Postgres Setup

This documents tells you how to setup Postgres and PgAdmin for 2nd + 3rd semester on you local machine. The two applications, Postgres and PgAdmin both run in isolated Docker Containers. Postgres as a Database Server and PgAdmin as a Database Client. You will launch PgAdmin through a browser.

Docker Desktop. If you are installing on Windows, you might need to update WSL. A message with instructions will show if necessary during installation. If so, open the PowerShell as Administrator and type:

wsl --install

Find a suitable spot on your harddisk. Could be:

C:\Users\<YourUsername>\Documents\Postgres

Open a blank file named docker-compose.yml in this folder and paste this into it - and save:

# Localhost Docker Compose fil for 2+3. semester på datamatiker uddannelsen
# Opretter to containere: 
# db: Postgresql data base server som kører på port 5432
# pgadmin: Webbaseret interface til brug af Postgres. Den tilgås på port 8080

services:
  db:
    image: postgres:16.2
    container_name: db
    restart: unless-stopped
    mem_limit: 1536MB
    mem_reservation: 1024MB
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: postgres
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: postgres
      POSTGRES_DB: appdb            # optional: default DB
      TZ: Europe/Copenhagen
    volumes:
      - ./data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    ports:
      - "5432:5432"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U postgres"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  pgadmin:
    image: dpage/pgadmin4:latest
    container_name: pgadmin
    restart: unless-stopped
    mem_reservation: 512MB
    mem_limit: 1024MB
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy
    environment:
      PGADMIN_DEFAULT_EMAIL: admin@cphbusiness.dk
      PGADMIN_DEFAULT_PASSWORD: 1234
      PGADMIN_CONFIG_MASTER_PASSWORD_REQUIRED: 'False'  # skip extra prompt (dev only)
      PGADMIN_CONFIG_MAX_LOGIN_ATTEMPTS: 0              # disable lockout on failed logins
      TZ: Europe/Copenhagen
    volumes:
      - ./pgadmin-data:/var/lib/pgadmin   # named volume, persists pgAdmin config
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "curl -fsS http://localhost:80/misc/ping || exit 1"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 10

volumes:
  pgadmin-data:

Open a terminal / gitBash and navigate to the folder where you created the docker-compose.yml file. Run the following command to start the containers:

docker-compose up -d

This command will download the necessary Docker images and start the Postgres and PgAdmin containers in detached mode. You can check the status of the containers with:

docker-compose ps

Also, you should be able to see the two running containers in Docker Desktop.

  localhost:8080

• login: admin@cphbusiness.dk (see docker-compose.yml)
• password: 1234 (see docker-compose.yml)

• Choose: Server -> Register -> Server

On Register - Server dialogue:

• On General tab:

  • Name: localhost

• On Connection tab:

  • Host name/address: db
  • Port: 5432
  • username: postgres
  • password: postgres

To simplify the UI, you can hide unused menus here:

• File -> Preferences -> Nodes

You can easily hide these guys:

  docker compose down

(-v) // remove volumes

 docker compose down -v 

 sudo  rm -rf ./data

• Check if all containers are running with docker ps -a
• Check if all env variables are set in .env file and are correct
• Check if docker compose has read all environment variables with docker-compose config
• Check the logs of the individual container with docker logs <container_name> or docker logs --follow <container_name>

On a few laptops, Docker Desktop will not work. The problems can be hard to find - but these two areas are usually the case:

A. Problems with hyper-V - need to be activated in your BIOS

B. Problems with WSL. In the WSL case - it might help to do this:

1. Uninstall the current Docker Desktop.
2. Remove any .docker folder from your user directory.
3. Clean the %temp% folder.
4. Unregister docker-desktop using WSL.
5. Run wsl –update.
6. Reinstall Docker Desktop.
7. Restart Windows.
8. Make sure WSL Ubuntu is running (check in powershell)
9. Start Docker Desktop

• PostgreSQL for database
• pgAdmin for database management
• Docker for containerization
• Docker Compose for container orchestration.