Install Memgraph with Docker

This article briefly outlines the basic steps necessary to install and run Memgraph with Docker.

Prerequisites

Before you proceed with the installation guide make sure that you have:

• Installed Docker. Instructions on how to do this can be found on the official Docker website.
• Downloaded the latest Memgraph Docker Image which can be found here.

info

Memgraph's Docker image was built with Docker version 1.12 and should be compatible with all newer versions.

Installation guide

If you installed Docker and downloaded the latest Memgraph Docker image, import the image using the following command:

docker load -i /path/to/memgraph-<version>-docker.tar.gz

To start Memgraph, use the following command:

docker run -p 7687:7687 memgraph

If successful, you should see a message similar to the following :

You are running Memgraph v1.3.0-community

At this point, Memgraph is ready for you to submit queries.

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The username and password for connecting to the database are empty by default.

Stopping the database instance

To stop a Memgraph database instance, run the following command:

docker stop CONTAINER_NAME

You can find the name of the container (CONTAINER_NAME) by running:

docker ps

Configuration

The Memgraph configuration is available in Docker's named volume mg_etc. On Linux systems, it should be in /var/lib/docker/volumes/mg_etc/_data/memgraph.conf.

Named volumes

If it happens that the named volumes are reused between different Memgraph versions, Docker will overwrite a folder within the container with existing data from the host machine. If a new file is introduced, or two versions of Memgraph are not compatible, some features might not work or Memgraph might not be able to work correctly. We strongly advise you to use different named volumes for different Memgraph versions, or to remove the existing volume from the host with the following command:

docker volume rm <volume_name>

Note for Docker users

Although unlikely, some OS X/macOS users might experience minor difficulties after the Docker installation. Instead of running on localhost, a Docker container for Memgraph may be running on a custom IP address. Fortunately, that IP address can be found as follows:

1) Determine the container ID of the Memgraph container

By issuing the command docker ps the user should get an output similar to the following:

CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED ...

9397623cd87e memgraph "/usr/lib/memgraph/m…" 2 seconds ago ...

At this point, it is important to remember the container ID of the Memgraph image. In our case, that is 9397623cd87e.

2) Use the container ID to retrieve an IP of the container

docker inspect -f '{{range .NetworkSettings.Networks}}{{.IPAddress}}{{end}}' 9397623cd87e

The command above should yield the IP that should be used when connecting to Memgraph and instead of HOST when firing up the mg_client with Docker, as described in the querying section.

Where to next?

If you need more information on working with Docker, check out this guide.
To learn how to query the database, take a look at the Querying guide or Memgraph Playground for interactive tutorials.
Visit the Building applications page if you need to connect to the database programmatically.

Getting help

Visit the Getting help page in case you run into any kind of problem or you have additional questions.