How to run Mariadb with Docker and Docker-Compose

In this guide we are going to explore how to run the latest version of Mariadb locally with docker and docker compose. This can be helpful if you want to run Mariadb locally without installing it in your machine or if you want to run multiple versions of Mariadb seamlessly.

Prerequisites

To follow along, ensure you have the following:

Docker installed locally and permissions to use it to launch containers
Docker compose is installed locally
Basic knowledge of the command line

Using the `docker run` command

We are going to use the docker run command to achieve our goal. The version of Mariadb that we want is mariadb:latest - the latest version of mariadb image.

Create data dir

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mkdir -p ~/apps/mariadb/data

Run the container

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$ docker run -d \
    --name my-mariadb \
    -p 3306:3306 \
    -v ~/apps/mariadb/data:/var/lib/mysql \
    --user 1000:1000 \
    -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=S3cret \
    -e MYSQL_PASSWORD=An0thrS3crt \
    -e MYSQL_USER=citizix_user \
    -e MYSQL_DATABASE=citizix_db \
    mariadb:latest

Unable to find image 'mariadb:latest' locally
10.7: Pulling from library/mariadb
7b1a6ab2e44d: Pull complete
034655750c88: Pull complete
f0b757a2a0f0: Pull complete
4bbcce26bc5e: Pull complete
04f220ee9266: Pull complete
89c8a77f7842: Pull complete
d1de5652303b: Pull complete
e10058b6c45e: Pull complete
a07ac6f8b619: Pull complete
6260e28f2886: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:832c6e488f49720f484f87ee9f2cd4487321b373db07ac77037860bcd97d92bb
Status: Downloaded newer image for mariadb:latest
75c4a2f716d9ec95fe7ca7a3c7b071755a9ec94f824e0aa17f703d831aedadd8

In the above command:

The -d instructs docker container to run as a detached process. It run container in background and print container ID
-p is for port mapping. We are instructing the container to expose the container port externally. Container port 3306 is mapped to host port 3306. That means the service can be accessed through localhost:3306
The -v directive is used to mount volumes. In our case we are mounting the container volume /var/lib/mysql to host path ~/apps/mariadb/data. Containers are ephemeral devices that will contain its data for the time it is running. Once a container is stopped, its data is lost. Mounting volumes ensures that the data is added to a host path that can be reused when the container is restarted.
The --user argument is used to run the container with an arbitrary user (non root user). This happens if you need to run mysqld with a specific UID/GID.
The -e argument is for the environment variables. The supplied environment variables will be used to set up a Mariadb user, password and a database.

To check that our container is running as expected, use the docker ps command:

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$ docker ps

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE          COMMAND                  CREATED              STATUS              PORTS                                       NAMES
75c4a2f716d9   mariadb:latest   "docker-entrypoint.s&#x2026;"   About a minute ago   Up About a minute   0.0.0.0:3306->3306/tcp, :::3306->3306/tcp   my-mariadb

In my case the container is running as my-mariadb the name we gave it. We can login to the container using the docker exec command while executing /bin/bash interactively. Here we are also logging in to posgtres with the credentials we specified above and checking the version.

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$ docker exec -it my-mariadb /bin/bash

citizix@75c4a2f716d9:/$ mysql -u citizix_user -pAn0thrS3crt

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 3
Server version: 10.7.1-MariaDB-1:10.7.1+maria~focal mariadb.org binary distribution

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> select version();
+-------------------------------------+
| version()                           |
+-------------------------------------+
| 10.7.1-MariaDB-1:10.7.1+maria~focal |
+-------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]>

If you need to clean up the container when not in use, you can stop and remove the container using this command:

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$ docker stop my-mariadb

my-mariadb

$ docker rm my-mariadb

my-mariadb

Using the docker-compose tool

We can achieve the same functionality with docker-compose. Docker Compose is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, you use a YAML file to configure your application’s services.

Docker Compose allows you to define the service (Mariadb in our case) with properties like the image to use, ports to expose, volumes to mount and environment variables.

Here is how we would use docker-compose to achieve the functionality above. Save this as docker-compose.yaml:

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services:
  mariadb:
    image: mariadb:latest
    ports:
      - 3306:3306
    volumes:
      - ~/apps/mariadb:/var/lib/mysql
    environment:
      - MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=S3cret
      - MYSQL_PASSWORD=An0thrS3crt
      - MYSQL_USER=citizix_user
      - MYSQL_DATABASE=citizix_db

Now bring up the containers:

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$ docker-compose up -d

Creating network "tmp_default" with the default driver
Creating tmp_mariadb_1 ... done

The commands:

up brings up the container
-d in a detached mode

Verify the container processes using the ps command:

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$ docker-compose ps

    Name                   Command              State               Ports
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
tmp_mariadb_1   docker-entrypoint.sh mariadbd   Up      0.0.0.0:3306->3306/tcp,:::3306
                                                        ->3306/tcp

To login to the container and login to Mariadb, use this:

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$ docker-compose exec mariadb /bin/bash

root@07f9050cea89:/# mysql -u citizix_user -pAn0thrS3crt
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 3
Server version: 10.7.1-MariaDB-1:10.7.1+maria~focal mariadb.org binary distribution

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]> select version();
+-------------------------------------+
| version()                           |
+-------------------------------------+
| 10.7.1-MariaDB-1:10.7.1+maria~focal |
+-------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.000 sec)

MariaDB [(none)]>

Conclusion

In this guide we managed to run Mariadb 10 as a container in our system, we explored using the docker run command while passing the required arguments an alternative approach of simplifying the process with docker-compose

Prerequisites

Using the docker run command

Using the docker-compose tool

Conclusion

Using the `docker run` command