Run a database in a Docker container

Pull a PostgreSQL server image

1. In the Services tool window, expand your Docker connection and select the Images node.

2. In the Image to pull field, start typing postgres and select the necessary image repository. For example, select postgres to pull the default postgres:latest image.

3. Press Ctrl+Enter and wait until Docker pulls the image.

Run a container from the PostgreSQL server image

1. Expand the Images node, select the PostgreSQL server image, and click Create Container.

   

2. In the Create Docker Configuration dialog, do the following:

   • Click Modify options and select Randomly publish all exposed ports to publish all exposed container ports to the host interfaces. For a more secure setup, you will need to define specific port bindings, of course. However, in this tutorial, we assume that your local machine is secure enough and there is nothing important.

   • Click Modify options, select Environment variables, and configure environment variables that define the authentication settings for your PostgreSQL server. For the purposes of this tutorial, we can use Trust Authentication. Keep in mind that this will enable anyone who can connect to the PostgreSQL server to access the database with any username of their choice. In the Environment variables field, click and add the POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD variable with the value trust.

   Optionally, you can specify custom names for the configuration and the container.

Connect to the PostgreSQL server

Docker automatically maps the default PostgreSQL server port 5432 in the container to a host port within the ephemeral port range (typically from 32768 to 61000). This tutorial assumes that port 32768 was used. To check what the actual mapping is, right-click the PostgreSQL container in the Services tool window under the Containers node, click Inspect, and then find the value of the HostPort field in the Inspection output.

1. Open the Database tool window (View | Tool Windows | Database).

2. Click and select Data Source | PostgreSQL.

3. Set the host name to localhost, the port number to 32768 (or whatever host port it was mapped to), the default database and user to postgres. No password is required since we used trust authentication to run the PostgreSQL server.

4. If necessary, download the driver and test the connection.

5. Click OK to add the PostgreSQL server as a data source.