Connect two instances of docker-compose [duplicate] - docker

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Communication between multiple docker-compose projects
(20 answers)
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I have a dockerized application with a few services running using docker-compose. I'd like to connect this application with ElasticSearch/Logstash/Kibana (ELK) using another docker-compose application, docker-elk. Both of them are running in the same docker machine in development. In production, that will probably not be the case.
How can I configure my application's docker-compose.yml to link to the ELK stack?

Answer 1

Update Jun 2016
The answer below is outdated starting with docker 1.10. See this other similar answer for the new solution.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/34476794/1556338
Old answer
Create a network:
$ docker network create --driver bridge my-net
Reference that network as an environment variable (${NETWORK})in the docker-compose.yml files. Eg:
pg:
image: postgres:9.4.4
container_name: pg
net: ${NETWORK}
ports:
- "5432"
myapp:
image: quay.io/myco/myapp
container_name: myapp
environment:
DATABASE_URL: "http://pg:5432"
net: ${NETWORK}
ports:
- "3000:3000"
Note that pg in http://pg:5432 will resolve to the ip address of the pg service (container). No need to hardcode ip addresses; An entry for pg is automatically added to the /etc/host of the myapp container.
Call docker-compose, passing it the network you created:
$ NETWORK=my-net docker-compose up -d -f docker-compose.yml -f other-compose.yml
I've created a bridge network above which only works within one node (host). Good for dev. If you need to get two nodes to talk to each other, you need to create an overlay network. Same principle though. You pass the network name to the docker-compose up command.

Answer 2

You could also create a network with docker outside your docker-compose :
docker network create my-shared-network
And in your docker-compose.yml :
version: '2'
services:
pg:
image: postgres:9.4.4
container_name: pg
expose:
- "5432"
networks:
default:
external:
name: my-shared-network
And in your second docker-compose.yml :
version: '2'
myapp:
image: quay.io/myco/myapp
container_name: myapp
environment:
DATABASE_URL: "http://pg:5432"
net: ${NETWORK}
expose:
- "3000"
networks:
default:
external:
name: my-shared-network
And both instances will be able to see each other, without open ports on host, you just need to expose ports, and there will see each other through the network : "my-shared-network".

Answer 3

If you set a predictable project name for the first composition you can use external_links to reference external containers by name from a different compose file.
In the next docker-compose release (1.6) you will be able to use user defined networks, and have both compositions join the same network.

Answer 4

Take a look at multi-host docker networking
Networking is a feature of Docker Engine that allows you to create
virtual networks and attach containers to them so you can create the
network topology that is right for your application. The networked
containers can even span multiple hosts, so you don’t have to worry
about what host your container lands on. They seamlessly communicate
with each other wherever they are – thus enabling true distributed
applications.

Answer 5

I didn't find any complete answer, so decided to explain it in a complete and simple way.
To connect two docker-compose you need a network and putting both docker-composes in that network,
you could create netwrok with docker network create name-of-network,
or you could simply put network declaration in networks option of docker-compose file and when you run docker-compose (docker-compose up) the network would be created automatically.
put the below lines in both docker-compose files
networks:
net-for-alpine:
name: test-db-net
Note: net-for-alpine is internal name of the network and it will be used inside of the docker-compose files and could be different,
test-db-net is external name of the network and must be same in two docker-compose files.
Assume we have docker-compose.db.yml and docker-compose.alpine.yml
docker-compose.apline.yml would be:
version: '3.8'
services:
alpine:
image: alpine:3.14
container_name: alpine
networks:
- net-for-alpine
# these two command keeps apline container running
stdin_open: true # docker run -i
tty: true # docker run -t
networks:
net-for-alpine:
name: test-db-net
docker-compose.db.yml would be:
version: '3.8'
services:
db:
image: postgres:13.4-alpine
container_name: psql
networks:
- net-for-db
networks:
net-for-db:
name: test-db-net
To test the network, go inside alpine container
docker exec -it alpine sh
then with following commands you can check the network
# if it returns 0 or see nothing as a result, network is established
nc -z psql (container name)
or
ping pgsql