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+---
+title: "Upgrading PostgreSQL in an Alpine docker container"
+date: 2021-10-18T17:16:00
+tags: ["Databases", "Docker", "Guides", "Linux", "Servers", "Software"]
+---
+
+I use PostgreSQL as the database backend for my RSS reader, [Tiny Tiny RSS](https://tt-rss.org/). In a potentially misguided leap, I run this inside a [docker container](https://git.minskio.co.uk/cgit.cgi/dockerfiles/.git/plain/docker-compose.yml) that will automatically upgrade when a new release comes about.
+
+This guide assumes you have an `postgres:alpine` container named `postgres`, and the user is also named `postgres`. I'm also managing this using `docker-compose`. If not, amend the guide where necessary. The upgrade I performed was version 13 to 14, but this guide should be version agnostic.
+
+Firstly, let's back up the existing container volume just in case anything goes wrong:
+```
+XZ_OPT=-9 sudo tar cJf postgres-backup.tar.xz postgres/
+```
+
+Now with that crude backup, we need to dump our database properly to an SQL file.
+
+In its' current state, the database is continually restarting as the server and database versions don't match. You can bring this back up by changing the tag in your compose file from `postgres:alpine` to `postgres:13-alpine`.
+When the container is running, you can now export the database to your host filesystem using:
+```
+docker exec -it postgres pg_dumpall -U postgres > postgres-dump.sql
+```
+
+Now we're going to stop this old database, delete the container, upgrade the tag to the latest version again, then restart it.
+```
+docker stop postgres
+docker rm postgres
+~change docker-compose tag to "postgres:alpine"
+docker-compose up
+```
+
+Now we can check if the container is running and ready to accept connections:
+```
+docker logs -f postgres
+```
+
+If all looks good, move your `postgres-dump.sql` to your mounted volume using `sudo mv postgres-dump.sql postgres/`. With this backup now accessible in our container, access it and import the backup into the live database:
+```
+docker exec -it postgres
+psql -U postgres < /var/lib/postgresql/data/postgres-dump.sql
+```
+
+Now exit from the container and restart the container, then watch the logs to ensure everything comes up as expected:
+```
+exit
+docker restart postgres
+docker logs -f postgres
+```
+
+All being well, everything will have gone well and you can bookmark this guide for the next major upgrade.
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