Additional database configurations

[brandonkelly]

There are times when a single project needs to be able to connect to multiple database types/versions at the same time.

For example, Craft CMS supports both MySQL/MariaDB and PostgreSQL, and we need to be able to run tests across both simultaneously.

It would be awesome if this was possible out of the box with DDEV. Perhaps configured using a new additional_databases setting, like so:

database:
  type: mariadb
  version: "10.3"
additional_databases:
  pg:
    type: postgres
    version: "14"

The keys would define the additional databases’ names, which could be used in place of db for the container name (e.g. ddev-myproject-pg), and perhaps for the username/password as well.

[rfay]

It's a bit more complex than that - You have to run the separate containers for each database type, and the assumption of a single database container is built in everywhere.

However, it wouldn't be hard to do all the things you want by running all the containers and versions you want as 3rd-party services, just using the official images. The only thing that has to be done is manual configuration of the settings files. See https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/extend/additional-services/ and https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/extend/custom-compose-files/

I'd be happy to help you with this for your tests. It doesn't require a re-architecture of DDEV.

[apotek]

I was just going to file a similar issue as I am working on migrating data between two databases. I have often worked in situations where I have more than one kind of database server. It is not at all an unusual situation. There can be two or three different SQL-type databases, a couple different non-SQL databases, like mongo or couchdb, plus of course other data stores such as elastic search etc... all as part of the same application.

Which is just to say that I think I would be good to, over time, pry open the assumption that is baked into the code that a project should have only one database. Maybe over a period of time, ddev can natively support that.

In the meantime, if I have interpreted this answer correctly, it seems like the suggestion would be to create add-ons for mysql, postgres etc, so that those can be added as regular services to a project. 🤔 Either that or use the docker compose framework set that up via a script, which feels like shoe-horning, but could work.

[rfay]

The easiest way to do migrations is to have two different projects set up, with the different db configs, and they can access each other. https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/usage/faq/#can-different-projects-communicate-with-each-other

[apotek]

The easiest way to do migrations is to have two different projects set up, with the different db configs, and they can access each other. https://ddev.readthedocs.io/en/latest/users/usage/faq/#can-different-projects-communicate-with-each-other

Thank you. This is a good workaround for migrating from one infrastructure to another. It does not address the (common) situation where an application genuinely is working with more than one sql engine on an ongoing basis. But I suppose one could fake that scenario also using the above idea. Thanks again.