PostgreSQL 18 Slim (Alpine)

Minimal PostgreSQL 18 image for arm64/amd64. ~50MB uncompressed vs ~250MB official.

Build

# Single arch
docker build -t postgres:18-slim .

# Multi-arch
docker buildx build --platform linux/amd64,linux/arm64 -t yourrepo/postgres:18-slim --push .

Usage

# Basic
docker run -d \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  -v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data \
  postgres:18-slim

# With custom db/user
docker run -d \
  -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=secret \
  -e POSTGRES_USER=myuser \
  -e POSTGRES_DB=mydb \
  -v pgdata:/var/lib/postgresql/data \
  postgres:18-slim

# Dev mode (no password)
docker run -d \
  -e POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD=trust \
  postgres:18-slim

Environment Variables

Variable	Default	Description
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	-	Superuser password (required unless trust)
POSTGRES_USER	postgres	Superuser name
POSTGRES_DB	$POSTGRES_USER	Default database
POSTGRES_HOST_AUTH_METHOD	-	Set to trust for no password
PGDATA	/var/lib/postgresql/data	Data directory

Init Scripts

Mount .sh or .sql files to /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/ for first-run initialization.

What's Removed vs Official

• Locale generation (uses C.UTF-8)
• gosu → su-exec (smaller)
• Extensive bash scripting → sh
• Doc/man pages
• Contrib modules (add if needed: postgresql18-contrib)