Accessing Databases from the Host

Because MultiDocker strips host port bindings, databases are not published on the host in the usual way. Here is how to reach them anyway.

The fastest path: inspect

mdocker inspect lists every service’s container, ports and environment, and prints a ready-to-copy connection string:

mdocker inspect

mdocker inspect aurora
mdocker inspect aurora --json     # machine-readable

Each database service gets a mysql://, postgres://, redis:// or mongodb:// string you can paste straight into a client.

Connecting a GUI client

OrbStack (recommended)

With OrbStack, every container is reachable from the host at <service>.<project>.orb.local. For example, in TablePlus:

Field	Value
Host	db.aurora.orb.local
Port	3306 (the internal default)
User / Password	from the project’s original compose

No port mapping is required — the container is directly addressable.

Docker Desktop

Docker Desktop does not expose host DNS into containers, so <service>.<project>.orb.local will not resolve. To reach the database you must map a port temporarily by adding it to the override by hand.

Note

A dedicated mdocker expose <name> db:3306 command is on the roadmap to make this a one-liner.

Interactive shell and one-click open

MultiDocker ships DB helpers that auto-detect the dialect (MySQL/MariaDB, PostgreSQL, Redis, MongoDB):

db shell & db open

mdocker db list aurora            # which services are databases
mdocker db shell aurora           # interactive client inside the container
mdocker db open aurora            # launch TablePlus via a connection URL
mdocker db open aurora --print    # just print the URL

If a project has more than one database service, pass --service <name> to pick one.

Related

• Database Snapshots & Restore
• CLI: db
• CLI: inspect, health, stats