Step 3: Persist Data Using Volumes

Table of Contents

• Step 3: Persist Data Using Volumes

  • Verifying Volume Data

Objective: Demonstrate the separation of volumes and containers.

A challenge in working with Docker containers is how to back up container data. Or, what happens if you accidentally remove a container! Any data on the inside of the container gets destroyed if the container is stopped and removed. Docker makes it easy to remove containers, which increases the level of risk when using containers. Mounting volumes keeps the data outside of the container. Our containers become disposable when we use volumes to mount the container data in our VPS.

• We can stop and delete the containers in the project because the data remains on the VPS.

• We can destroy a container and pull in an updated version without worrying about data loss.

• We can migrate the data to a new machine and launch new containers.

Let’s look at how volumes work through trial and error using Docker Compose.

Verifying Volume Data

1. Let’s take another look at Docker Compose commands that we have used.

   docker-compose up -d     # Creates and starts the Docker project in daemon mode.
   docker-compose start     # Starts images that were running but are now stopped.
   docker-compose stop      # Stops the project but keeps the containers.
   docker-compose down      # Stops the project and removes the containers.
   docker-compose down -v   # 1) Stops the project,
                            # 2) removes the containers,
                            # 3) and remove the volume data.
   

There are two commands that stop a running project (stop and down). However, one also removes the containers. Let’s do both!

1. Stop the running containers using stop, but don’t remove them.

   docker-compose stop
   

2. Try to access the webpage. You will get a 502 Bad Gateway error.

   • The project is stopped but the containers still exist. View the stopped containers through command docker ps -a. They have the status of Exited.

   Output

   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# docker-compose stop
   Stopping wordpressdocker_wordpress_1 ... done
   Stopping wordpressdocker_db_1        ... done
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# docker ps -a
   CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS                      PORTS                     NAMES
   28822cf1444c        wordpress:latest     "docker-entrypoint.s…"   About an hour ago   Exited (0) 16 seconds ago                             wordpressdocker_wordpress_1
   cdc959eb5014        mariadb              "docker-entrypoint.s…"   About an hour ago   Exited (0) 15 seconds ago                             wordpressdocker_db_1
   2175f0a86466        nextcloud            "/entrypoint.sh apac…"   7 days ago          Up 6 days                   0.0.0.0:20850->80/tcp     condescending_agnesi
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker#
   

3. Start the project and then refresh the webpage. It will be back where you left it.

   docker-compose start
   

   Output

   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# docker-compose start
   Starting db        ... done
   Starting wordpress ... done
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker#
   

4. Now, let’s remove the containers entirely!

   Note

   Running this command without having volumes will remove the contain and all data.

   docker-compose down
   

5. View the stopped containers through command docker ps -a. You will see that the containers are gone. However, our data is still there. You can verify that the volume data still exists using ls -lh to view the directory contents.

   Output

   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# docker-compose down
   Stopping wordpressdocker_wordpress_1 ... done
   Stopping wordpressdocker_db_1        ... done
   Removing wordpressdocker_wordpress_1 ... done
   Removing wordpressdocker_db_1        ... done
   Removing network wordpressdocker_default
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker#
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# docker ps -a
   CONTAINER ID        IMAGE                COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS                          NAMES
   2175f0a86466        nextcloud            "/entrypoint.sh apac…"   7 days ago          Up 6 days           0.0.0.0:20850->80/tcp          condescending_agnesi
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker#
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# ls -lh
   total 12K
   drwxr-xr-x 5      999 root     4.0K Mar 30 11:27 db_data
   -rw-r--r-- 1 root     root      660 Mar 30 10:10 docker-compose.yml
   drwxr-xr-x 5 www-data www-data 4.0K Mar 30 11:27 wordpress
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker#
   

6. Now, rebuild the project using docker-compose up -d

   docker-compose up -d
   

   Output

   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker# docker-compose up -d
   Creating network "wordpressdocker_default" with the default driver
   Creating wordpressdocker_db_1 ...
   Creating wordpressdocker_db_1 ... done
   Creating wordpressdocker_wordpress_1 ...
   Creating wordpressdocker_wordpress_1 ... done
   root@vps298933:~/wordpress-docker#
   

7. Refresh the webpage.

   It should be back where you left it because the data and the applications are separated. Creating backups of the project data is simple. You need to save the project directory only. The container data are disposable.