Unclear volume:external documentation

[pkese]

Is this a docs issue?

• My issue is about the documentation content or website

Type of issue

I can't find what I'm looking for

Description

In the https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/07-volumes/ in volumes section for external it says:

External
If set to true:

• external specifies that this volume already exists on the platform and its lifecycle is managed outside of that of the application. Compose doesn't then create the volume, and returns an error if the volume doesn't exist.
• All other attributes apart from name are irrelevant. If Compose detects any other attribute, it rejects the Compose file as invalid.

In the example below, instead of attempting to create a volume called {project_name}_db-data, Compose looks for an existing volume simply called db-data and mounts it into the backend service's containers.

It's unclear what are the steps required on user's side to get an external volume to work (and get populated).

Where does it mount it from?

Can I just copy (or bind-mount) my data directly into to /var/lib/docker/volumes/db-data and expect it to work?

Location

https://docs.docker.com/compose/compose-file/07-volumes/

Suggestion

No response