Build production ready Mysql docker container with customized db, user and character-set¶

If you simply execute docker run -d -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=pass1 mysql, you will get a mysql instance. But, it should not be used in production environment, reasons are:

• It uses the root user. This is very dangerous.
• It does not set character-set. This may cause text encoding problems.

Create a better mysql container¶

Here is an example command:

docker run --name dk_mysql -d -p 13306:3306 \
--env MYSQL_DATABASE=db1 \
--env MYSQL_USER=user1 \
--env MYSQL_PASSWORD=pass1 \
--env MYSQL_RANDOM_ROOT_PASSWORD=yes \
mysql mysqld --character-set-server utf8mb4

• MYSQL_ prefixed environment variables set the customized db and user.
• character-set-server argument set the default character-set to utf8mb4. utf8mb4 supports emoji. For more info, you can refer to Support emoji or utf8mb4 when using mysql and python SQLAlchemy.

Test the created mysql container¶

Access inside the container:

docker exec -it dk_mysql mysql -D db1 -u user1 -ppass1

Access outside the container:

mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -P 13306 -D db1 -u user1 -ppass1

Check if character-set is correct¶

We set --character-set-server utf8mb4 earlier, now let's check the effect:

docker exec -it dk_mysql mysql -D db1 -u user1 -ppass1 \
-e "SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'character_set_server'"

The output will be like:

+----------------------+---------+
| Variable_name        | Value   |
+----------------------+---------+
| character_set_server | utf8mb4 |
+----------------------+---------+