Access dockerized redis from windows host

Question

For node backend development on windows I am trying to setup redis in a docker container as the redis windows version seems to be buggy for me. I am very new to docker and I am not aware of all the principles coming along with it.

What I have done so far:

1. Installed docker
2. Run 'docker pull redis'
3. Run 'docker run --name some-redis -d redis redis-server --appendonly yes' to start the redis container

The problem:

I tried connecting to 127.0.0.1:6379 (which used to work when I had redis installed natively on my system), but it is timeouting. I thought that the redis container has it's own ip address and I figured it's ip addres sis 172.17.0.2. Connecting to this ip didn't work either though.

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' some-redis
172.17.0.2

PS C:\WINDOWS\system32> docker ps
CONTAINER ID        IMAGE               COMMAND                  CREATED             STATUS              PORTS               NAMES
d3b796e9df5c        redis               "docker-entrypoint..."   About an hour ago   Up 8 minutes        6379/tcp            some-redis

What am I missing in order to connect from my local machine to redis inside of my container? (My node application is not dockerized)

Answer 1

You miss to expose port. Run redis container with command

docker run --name some-redis -p6379:6379 -d redis redis-server --appendonly yes

If Dockerfile contains EXPOSE <some_port> it means another containers into same docker network can connect to this port. Nothing more.

If you want to connect to container from host machine you need say docker about it.

• you can add -P option to docker run command. In this case docker exposes all defined ports to random ports on you local machine.
• Or you can add option -p<port_on_host_machine>:<port_inside_docker_container> then you expose certain port.