Postgres shuts down immediately when started with docker-compose

Question

Postgres shuts down immediately when started with docker-compose. The yaml file used is below

version: '2'  services:        postgres:         image: postgres:9.5         container_name: local-postgres9.5         ports:           - "5432:5432" 

The log when docker-compose up command is executed

Creating local-postgres9.5 Attaching to local-postgres9.5 local-postgres9.5 | The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user "postgres". local-postgres9.5 | This user must also own the server process. local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | The database cluster will be initialized with locale "en_US.utf8". local-postgres9.5 | The default database encoding has accordingly been set to "UTF8". local-postgres9.5 | The default text search configuration will be set to "english". local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | Data page checksums are disabled. local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | fixing permissions on existing directory /var/lib/postgresql/data ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating subdirectories ... ok local-postgres9.5 | selecting default max_connections ... 100 local-postgres9.5 | selecting default shared_buffers ... 128MB local-postgres9.5 | selecting dynamic shared memory implementation ... posix local-postgres9.5 | creating configuration files ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating template1 database in /var/lib/postgresql/data/base/1 ... ok local-postgres9.5 | initializing pg_authid ... ok local-postgres9.5 | initializing dependencies ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating system views ... ok local-postgres9.5 | loading system objects' descriptions ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating collations ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating conversions ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating dictionaries ... ok local-postgres9.5 | setting privileges on built-in objects ... ok local-postgres9.5 | creating information schema ... ok local-postgres9.5 | loading PL/pgSQL server-side language ... ok local-postgres9.5 | vacuuming database template1 ... ok local-postgres9.5 | copying template1 to template0 ... ok local-postgres9.5 | copying template1 to postgres ... ok local-postgres9.5 | syncing data to disk ... ok local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | WARNING: enabling "trust" authentication for local connections local-postgres9.5 | You can change this by editing pg_hba.conf or using the option -A, or local-postgres9.5 | --auth-local and --auth-host, the next time you run initdb. local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | Success. You can now start the database server using: local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 |     pg_ctl -D /var/lib/postgresql/data -l logfile start local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | **************************************************** local-postgres9.5 | WARNING: No password has been set for the database. local-postgres9.5 |          This will allow anyone with access to the local-postgres9.5 |          Postgres port to access your database. In local-postgres9.5 |          Docker's default configuration, this is local-postgres9.5 |          effectively any other container on the same local-postgres9.5 |          system. local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 |          Use "-e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=password" to set local-postgres9.5 |          it in "docker run". local-postgres9.5 | **************************************************** local-postgres9.5 | waiting for server to start....LOG:  database system was shut down at 2016-05-16 16:51:54 UTC local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  MultiXact member wraparound protections are now enabled local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  autovacuum launcher started local-postgres9.5 |  done local-postgres9.5 | server started local-postgres9.5 | ALTER ROLE local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | /docker-entrypoint.sh: ignoring /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/* local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  received fast shutdown request local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  aborting any active transactions local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  autovacuum launcher shutting down local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  shutting down local-postgres9.5 | waiting for server to shut down....LOG:  database system is shut down local-postgres9.5 |  done local-postgres9.5 | server stopped local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | PostgreSQL init process complete; ready for start up. local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  database system was shut down at 2016-05-16 16:51:55 UTC local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  MultiXact member wraparound protections are now enabled local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  autovacuum launcher started 

Postgres seems to work fine when a container is started using the same image with docker run

docker run --name local-postgres9.5 -p 5432:5432 postgres:9.5 

Answer 1

If you look at your log output, the following lines appear towards the end:

local-postgres9.5 | server stopped local-postgres9.5 | local-postgres9.5 | PostgreSQL init process complete; ready for start up. 

Apparently, stopping and restarting the Postgres server is part of the initialisation process. In fact, the second-to-last line says

local-postgres9.5 | LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections.