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How to Copy an SQL File to a Docker Container⚓

Summary⚓

The content of this article will be largely taken from an article I found. The article details the steps required to copy an SQL file into a Docker container and load the file as a database.

This article assumes a few things...

  • That the MySQL database has already been exported into a .sql file.
  • That a MySQL container has already been pulled and configured.

Copy a SQL File to a Docker Container⚓

First, make note of where the .sql file is located on the machine. Once this is done, the Docker container ID will be needed. This can be found by using the docker ps command.

This will list all the Docker container and their respective IDs. Locate the ID for the container relating to MySQL.

CONTAINER ID             IMAGE                   ...
[YourContainerId]        mysql:5.7.29            ...CONTAINER ID

Now copy the sql file using docker cp into the container.

docker cp your.sql [YourContainerId]:/your.sql

Once complete, login to the container and import the MySQL database.

docker exec -it [YourContainerId] bin/bash

Once logged into the container, now log into MySQL.

mysql -u root -p

To see the databases, run...

show databases;

Select the database that will be imported...

use your-database-name

Now import by running...

source your.sql

Wrapping Up⚓

At this point, the database should be active and ready to accept connections. Depending on the application being used, additional configurations will likely need to be made so that the new database is utilized.

References⚓