chown: changing ownership of '/var/lib/mysql/': Operation not permitted

Question

I am trying to deploy a mariadb image on openshift origin. I am using mariadb:10.2.12 in my docker file. It works ok on local but I get following error when I try to deploy on openshift origin.

Initializing database chown: changing ownership of '/var/lib/mysql/': Operation not permitted Cannot change ownership of the database directories to the 'mysql' user. Check that you have the necessary permissions and try again.

The chown command comes from mariadb:10.2.12 Docker file.

Initially I had the issue of root user which is not allowed on openshift origin, so now I am using

USER mysql

in the docker file. Now I don't get warning of running as root but still openshift origin don't like chown. Remember I am not the admin of origin, only a user. My docker file is as follows:

FROM mariadb:10.2.12

ENV MYSQL_DATABASE="db_profile"

COPY ./my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf
COPY ./db_profile.sql /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d/

USER mysql

EXPOSE 3306

and on local I run it as follows:

docker build . -t laeeq/ligandprofiledb:0.0.1

docker run --name test-mysql -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=mypassword -d laeeq/ligandprofiledb:0.0.1

Is there a workaround to solve this chown problem?

Answer 1

The MariaDB images on DockerHub don't follow good practice of not requiring to be run as root user.

You should instead use the MariaDB images provided by OpenShift. Eg:

centos/mariadb-102-centos7

See:

• https://github.com/sclorg/mariadb-container

There should be an ability to select MariaDB from the service catalog browser in the OpenShift web console, or use the mariadb template from the command line.