Docker Volume for PostgreSQL

Hi there!

Welcome back, have you ever had issue like this?

docker initdb: error: directory "/var/lib/postgresql/data" exists but is not empty

when you try to creating docker-compose containing PostgreSQL service. But if you haven’t then you can mark this issue for reference.

This issue arises when I was adding .gitignore at docker volume pg-data with the project structure as follows

- apps/
- nginx/
-- app.conf
- pg-data/
-- .gitignore (here)
docker-compose.yml

Actually, the short solution is replace current volume with the new one. eg: from - pg-data/ to - postgres-data/.

But I think is not cool, because you have more effort to remove and created in many times as long as that issue is exists.

Long story short, I have brilliant solution (maybe not for you. because i’m a newbie) and very simple. You only need to remove completely - pg-data/ from project structure and define pg-data volume at docker-compose.yml like this.

  # Postgres
  database:
    image: postgres
    restart: unless-stopped
    tty: true
    ports:
      - 5432:5432
    environment:
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_DB: laravel
    volumes:
      - pg-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    networks:
      - backend

...

# Volumes
volumes:
  pg-data:

After that, you can try to rebuild your docker container.

Final Project structure

- apps/
- nginx/
-- app.conf
docker-compose.yml

If you have any questions about this post, feel free to contact me on Twitter or via Email. Thank you