Installation of system tables failed! boot2docker tutum/mysql mount file volume on Mac OS

Question

I have trouble mounting a volume on tutum/mysql container on Mac OS.

I am running boot2docker 1.5

When I run

docker run -v $HOME/mysql-data:/var/lib/mysql tutum/mysql /bin/bash -c "/usr/bin/mysql_install_db"

i get this error

Installation of system tables failed! Examine the logs in /var/lib/mysql for more information.

Running the above command also creates an empty $HOME/mysql-data/mysql folder.

The tutum/mysql container runs smoothly when no mounting occurs.

I have successfully mounted a folder on the nginx demo container, which means that the boot2docker is setup correctly for mounting volumes.

Answer 1

I would guess that it's just a permissions issue. Either find the uid of the mysql user inside the container and chown the mysql-data dir to that user, or use a data container to hold the volumes.

For more information on data containers see the official docs .

Also note that as the Dockerfile declares volumes, mounting is taking place whether or not you use -v argument to docker run - it just happens in a directory on the host controlled by Docker (under /var/lib/docker ) instead of a directory chosen by you.

Answer 2

I've also had a problem starting mysql docker container with error "Installation of system tables failed". There was no changes on the docker image, and there was no recent update on my machine or docker. One thing I was doing differently was that using images that could take up or more than 5GB memory on testing.

After cleaning dangling images and volumes, I was able to start mysql image as usual.

This blog seems to have a good instructions and explains all variations of clean up with docker.