Docker containers can communicate with each other either using the deprecated links machinery or using user-defined networks. The latter also is the way to go when using docker-compose since a user-defined network is created by default (at least in recent versions).

The postgres official image on Docker Hub contains an example for the former case: when creating the container running the psql command using the default bridge network interface, we need to supply the --link option with the name (and optionally alias) of the postgres instance and the --host option with its alias (if no alias is supplied the name is also the alias):

$ docker run -it --rm --link=postgres:postgres-instance postgres psql --host=postgres-instance --username=postgres

There is no example for the latter case though, so let’s see how it can be achieved. First let’s create a user-defined network and give it an arbitrary name - i.e. my_bridge - by simply typing: docker network create my_bridge. When using user-defined networks is essential to know the IP of the container running the postgres instance, this can be retrieved like this:

$ docker run -itd --name=postgres-instance postgres # Make sure there's an instance running
$ docker inspect --format='{{ .NetworkSettings.Networks.my_bridge.IPAddress }}' postgres-instance
172.19.0.2

Now let’s create another container that connects to the postgres instance and runs the psql command, and use the configuration options to set the user-defined network and to provide the IP of the postgres instance the container has to connect to:

$ docker run -it --rm --network=my_bridge postgres psql --host=172.19.0.2 --username=postgres

Alternatively, if we leverage the --add-host option, the command is going to look very similar to the one we used when connecting containers using links:

$ docker run -it --rm --network=my_bridge --add-host=postgres-instance:172.19.0.2 postgres psql --host=postgres-instance --username=postgres

The --add-host option simply adds an entry to the /etc/hosts file of the container.