MySQL Docker container - unable to import file

Question

I have a Docker container running MariaDB and within the Dockerfile for the image I've copied an SQL file to a location in the container:

FROM mariadb

RUN mkdir /adhoc_scripts
COPY bootup.sql /adhoc_scripts

Once the container has spun up, I'm able to enter a shell within the container and confirm that the sql file does exist in the specified location:

$ docker exec -it my_mariadb_container bash
root@6e3f4b9abe17:/# ls -lt /adhoc_scripts/
total 4
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1839 Apr 10 18:35 bootup.sql

However when I exit the container and try to invoke the following command:

docker exec -it my_mariadb_container bash \
        mysql mydb -u root -prootpass \
        < /adhoc_scripts/bootup.sql

I get this error:

-bash: /adhoc_scripts/bootup.sql: No such file or directory

What am I doing wrong?

EDIT1: I tried changing the permissions of /adhoc-scripts to 777 as well, but that didn't help.

Answer 1

This is because the < operator operates on the whole docker exec ... command instead of the bash mysql ... part.

The error message is clear: your bash (outside the container) is trying to interpret the /adhoc_scripts/bootup.sql file.

To solve it, try this:

docker exec -it my_mariadb_container bash -c "mysql mydb -u root -prootpass < /adhoc_scripts/bootup.sql"