How can I store data with Docker Compose containers? - docker

Question

I have this docker-compose.yml, and I have a Postgres database and Grafana running over it to make queries on data.
version: "3"
services:
db:
image: postgres
container_name: db
ports:
- "5432:5432"
environment:
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD=my_secret_password
grafana:
image: grafana/grafana
container_name: grafana
depends_on:
- db
ports:
- "3000:3000"
I start this compose with the command docker-compose up, but then, if I want to not lose any data, I must run docker-compose stop instead of docker-compose down.
I also read about docker commit, but "the commit operation will not include any data contained in volumes mounted inside the container", so I guess it's no use for my needs.
What's the proper way to store the created volumes and reusing them with commands up/down, so even when recreating the containers? I must use some sort of backup methods provided by every image (so, for example, a DB export for Postgres, and some other type of export for Grafana), or there is a way to do this inside docker-compose.yml?
EDIT:
I also read about volumes, but is there a standard way to store everything?
In the link provided by #DannyB, setting volumes to ./postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql instead of ./postgres-data:/var/lib/postgresql/data caused the container to not store the actual folder.
My question is: every image must follow a particular pattern like the one above? This path to data to store the volume underlying is present in every Docker image Readme? Or is there something like:
volumes:
- ./my_image_root:/

Answer 1

Docker provides for volumes as the way to persist volumes between container invocations and to share data between containers.
They are quite simple to declare and use in compose files:
volumes:
postgres:
grafana:
services:
db:
image: postgres
ports:
- "5432:5432"
environment:
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD=my_secret_password
volumes:
- postgres:/var/lib/postgresql/data
grafana:
image: grafana/grafana
depends_on:
- db
volumes:
- grafana:/var/lib/grafana
ports:
- "3000:3000"
Optionally, you can also set a local directory as your container volume
with the added convince of having the files easily accessible not only from inside the container. This is especially helpful for mounting specific config files to their location in the container, you can edit the file locally like any other file restart the container with the updated configuration (certificates and other similar files also make good use of this option). And you do that like so:
volumes:
- /home/myusername/postgres_data/:/var/lib/postgresql/data/
PS. I have omitted the container_name and version directives from this compose.yml because (as of docker 20.10), the docker compose spec determines version automatically, and docker compose exposes enough functionality that accessing the containers directly using short names isn't necessary usually.