ClickHouse

What is ClickHouse?

ClickHouse is a column-oriented database built for fast analytical (OLAP) queries over very large datasets, the kind of workload row-oriented databases like MySQL or Postgres struggle with. Laradock builds it from the official ClickHouse Debian packages on top of Ubuntu, with an HTTP interface, a native TCP interface, and its own config and users files pre-wired.

Start ClickHouse

docker compose up -d clickhouse

The clickhouse service links to the workspace container, so it's reachable from there by container name once both are up.

Stop ClickHouse

docker compose stop clickhouse

This stops the container without deleting its data. Data lives under DATA_PATH_HOST/clickhouse.

Configuration

All settings live in clickhouse/defaults.env and can be overridden by adding the same line to your own .env:

Variable	Default	What it does
CLICKHOUSE_VERSION	25.8.2.29	Version of the clickhouse-server/clickhouse-client packages installed at build time.
CLICKHOUSE_GOSU_VERSION	1.17	Version of gosu used by the entrypoint to drop root privileges.
CLICKHOUSE_USER	default	Database user created on boot.
CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD	HAHA	Password for CLICKHOUSE_USER. Change this before using anything beyond local dev.
CLICKHOUSE_HTTP_PORT	8123	Host-side port for the HTTP interface (container port 8123).
CLICKHOUSE_CLIENT_PORT	9000	Host-side port for the native TCP protocol used by clickhouse-client (container port 9000).
CLICKHOUSE_NATIVE_PORT	9009	Host-side port for the interserver replication port (container port 9009).
CLICKHOUSE_CUSTOM_CONFIG	./clickhouse/config.xml	Server config file mounted into the container.
CLICKHOUSE_USERS_CUSTOM_CONFIG	./clickhouse/users.xml	Users/roles config file mounted into the container.
CLICKHOUSE_ENTRYPOINT_INITDB	./clickhouse/docker-entrypoint-initdb.d	Folder of scripts auto-run on first boot.
CLICKHOUSE_HOST_LOG_PATH	./logs/clickhouse	Host folder ClickHouse writes its logs to.

Connect with clickhouse-client

docker compose exec clickhouse clickhouse-client --user default --password HAHA

Or from the workspace container, reach it by service name: clickhouse-client --host clickhouse --user default --password HAHA.

Connect over HTTP

curl "http://localhost:8123/?user=default&password=HAHA" -d "SELECT 1"

The HTTP interface also exposes a lightweight health check at /ping.

Change resource limits

The container requests high ulimits (nproc: 65535, nofile: 262144), ClickHouse itself recommends this for production-grade workloads. If Docker on your host caps these lower, you'll see startup warnings in docker compose logs clickhouse; raise the limits in Docker Desktop's resource settings or your Docker daemon config.

Common issues

• Default password is HAHA. It's genuinely the shipped default in clickhouse/defaults.env, set your own CLICKHOUSE_PASSWORD in .env before using this for anything beyond local dev.
• Config changes don't take effect. clickhouse/config.xml and clickhouse/users.xml are bind-mounted, edits apply on container restart; no rebuild needed. Changing CLICKHOUSE_VERSION does require a rebuild: docker compose build clickhouse.
• Client can't connect from another container. Use the service name clickhouse as the host, not localhost, and the container-internal ports (9000 native, 8123 HTTP), not the host-mapped ones.
• Logs directory missing on host. CLICKHOUSE_HOST_LOG_PATH (./logs/clickhouse by default) needs to exist for the bind mount to work; create it if Docker complains on startup.

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