Connecting to a mysql running on a Docker container

Question

I'm trying to run mysql server on a Docker (installed with Docker Toolbox for Mac) container and access it from my machine running OS X Yosemite. The documentation from the official repo does not explain how to connect from outside the docker host !!

I've created a container using the official repository as follows:

$ docker pull mysql
$ docker run --name some-mysql -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=my-secret-pw -d mysql:latest
$ docker inspect CONTAINER_ID

Then I get the ip address (172.17.0.1), but when I ping it I see time outs!!! What's the appropriate way to connect to the running mysql server?

Answer 1

It says:

This image exposes the standard MySQL port (3306), so container linking makes the MySQL instance available to other application containers

First, make sure your docker run map that port: -p 3306:3306 (or the exposed port from the Dockerfile wouldn't be accessible from the Linux host)

Then, you need

• either to add a port forwarding rule to your VirtualBox VM, and access 127.0.0.1:3306,

    VBoxManage controlvm "boot2docker-vm" natpf1 "tcp-port3306,tcp,,3306,,3306";
  

• or access the boot2docker VM IP address $(boot2docker ip), using port 3306.

After discussion, it turn out adding the port mapping at the end is wrong:

docker run --name some-mysql -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=my-secret-pw -d mysql:latest -p 3306:3306

This does not work because "-p 3306:3306" is just interpreted as arguments to pass to the ENTRYPOINT command.

This works (meaning a docker ps -a shows the container as "running", not "exited"):

 docker run -p 3306:3306 --name some-mysql -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=my-secret-pw -d mysql:latest

Then [email protected]:3306 or root@$(docker-machine ip):3306 should be correct.