Getting started with PostgreSQL

This tutorial assumes that the latest version of dbctl is installed and ready to use.

To start a test postgres container run:

dbctl start pg

Output:

2023/09/24 21:24:10 INFO: Starting postgres version 13-3.1 on port 15432 ...
2023/09/24 21:24:12 INFO: Wait for database to boot up
2023/09/24 21:24:14 INFO: Postgres is up and running
2023/09/24 21:24:14 INFO: Database uri is: "postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:15432/postgres?sslmode=disable"

By default dbctl is using 15432 port for postgres. you can change it by passing the -p and a port number:

For example to use port 65474:

dbctl start pg -p 65474

You can also run the migrations by passing the directory which contains the migration files. please note that dbctl will sort files by name before applying them. We recommend you to start migrations file with numbers to maintain desired order.

dbctl start pg -m ./migrations

To add some test data to your newly created database you can use:

dbctl start pg -m ./migrations -f ./fixtures

If you need a web ui for managing you postgres database, dbctl provides a UI using pgweb project.

dbctl start pg --ui

Output:

2023/09/24 21:33:32 INFO: Starting postgres version 13-3.1 on port 15432 ...
2023/09/24 21:33:38 INFO: Wait for database to boot up
2023/09/24 21:33:40 INFO: Postgres is up and running
2023/09/24 21:33:40 INFO: Database uri is: "postgres://postgres:postgres@localhost:15432/postgres?sslmode=disable"
2023/09/24 21:33:40 INFO: Starting postgres ui using pgweb (https://github.com/sosedoff/pgweb)
2023/09/24 21:34:11 INFO: Database UI is running on: http://localhost:8081

By running any combination of above command, you get a running postgres database. by pressing CTRL+C dbctl will shutting down and destroy the database container.

To make sure start and stop commands are not effecting other instances of dbctl, you can pass a label to dbctl. for more information please check labels section.