How can I run cypher scripts on startup of a neo4j docker container?

Question

Background

I previously had neo4j installed on Windows and a PowerShell script to run some migrations. The DB is recreated every time from these migration scripts & some CSVs in the import folder. A .NET WebAPI talks to the neo4j db.

Goal

I decided to Dockerize this setup so that I can collaborate cross-platform with folks and they don't have to directly install / configure neo4j.

I've got most of the neo4j docker container set up -- volumes, appropriate files copied, etc. and it starts up.

Problem

No matter what, I can't seem to find a good way to insert or execute a script that will loop through the folder and execute the cypher queries. I know this will probably have to be a bash script that uses the neo4j CLI and I'm fine with that, but I can't find a good spot to make it happen.

What I've tried

• the EXTENSION_SCRIPT env variable. That executes way too early in the process.
• Using my own ENTRYPOINT -- discovered that this appears to supersede the neo4j container's entrypoint
• Using my own CMD -- similarly, this appears to supersede
• Moving from docker-compose to dockerfile and copying the neo4j entrypoint file to modify it. This appears to run into an issue with an error invalid optionn/bash: - that I'm in the process of researching, but this is my first go of things.

Question

How can I run one or more cypher queries after Neo4j is started? Is there a provision in either neo4j or docker to allow for this? I haven't been able to find any leads in the documentation.

Or, is this really not the recommended way to go? Should I be running these migrations on demand by entering the container and running a bash script manually that works with the CLI?

The Scripts

Dockerfile:

FROM neo4j:3.3.1

COPY ./data/import/migrations/scripts /scripts

ENV NEO4J_AUTH=none

ENTRYPOINT ["/scripts/docker-neo4j-entrypoint.sh"]
CMD ["neo4j"]

Relevant snippet from docker-compose:

  neo4j:
    container_name: 'app-db'
    build:
      context: .
      dockerfile: DOCKERFILE_DB
    volumes:
      - ./data/CSVs:/import
      - ./data/import/migrations:/import/migrations
    ports: 
      - "7687:7687" # bolt protocol
      - "7474:7474" # http protocol
      - "7473:7473" # https protocol
    networks:
      - app-network

Answer 1

I faced the same issue, where I wanted to create some indexes at startup, and was able to resolve it based on the documentation here to create a wrapper script, and an indexes script that just sleeps until neo4j is back up, like so:

Dockerfile

FROM neo4j:latest

ENV NEO4J_AUTH=neo4j/password

RUN apk add --no-cache --quiet procps

COPY create-indexes.sh create-indexes.sh
COPY wrapper.sh wrapper.sh

ENTRYPOINT ["./wrapper.sh"]

wrapper.sh:

#!/bin/bash

# turn on bash's job control
set -m

# Start the primary process and put it in the background
/docker-entrypoint.sh neo4j &

# Start the helper process
./create-indexes.sh

# the my_helper_process might need to know how to wait on the
# primary process to start before it does its work and returns


# now we bring the primary process back into the foreground
# and leave it there
fg %1

create-indexes.sh

#!/bin/bash

until cypher-shell -u neo4j -p shaun123 'CREATE INDEX ON :Page(url);'
do
  echo "create page index failed, sleeping"
  sleep 10
done

until cypher-shell -u neo4j -p shaun123 'CREATE INDEX ON :Visited(url);'
do
  echo "create visited index failed, sleeping"
  sleep 10
done

until cypher-shell -u neo4j -p shaun123 'CREATE INDEX ON :Anchor(url);'
do
  echo "create anchor index failed, sleeping"
  sleep 10
done

I also opened this as an issue here, which I've copied my answer into and since closed.