How to run Mysql 8 with Docker and Docker-Compose

In this guide we are going to explore how to run Mysql 8 locally with docker and docker compose. This can be helpful if you want to run Mysql 8 locally without installing it in your machine or if you want to run multiple versions of Mysql 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 mysql that we want is mysql:8.0 - the latest version of mysql image.

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$ docker run -d \
    --name my-mysql \
    -p 3306:3306 \
    -v ~/apps/mysql:/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 \
    mysql:8

Unable to find image 'mysql:8' locally
8: Pulling from library/mysql
b380bbd43752: Pull complete
f23cbf2ecc5d: Pull complete
30cfc6c29c0a: Pull complete
b38609286cbe: Pull complete
8211d9e66cd6: Pull complete
2313f9eeca4a: Pull complete
7eb487d00da0: Pull complete
4d7421c8152e: Pull complete
77f3d8811a28: Pull complete
cce755338cba: Pull complete
69b753046b9f: Pull complete
b2e64b0ab53c: Pull complete
Digest: sha256:6d7d4524463fe6e2b893ffc2b89543c81dec7ef82fb2020a1b27606666464d87
Status: Downloaded newer image for mysql:8
38dc3037177eab4a56366b14a4acfdbb6ae98770e03d509046e05aa2a1ce21d0

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/mysql. 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 Mysql 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
a1d77a05bd18   mysql:8   "docker-entrypoint.sh"   30 seconds ago   Up 29 seconds   0.0.0.0:3306->3306/tcp, :::3306->3306/tcp, 33060/tcp   my-mysql

In my case the container is running as my-mysql 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-mysql /bin/bash

citizix@a1d77a05bd18:/$ mysql -u citizix_user -pAn0thrS3crt
mysql: Warning Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 8
Server version: 8.0.27 MySQL Community Server - GPL

Copyright (c) 2000, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

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

mysql> select version();
+-----------+
| version() |
+-----------+
| 8.0.27    |
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

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-mysql

my-mysql

$ docker rm my-mysql

my-mysql

Using the docker-compose tool

We can achieve the same functionality with docker-compose. [Docker Compose][1] is a tool for defining and running multi-container Docker applications. With Compose, you use a YAML file to configure your application services.

Docker Compose allows you to define the service (Mysql 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:
  mysql:
    image: mysql:8
    ports:
      - 3306:3306
    volumes:
      - ~/apps/mysql:/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 tmp_mysql_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_mysql_1   docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld   Up      0.0.0.0:3306->3306/tcp,:::3306->3306/tcp,
                                                    33060/tcp

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

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$ docker-compose exec mysql /bin/bash

root@25c2472a190d:/# mysql -u citizix_user -pAn0thrS3crt
mysql: [1 Warning] Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 8
Server version: 8.0.27 MySQL Community Server - GPL

Copyright (c) 2000, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

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

mysql> select version();
+-----------+
| version() |
+-----------+
| 8.0.27    |
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql>

Conclusion

In this guide we managed to run Mysql 8 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