Kitematic tutorial: Create a local RethinkDB database for development

Legacy desktop solution. Kitematic is a legacy solution, bundled with Docker Toolbox. We recommend updating to Docker Desktop for Mac or Docker Desktop for Windows if your system meets the requirements for one of those applications.

This tutorial guides you through these steps:

• Create a RethinkDB Container for Development
• (Advanced) Clone a small Node.js application and write data into RethinkDB.

Set up RethinkDB in Kitematic

First, if you haven’t yet done so, download and start Kitematic. Once open, the app should look like this:

Click on the Create button of the rethinkdb image listing in the recommended list as shown above. This downloads and runs a RethinkDB container within a few minutes. Once it’s done, a local RethinkDB database is up and running.

Let’s start using it to develop a node.js app. For now, let’s figure out which IP address and port RethinkDB is listening on. To find out, click the Settings tab and then the Ports section:

You can see there that for RethinkDB port 28015, the container is listening on host localhost and port 32783 (in this example - ports may be different for you). This means you can now reach RethinkDB via a client driver at 127.0.0.1:32783. Again, this IP address may be different for you.

(Advanced) Save Data into RethinkDB with a local Node.js App

Now, create the RethinkDB example chat application running on your local macOS system to test drive your new containerized database.

First, if you don’t have it yet, download and install Node.js.

Note: This example needs Xcode installed.

In your terminal, type:

 $ export RDB_HOST=127.0.0.1 # replace with IP from above step
 $ export RDB_PORT=32783 # replace with Port from above step
 $ git clone https://github.com/rethinkdb/rethinkdb-example-nodejs-chat
 $ cd rethinkdb-example-nodejs-chat
 $ npm install
 $ npm start

Now, point your browser to http://localhost:8000. Congratulations, you’ve successfully used a RethinkDB container in Kitematic to build a real-time chat app. Happy coding!