This question is coming from an issue on the Docker's repository:
https://github.com/docker/compose/issues/942
I can't figure it out how to create a data container (no process running) with docker compose.
UPDATE: Things have changed in the last years. Please refer to the answer from @Frederik Wendt for a good and up-to-date solution.
My old answer: Exactly how to do it depends a little on what image you are using for your data-only-container. If your image has an entrypoint
, you need to overwrite this in your docker-compose.yml
. For example this is a solution for the official MySql image from docker hub:
DatabaseData:
image: mysql:5.6.25
entrypoint: /bin/bash
DatabaseServer:
image: mysql:5.6.25
volumes_from:
- DatabaseData
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: blabla
When you do a docker-compose up
on this, you will get a container like ..._DatabaseData_1
which shows a status of Exited
when you call docker ps -a
. Further investigation with docker inspect
will show, that it has a timestamp of 0
. That means the container was never run. Like it is stated by the owner of docker compose here.
Now, as long as you don't do a docker-compose rm -v
, your data only container (..._DatabaseData_1
) will not loose its data. So you can do docker-compose stop
and docker-compose up
as often as you like.
In case you like to use a dedicated data-only image like tianon/true
this works the same. Here you don't need to overwrite the entrypoint
, because it doesn't exist. It seems like there are some problems with that image and docker compose. I haven't tried it, but this article could be worth reading in case you experience any problems.
In general it seems to be a good idea to use the same image for your data-only container that you are using for the container accessing it. See Data-only container madness for more details.