Starting and Stopping Docker Containers with docker-compose

Today I learned how to efficiently manage Docker containers using docker-compose. This is a game-changer for managing multi-container applications.

Basic Commands

The most common commands for docker-compose are surprisingly simple:

# Start containers defined in docker-compose.yml
docker-compose up

# Start containers in detached mode (background)
docker-compose up -d

# Stop running containers
docker-compose down

# Stop containers and remove volumes
docker-compose down -v

# View running containers
docker-compose ps

The docker-compose.yml File

The docker-compose.yml file is where all the magic happens. Here’s a basic example:

version: '3'

services:
  web:
    image: nginx:latest
    ports:
      - "8080:80"
    volumes:
      - ./html:/usr/share/nginx/html
    depends_on:
      - db
  
  db:
    image: mysql:5.7
    environment:
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: example
      MYSQL_DATABASE: myapp
    volumes:
      - db_data:/var/lib/mysql

volumes:
  db_data:

Benefits Over Manual Docker Commands

Using docker-compose offers several advantages:

1. Simplicity: Define your entire application stack in a single file
2. Reproducibility: Anyone can run the same setup with a single command
3. Service Dependencies: Specify which services depend on others
4. Environment Variables: Easily manage environment configurations
5. Volume Management: Persistent data storage is simplified

Practical Use Case

I used this today to manage a development environment with a web server, database, and cache service. Instead of starting and configuring each container individually, I just ran docker-compose up -d and had my entire development stack running in seconds.

When I was done, docker-compose down cleaned everything up neatly.

This is definitely going to be part of my regular workflow from now on!