Quick Tip: Setup a local MySQL in a docker container

I’ve been working through the tutorials in the Go docs (which are super helpful and I highly recommend them) and for the section on “Accessing a relational database”, I needed an instance of MySQL. Not wanting to install it on my local machine, I opted to use docker instead. Here’s how I got a quick throwaway instance up and seeded it with minimal effort.

Pull and run the image

Pull the MySQL image from the docker repository. This step can be skipped if mysql has been pulled previously.

docker pull mysql

Run the image, set the root user password and expose the default MySQL port. latest is a tag that specifies which MySQL version to use.

docker run -d --name docker-mysql -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=youshallnotpass -p 3306:3306 mysql:latest

Create a db and seed it

To run mysql commands on the db, open a bash inside the new container.

docker exec -it docker-mysql bash

Login as the root user. When prompted, use the MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD set above.

mysql -u root -p
# Enter password: <MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD>

# mysql>

Create a database and name it.

mysql> create database new-db;

Switch to that new database.

mysql> use new-db;
# Database changed

Seed the database by pasting SQL commands directly into the bash window, such as this one for creating a todo table:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS todo;
CREATE TABLE todo (
  id      INT AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
  text    VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL,
  done    BOOLEAN NOT NULL DEFAULT false,
  PRIMARY KEY (id)
);

INSERT INTO todo
  (text, done)
VALUES
  ('Do the Laundry', true),
  ('Clean the Kitchen', false),
  ('Mow the Lawn', false);

Verify it worked by running a select statement.

mysql> select * from todo;
+----+-------------------+------+
| id | text              | done |
+----+-------------------+------+
|  1 | Do the Laundry    |    1 |
|  2 | Clean the Kitchen |    0 |
|  3 | Mow the Lawn      |    0 |
+----+-------------------+------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You now have a local MySQL database with data you can query or write to running at 127.0.0.1:3306. But you don’t have to take my word for it! 🌈