Installing MySQL in docker container is an easy process which can be done by pulling a docker image, deploying the MySQL container and connecting to the MySQL Docker Container

Here at Bobcares, we have seen several such Docker related queries as part of our Docker Hosting Support for Docker users, web hosts, and online service providers.

Today we’ll take a look at how to install MySQL in Docker.

Installing MySQL in Docker Container

Here are the steps our Support Engineers follow to install MySQL.

1. The first step is to pull the docker image. Here we are downloading the latest release. However, if you wish to install a particular version then you can replace the latest tag with the version number.

docker pull mysql/mysql-server:latest

2. Then verify if your image is locally stored or not by running the below command.

docker images

3. Once we have the docker image, now we deploy the container by running the command:

docker run --name=[container_name] -d mysql/mysql-server:latest

4. Now, check if MySQL container is running or not by running the below command.

docker ps

5. Connect to the MySQL docker container.

• Make sure to install the MySQL client package before connecting to MySQL server.
  apt-get install mysql-client
• Within the container, start the MySQL client by running the command.
  docker exec -it [container_name] mysql -uroot -p
• Provide root password when asked for. Then you can change the root password by replacing [newpassword] with a strong password below.
  mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY '[newpassword]';

Configuring MySQL Container

The configuration options of the MySQL container are present in the directory /etc/mysql/my.cnf

In order to modify the configuration, we can create an alternative config file on the host machine and mount them inside the container.

1. Initially, we create a new directory on the host machine:

mkdir -p /root/docker/[container_name]/conf.d

2. Then we create a custom MySQL config file inside that directory:

nano /root/docker/[container_name]/conf.d/my-custom.cnf

3. Now we add the lines with the desired configuration.

4. After adding, we save and exit the file.

5. We remove and rerun the MySQL container so that the changes reflect.

Here is the command to run the container and map the volume path

docker run \
--detach \
--name=[container_name]\
--env="MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=[my_password]" \
--publish 6603:3306 \
--volume=/root/docker/[container_name]/conf.d:/etc/mysql/conf.d \
mysql

6. Finally, we run the below command to check whether the container loaded the configuration from the host.

mysql -uroot -pmypassword -h127.0.0.1 -P6603 -e 'show global variables like "max_connections"';

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Conclusion

In today’s writeup, we saw how our Support Engineers installed and configured the MySQL in Docker container.