2 min read

Setting up a local mySQL instance with Docker on Mac

I whitewashed my Macbook a while ago and spend it a fresh and clean installation. It almost took me 3 month to recognize that I was missing a local mySQL instance for development. Dreadful that it took so long to recognize, need to find more time for coding.

However, a quick guide to get a mySQL instance, accessible from my local machine, up and running with Docker.

  1. Install Docker Desktop (https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/)

  2. Start Docker Desktop and login with your Docker ID (or created a new one)

  3. optional: I reduced the Resources to just use one CPU and 1GB of memory. This can be done in the Docker Desktop settings. I don't run any heavy DB tasks on my local machine and prefer to keep resources free for other stuff.

  4. Check out which version of MySQL server you would like to run: https://hub.docker.com//mysql. I went with 5.7 as this is the same version we use in production.

  5. Open up terminal session and enter the following command (adjust the version behind : to match your favored version):
    docker pull mysql/mysql-server:5.7

  6. Check if it installed correctly executing docker images
    Screenshot-2020-09-17-at-14.50.50

  7. Now let's run this machine.
    docker run -d --publish=3307:3306 --name=mysql-instance -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=root mysql/mysql-server:5.7

Once again, you need to adjust the command to match your version.
I also changed the port from 3306 to 3307, just in case it might already be in use. If you prefer, just go with the standard 3306:3306. By adjusting the port, you could run as many instances as you want. As you might have already guessed I set the password for our root user, just to root.

  1. Finally we need to grant our root user the right to connect externally (actually from our local machine). You should not go the following way with a production system, but I am just lazy and would like to have the root user being able to connect. A more secure way would be to create a new user with limited permissions.

Connect to MySQL from the terminal using following command (adjust mysql-instance, if you chose a different name in Step 7):
docker exec -it mysql-instance mysql -u root -p

Now let's allow root user to connect from any host:
update mysql.user set host='%' where host='localhost' and user='root';

and flush privileges:
flush privileges;

Now we're done and can use our instance.

Published by:

Jens Lukas