker/pg:/var/lib/postgresql/ -p5433:5432 -d postgres

Connecting to Server

There are many ways to connect, I usually use PGAdmin. The following commands you can run to run psql from server container.

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docker ps  # to obtain the container id
docker exec -it <replace-container-d> bash
psql

Conclusion

Docker makes it really easy to install software on demand. In my opinion Docker is a must have tool in a Test Engineers arsenal.