Mongorestore in a Dockerfile

Question

I want to create a Docker image that starts a mongo server and automatically restores from a previous mongodump on startup.

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Here is my Dockerfile for

Answer 1

This is an old question and the solution above could still work but in later versions, you can add .sh and .js scripts in /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/, which will be executed in case the instance is first loading (/data/db is empty).

Now, Dockerfile could look something like:

FROM mongo

COPY ./data-dump/ /tmp/dump/mydb/

COPY ./import_data.sh /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/import_data.sh

CMD chmod 777 /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/import_data.sh #this is probably too permissive

With that, whatever is in import_data.sh will be run (or whatever other file(s) you have there) first time the container is started.

# change the mongorestore command to match your case, adding user/password and other options.
mongorestore /tmp/dump # note we can possibly restore many DBs. 

It is documented here under Initializing a fresh instance section