Ensuring Automatic Restart and Sequential Startup of Docker Containers

General
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1

I have two Docker Compose files: one for database containers and the other for application containers. I want to ensure that whenever the machine restarts, the containers automatically restart. Additionally, I need the database containers to restart first, followed by the application containers. How can I achieve this with Docker Compose?

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3

By adding restart: always, the services will automatically restart. However, I want to ensure that the services defined in docker-compose-db.yaml and docker-compose-app.yaml start in a specific order, with docker-compose-db.yaml always starting first when the machine restarts.

4

Have you tried depends_on?

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5

I tried, but in the second docker-compose.yml file, it is unable to access the database service because the database service is created by a separate docker-compose.yml file.
Here is the log:
service “app” depends on undefined service “db”: invalid compose project

6

compose.yml

include:
  - path:
    - docker-compose-db.yaml
  - path:
    - docker-compose-app.yaml

This would treat them as a single file

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7

Though perhaps setting the includes property within docker-compose-app.yaml is a better approach
That is because app relies on db existing and will simply not work without it

8

I have a question regarding this: If I stop the docker-compose-app.yaml file, will the database services also stop, or will they continue running?

9

If you include the db compose within the app compose file, it is as if the services were written right there in the same file

docker compose down applies to all services without profiles defined, so yes
You can specify service profiles, or service names in the compose commands to act on specific ones

2 Likes
10

I assume this is already the case, but I am still going to ask :slight_smile:
Did you also use the restart: true setting in the depends_on block of the app?

services:
  app:
    ...
    depends_on:
      db:
        condition: service_healthy
        restart: true
  db:
    ...

This will make sure a restart of db, restarts the app as well.

1 Like
11

I want to separate the database and application configurations into two YAML files. Additionally, I would like to add depends_on and restart configurations.