After installing Docker on your machine, it's time to run the containerized version of PostgreSQL. In order to do so, open a new terminal window and launch the following command:

$ docker run --name postgres_vertx -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=postgresPwd -e POSTGRES_DB=football_players_registry -d -p 5532:5432 postgres

This command triggers a pull from Docker's public registry for the PostgreSQL version labelled as the latest, downloading all the layers it needs to run the container on, as follows:

Unable to find image 'postgres:latest' locally
latest: Pulling from library/postgres
683abbb4ea60: Pull complete
c5856e38168a: Pull complete
c3e6f1ceebb0: Pull complete
3303bcd00128: Pull complete
ea95ff44bf6e: Pull complete
ea3f31f1e620: Pull complete
234873881fb2: Pull complete
f020aa822d21: Pull complete
27bad92d09a5: Pull complete
6849f0681f5a: Pull complete
a112faac8662: Pull complete
bc92d0ab9365: Pull complete
9e87959714b8: Pull complete
ac7c29b2bea7: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:d99f15cb8d0f47f0a66274afe30102b5bb7a95464d1e25acb66ccf7bd7bd8479
Status: Downloaded newer image for postgres:latest
83812c6e76656f6abab5bf1f00f07dca7105d5227df3b3b66382659fa55b5077

After that, the PostgreSQL image is launched as a container. To verify it, you can launch the $ docker ps -a command, which gives you a list of the created containers and the relative status:

CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED

1073daeefc52 postgres "docker-entrypoint.s..." Less than a second ago

STATUS PORTS NAMES

Up 4 seconds 0.0.0.0:5532->5432/tcp postgres_vertx

I had to split the command result over two lines in order to make it readable.

You can also check the container logs in order to retrieve information about the PostgreSQL status. Launch the following command:

$ docker logs -f 1073daeefc52

Here, 1073daeefc52 is the container ID. You should find the following information:

PostgreSQL init process complete; ready for start up.

2018-07-13 22:53:36.465 UTC [1] LOG: listening on IPv4 address "0.0.0.0", port 5432
2018-07-13 22:53:36.466 UTC [1] LOG: listening on IPv6 address "::", port 5432
2018-07-13 22:53:36.469 UTC [1] LOG: listening on Unix socket "/var/run/postgresql/.s.PGSQL.5432"

Now it's time to connect to the container in order to manage it. Launch the following command:

$ docker exec -it 1073daeefc52 bash

Here, 1073daeefc52 is the container ID. Now log in to the PostgreSQL with the following command:

$ psql -U postgres

Now you can interact with the database server:

psql (10.4 (Debian 10.4-2.pgdg90+1))
Type "help" for help.
postgres=#

You should be able to see the football_players_registry database that we created when creating the container. Run the l command and verify the list of databases:

OK, it's time to create our simple table to host the football players' data. Connect to the football_players database with this command:

$ connect football_players_registry

And create the table with the following command:

CREATE TABLE FOOTBALL_PLAYER(
ID SERIAL PRIMARY KEY NOT NULL,
NAME VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
SURNAME VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
AGE INT NOT NULL,
TEAM VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,

POSITION VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
PRICE NUMERIC
);

Check the table structure with the following command:

$ d+ football_player

You should see the following result: