Is there a way to clone data from CrateDB into Crate running on a new container?

Question

I currently have one container which runs Crate, and stores all its data in the /data/ directory. I am trying to create a clone of this container for debugging purposes -- ideally, the clone would be running Crate (which I can query) using the exact same data. I've tried mounting the same data directory into the /data/ directory of the cloned container and starting Crate, but when I run any queries, I notice that Crate shows 0 tables (that is, it doesn't recognize the data in the folder as database tables). How do I get around this? I know I can export and import data using COPY TO and COPY FROM, but I have so many tables that that would be quite cumbersome to write.

Answer 1

I’m a little bit wondering why you want to use the same data directory for debugging purposes, since you then modify data, which you probably don’t want to change. Also, the two instances would overwrite each others data, when using the same data directory at the same time. That’s the reason why this is not working.

What you still can do, is simply copying the folder in your file system and mount the second debugging node to the cloned folder.

Another solution would be to create a cluster containing both nodes as documented here: https://crate.io/docs/crate/guide/best_practices/docker.html.

Hope that helps.