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README.md

Bitnami Secure Image for MariaDB

What is MariaDB?

MariaDB is an open source, community-developed SQL database server that is widely in use around the world due to its enterprise features, flexibility, and collaboration with leading tech firms.

Overview of MariaDB Trademarks: This software listing is packaged by Bitnami. The respective trademarks mentioned in the offering are owned by the respective companies, and use of them does not imply any affiliation or endorsement.

TL;DR

docker run --name mariadb -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes bitnami/mariadb:latest

Warning: These quick setups are only intended for development environments. You are encouraged to change the insecure default credentials and check out the available configuration options in the Configuration section for a more secure deployment.

⚠️ Important Notice: Upcoming changes to the Bitnami Catalog

Beginning August 28th, 2025, Bitnami will evolve its public catalog to offer a curated set of hardened, security-focused images under the new Bitnami Secure Images initiative. As part of this transition:

  • Granting community users access for the first time to security-optimized versions of popular container images.
  • Bitnami will begin deprecating support for non-hardened, Debian-based software images in its free tier and will gradually remove non-latest tags from the public catalog. As a result, community users will have access to a reduced number of hardened images. These images are published only under the “latest” tag and are intended for development purposes
  • Starting August 28th, over two weeks, all existing container images, including older or versioned tags (e.g., 2.50.0, 10.6), will be migrated from the public catalog (docker.io/bitnami) to the “Bitnami Legacy” repository (docker.io/bitnamilegacy), where they will no longer receive updates.
  • For production workloads and long-term support, users are encouraged to adopt Bitnami Secure Images, which include hardened containers, smaller attack surfaces, CVE transparency (via VEX/KEV), SBOMs, and enterprise support.

These changes aim to improve the security posture of all Bitnami users by promoting best practices for software supply chain integrity and up-to-date deployments. For more details, visit the Bitnami Secure Images announcement.

Why use Bitnami Secure Images?

  • Bitnami Secure Images and Helm charts are built to make open source more secure and enterprise ready.
  • Triage security vulnerabilities faster, with transparency into CVE risks using industry standard Vulnerability Exploitability Exchange (VEX), KEV, and EPSS scores.
  • Our hardened images use a minimal OS (Photon Linux), which reduces the attack surface while maintaining extensibility through the use of an industry standard package format.
  • Stay more secure and compliant with continuously built images updated within hours of upstream patches.
  • Bitnami containers, virtual machines and cloud images use the same components and configuration approach - making it easy to switch between formats based on your project needs.
  • Hardened images come with attestation signatures (Notation), SBOMs, virus scan reports and other metadata produced in an SLSA-3 compliant software factory.

Only a subset of BSI applications are available for free. Looking to access the entire catalog of applications as well as enterprise support? Try the commercial edition of Bitnami Secure Images today.

How to deploy MariaDB in Kubernetes?

Deploying Bitnami applications as Helm Charts is the easiest way to get started with our applications on Kubernetes. Read more about the installation in the Bitnami MariaDB Chart GitHub repository.

Why use a non-root container?

Non-root container images add an extra layer of security and are generally recommended for production environments. However, because they run as a non-root user, privileged tasks are typically off-limits. Learn more about non-root containers in our docs.

Supported tags and respective Dockerfile links

Learn more about the Bitnami tagging policy and the difference between rolling tags and immutable tags in our documentation page.

You can see the equivalence between the different tags by taking a look at the tags-info.yaml file present in the branch folder, i.e bitnami/ASSET/BRANCH/DISTRO/tags-info.yaml.

Subscribe to project updates by watching the bitnami/containers GitHub repo.

Get this image

The recommended way to get the Bitnami MariaDB Docker Image is to pull the prebuilt image from the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/mariadb:latest

To use a specific version, you can pull a versioned tag. You can view the list of available versions in the Docker Hub Registry.

docker pull bitnami/mariadb:[TAG]

If you wish, you can also build the image yourself by cloning the repository, changing to the directory containing the Dockerfile and executing the docker build command. Remember to replace the APP, VERSION and OPERATING-SYSTEM path placeholders in the example command below with the correct values.

git clone https://github.com/bitnami/containers.git
cd bitnami/APP/VERSION/OPERATING-SYSTEM
docker build -t bitnami/APP:latest .

Persisting your database

If you remove the container all your data will be lost, and the next time you run the image the database will be reinitialized. To avoid this loss of data, you should mount a volume that will persist even after the container is removed.

For persistence you should mount a directory at the /bitnami/mariadb path. If the mounted directory is empty, it will be initialized on the first run.

docker run \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    -v /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb \
    bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    volumes:
      - /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb
  ...

NOTE: As this is a non-root container, the mounted files and directories must have the proper permissions for the UID 1001.

Connecting to other containers

Using Docker container networking, a MariaDB server running inside a container can easily be accessed by your application containers.

Containers attached to the same network can communicate with each other using the container name as the hostname.

Using the Command Line

In this example, we will create a MariaDB client instance that will connect to the server instance that is running on the same docker network as the client.

Step 1: Create a network

docker network create app-tier --driver bridge

Step 2: Launch the MariaDB server instance

Use the --network app-tier argument to the docker run command to attach the MariaDB container to the app-tier network.

docker run -d --name mariadb-server \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    --network app-tier \
    bitnami/mariadb:latest

Step 3: Launch your MariaDB client instance

Finally we create a new container instance to launch the MariaDB client and connect to the server created in the previous step:

docker run -it --rm \
    --network app-tier \
    bitnami/mariadb:latest mysql -h mariadb-server -u root

Using a Docker Compose file

When not specified, Docker Compose automatically sets up a new network and attaches all deployed services to that network. However, we will explicitly define a new bridge network named app-tier. In this example we assume that you want to connect to the MariaDB server from your own custom application image which is identified in the following snippet by the service name myapp.

version: '2'

networks:
  app-tier:
    driver: bridge

services:
  mariadb:
    image: bitnami/mariadb:latest
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
    networks:
      - app-tier
  myapp:
    image: YOUR_APPLICATION_IMAGE
    networks:
      - app-tier

IMPORTANT:

  1. Please update the YOUR_APPLICATION_IMAGE placeholder in the above snippet with your application image
  2. In your application container, use the hostname mariadb to connect to the MariaDB server

Launch the containers using:

docker-compose up -d

Configuration

Environment variables

Customizable environment variables

Name Description Default Value
ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD Allow MariaDB access without any password. no
MARIADB_AUTHENTICATION_PLUGIN MariaDB authentication plugin to configure during the first initialization. nil
MARIADB_ROOT_USER MariaDB database root user. root
MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD MariaDB database root user password. nil
MARIADB_USER MariaDB database user to create during the first initialization. nil
MARIADB_PASSWORD Password for the MariaDB database user to create during the first initialization. nil
MARIADB_DATABASE MariaDB database to create during the first initialization. nil
MARIADB_MASTER_HOST Address for the MariaDB master node. nil
MARIADB_MASTER_PORT_NUMBER Port number for the MariaDB master node. 3306
MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_USER MariaDB database root user of the master host. root
MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD Password for the MariaDB database root user of the the master host. nil
MARIADB_MASTER_DELAY MariaDB database replication delay. 0
MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER MariaDB replication database user. nil
MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD Password for the MariaDB replication database user. nil
MARIADB_PORT_NUMBER Port number to use for the MariaDB Server service. nil
MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE MariaDB replication mode. nil
MARIADB_REPLICATION_SLAVE_DUMP Make a dump on master and update slave MariaDB database false
MARIADB_EXTRA_FLAGS Extra flags to be passed to start the MariaDB Server. nil
MARIADB_INIT_SLEEP_TIME Sleep time when waiting for MariaDB init configuration operations to finish. nil
MARIADB_CHARACTER_SET MariaDB collation to use. nil
MARIADB_COLLATE MariaDB collation to use. nil
MARIADB_BIND_ADDRESS MariaDB bind address. nil
MARIADB_SQL_MODE MariaDB Server SQL modes to enable. nil
MARIADB_UPGRADE MariaDB upgrade option. AUTO
MARIADB_SKIP_TEST_DB Whether to skip creating the test database. no
MARIADB_CLIENT_ENABLE_SSL Whether to force SSL for connections to the MariaDB database. no
MARIADB_CLIENT_SSL_CA_FILE Path to CA certificate to use for SSL connections to the MariaDB database server. nil
MARIADB_CLIENT_SSL_CERT_FILE Path to client public key certificate to use for SSL connections to the MariaDB database server. nil
MARIADB_CLIENT_SSL_KEY_FILE Path to client private key to use for SSL connections to the MariaDB database server. nil
MARIADB_CLIENT_EXTRA_FLAGS Whether to force SSL connections with the "mysql" CLI tool. Useful for applications that rely on the CLI instead of APIs. no
MARIADB_STARTUP_WAIT_RETRIES Number of retries waiting for the database to be running. 300
MARIADB_STARTUP_WAIT_SLEEP_TIME Sleep time between retries waiting for the database to be running. 2
MARIADB_ENABLE_SLOW_QUERY Whether to enable slow query logs. 0
MARIADB_LONG_QUERY_TIME How much time, in seconds, defines a slow query. 10.0

Read-only environment variables

Name Description Value
DB_FLAVOR SQL database flavor. Valid values: mariadb or mysql. mariadb
DB_BASE_DIR Base path for MariaDB files. ${BITNAMI_ROOT_DIR}/mariadb
DB_VOLUME_DIR MariaDB directory for persisted files. ${BITNAMI_VOLUME_DIR}/mariadb
DB_DATA_DIR MariaDB directory for data files. ${DB_VOLUME_DIR}/data
DB_BIN_DIR MariaDB directory where executable binary files are located. ${DB_BASE_DIR}/bin
DB_SBIN_DIR MariaDB directory where service binary files are located. ${DB_BASE_DIR}/sbin
DB_CONF_DIR MariaDB configuration directory. ${DB_BASE_DIR}/conf
DB_DEFAULT_CONF_DIR MariaDB default configuration directory. ${DB_BASE_DIR}/conf.default
DB_LOGS_DIR MariaDB logs directory. ${DB_BASE_DIR}/logs
DB_TMP_DIR MariaDB directory for temporary files. ${DB_BASE_DIR}/tmp
DB_CONF_FILE Main MariaDB configuration file. ${DB_CONF_DIR}/my.cnf
DB_PID_FILE MariaDB PID file. ${DB_TMP_DIR}/mysqld.pid
DB_SOCKET_FILE MariaDB Server socket file. ${DB_TMP_DIR}/mysql.sock
DB_DAEMON_USER Users that will execute the MariaDB Server process. mysql
DB_DAEMON_GROUP Group that will execute the MariaDB Server process. mysql
MARIADB_DEFAULT_PORT_NUMBER Default port number to use for the MariaDB Server service. 3306
MARIADB_DEFAULT_CHARACTER_SET Default MariaDB character set. utf8mb4
MARIADB_DEFAULT_BIND_ADDRESS Default MariaDB bind address. 0.0.0.0

Initializing a new instance

When the container is executed for the first time, it will execute the files with extensions .sh, .sql and .sql.gz located at /docker-entrypoint-startdb.d.

In order to have your custom files inside the docker image you can mount them as a volume.

Take into account those scripts are treated differently depending on the extension. While the .sh scripts are executed in all the nodes; the .sql and .sql.gz scripts are only executed in the master nodes. The reason behind this differentiation is that the .sh scripts allow adding conditions to determine what is the node running the script, while these conditions can't be set using .sql nor sql.gz files. This way it is possible to cover different use cases depending on their needs.

NOTE: If you are importing large databases, it is recommended to import them as .sql instead of .sql.gz, as the latter one needs to be decompressed on the fly and not allowing for additional optimizations to import large files.

Passing extra command-line flags to mysqld startup

Passing extra command-line flags to the mysqld service command is possible through the following env var:

  • MARIADB_EXTRA_FLAGS: Flags to be appended to the startup command. No defaults
docker run --name mariadb -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes -e MARIADB_EXTRA_FLAGS='--max-connect-errors=1000 --max_connections=155' bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
      - MARIADB_EXTRA_FLAGS=--max-connect-errors=1000 --max_connections=155
  ...

Setting character set and collation

It is possible to configure the character set and collation used by default by the database with the following environment variables:

  • MARIADB_CHARACTER_SET: The default character set to use. Default: utf8
  • MARIADB_COLLATE: The default collation to use. Default: utf8_general_ci

Setting the root password on first run

The root user and password can easily be setup with the Bitnami MariaDB Docker image using the following environment variables:

  • MARIADB_ROOT_USER: The database admin user. Defaults to root.
  • MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD: The database admin user password. No defaults.
  • MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the admin user password. This will override the value specified in MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD. No defaults.

Passing the MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD environment variable when running the image for the first time will set the password of the MARIADB_ROOT_USER user to the value of MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD.

docker run --name mariadb -e MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=password123 bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    environment:
      - MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=password123
  ...

Warning The MARIADB_ROOT_USER user is always created with remote access. It's suggested that the MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD env variable is always specified to set a password for the MARIADB_ROOT_USER user. In case you want to allow the MARIADB_ROOT_USER user to access the database without a password set the environment variable ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes. This is recommended only for development.

Allowing empty passwords

By default the MariaDB image expects all the available passwords to be set. In order to allow empty passwords, it is necessary to set the ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes env variable. This env variable is only recommended for testing or development purposes. We strongly recommend specifying the MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD for any other scenario.

docker run --name mariadb -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
  ...

Creating a database on first run

By passing the MARIADB_DATABASE environment variable when running the image for the first time, a database will be created. This is useful if your application requires that a database already exists, saving you from having to manually create the database using the MySQL client.

docker run --name mariadb \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    -e MARIADB_DATABASE=my_database \
    bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
      - MARIADB_DATABASE=my_database
  ...

Creating a database user on first run

You can create a restricted database user that only has permissions for the database created with the MARIADB_DATABASE environment variable. To do this, provide the MARIADB_USER environment variable and to set a password for the database user provide the MARIADB_PASSWORD variable (alternatively, you can set the MARIADB_PASSWORD_FILE with the path to a file that contains the user password). MariaDB supports different authentication mechanisms, such as pam or mysql_native_password. To set it, use the MARIADB_AUTHENTICATION_PLUGIN variable.

docker run --name mariadb \
  -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
  -e MARIADB_USER=my_user \
  -e MARIADB_PASSWORD=my_password \
  -e MARIADB_DATABASE=my_database \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
      - MARIADB_USER=my_user
      - MARIADB_PASSWORD=my_password
      - MARIADB_DATABASE=my_database
  ...

Note! The root user will be created with remote access and without a password if ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD is enabled. Please provide the MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD env variable instead if you want to set a password for the root user.

Disable creation of test database

By default MariaDB creates a test database. In order to disable the creation of this test database, the flag --skip-test-db can be passed to mysql_install_db. This function is only on MariaDB >= 10.5.

To disable the test database in the Bitnami MariaDB container, set the MARIADB_SKIP_TEST_DB environment variable to yes during the first boot of the container.

docker run --name mariadb \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    -e MARIADB_SKIP_TEST_DB=yes \
    bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    environment:
      - ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes
      - MARIADB_SKIP_TEST_DB=yes
  ...

Slow query logs

By default MariaDB doesn't enable slow query log to record the SQL queries that take a long time to perform. You can modify these settings using the following environment variables:

  • MARIADB_ENABLE_SLOW_QUERY: Whether to enable slow query logs. Default: 0
  • MARIADB_LONG_QUERY_TIME: How much time, in seconds, defines a slow query. Default: 10.0

Slow queries information is logged to the <data-dir>/<hostname>-slow.log file by default, and you can easily check it with the mysqldumpslow tool (link to docs):

$ docker run -d -e MARIADB_ENABLE_SLOW_QUERY=1 -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes --name my-mariadb-container bitnami/mariadb
# wait a bit for the initialization process...
$ docker exec -it my-mariadb-container mysqldumpslow
Reading mysql slow query log from /bitnami/mariadb/data/<hostname>-slow.log
Count: 1  Time=0.01s (0s)  Lock=0.00s (0s)  Rows=0.0 (0), root[root]@localhost
  GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'S'@'S' WITH GRANT OPTION

Count: 1  Time=0.01s (0s)  Lock=0.00s (0s)  Rows=0.0 (0), root[root]@localhost
  CREATE USER 'S'@'S'

Count: 1  Time=0.01s (0s)  Lock=0.00s (0s)  Rows=0.0 (0), root[root]@localhost
  DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE user not in ('S','S')

Count: 1  Time=0.00s (0s)  Lock=0.00s (0s)  Rows=0.0 (0), root[root]@localhost
  flush privileges
(...)

Slow filesystems

In some platforms, the filesystem used for persistence could be slow. That could cause the database to take extra time to be ready. If that's the case, you can configure the MARIADB_INIT_SLEEP_TIME environment variable to make the initialization script to wait extra time (in seconds) before proceeding with the configuration operations.

Setting up a replication cluster

A zero downtime MariaDB master-slave replication cluster can easily be setup with the Bitnami MariaDB Docker image using the following environment variables:

  • MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE: The replication mode. Possible values master/slave. No defaults.
  • MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER: The replication user created on the master on first run. No defaults.
  • MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD: The replication users password. No defaults.
  • MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the replication user password. This will override the value specified in MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD. No defaults.
  • MARIADB_MASTER_HOST: Hostname/IP of replication master (slave parameter). No defaults.
  • MARIADB_MASTER_PORT_NUMBER: Server port of the replication master (slave parameter). Defaults to 3306.
  • MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_USER: User on replication master with access to MARIADB_DATABASE (slave parameter). Defaults to root
  • MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD: Password of user on replication master with access to MARIADB_DATABASE (slave parameter). No defaults.
  • MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD_FILE: Path to a file that contains the password of user on replication master with access to MARIADB_DATABASE. This will override the value specified in MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD. No defaults.
  • MARIADB_MASTER_DELAY: The database replication delay (slave parameter). Defaults to 0.

In a replication cluster you can have one master and zero or more slaves. When replication is enabled the master node is in read-write mode, while the slaves are in read-only mode. For best performance its advisable to limit the reads to the slaves.

Note: you can use the mariadb-galera image to set up a master-master replication cluster

Step 1: Create the replication master

The first step is to start the MariaDB master.

docker run --name mariadb-master \
  -e MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=master_root_password \
  -e MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE=master \
  -e MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER=my_repl_user \
  -e MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD=my_repl_password \
  -e MARIADB_USER=my_user \
  -e MARIADB_PASSWORD=my_password \
  -e MARIADB_DATABASE=my_database \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

In the above command the container is configured as the master using the MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE parameter. A replication user is specified using the MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER and MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD parameters.

Step 2: Create the replication slave

Next we start a MariaDB slave container.

docker run --name mariadb-slave --link mariadb-master:master \
  -e MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE=slave \
  -e MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER=my_repl_user \
  -e MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD=my_repl_password \
  -e MARIADB_MASTER_HOST=master \
  -e MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD=master_root_password \
  bitnami/mariadb:latest

In the above command the container is configured as a slave using the MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE parameter. The MARIADB_MASTER_HOST, MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_USER and MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD parameters are used by the slave to connect to the master. It also takes a dump of the existing data in the master server. The replication user credentials are specified using the MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER and MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD parameters and should be the same as the one specified on the master.

You now have a two node MariaDB master/slave replication cluster up and running. You can scale the cluster by adding/removing slaves without incurring any downtime.

With Docker Compose the master/slave replication can be setup using:

version: '2'

services:
  mariadb-master:
    image: bitnami/mariadb:latest
    ports:
      - 3306
    volumes:
      - /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb
    environment:
      - MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE=master
      - MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER=repl_user
      - MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD=repl_password
      - MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD=master_root_password
      - MARIADB_USER=my_user
      - MARIADB_PASSWORD=my_password
      - MARIADB_DATABASE=my_database
  mariadb-slave:
    image: bitnami/mariadb:latest
    ports:
      - 3306
    depends_on:
      - mariadb-master
    environment:
      - MARIADB_REPLICATION_MODE=slave
      - MARIADB_REPLICATION_USER=repl_user
      - MARIADB_REPLICATION_PASSWORD=repl_password
      - MARIADB_MASTER_HOST=mariadb-master
      - MARIADB_MASTER_PORT_NUMBER=3306
      - MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD=master_root_password

Scale the number of slaves using:

docker-compose up --detach --scale mariadb-master=1 --scale mariadb-slave=3

The above command scales up the number of slaves to 3. You can scale down in the same manner.

Note: You should not scale up/down the number of master nodes. Always have only one master node running.

Configuration file

The image looks for user-defined configurations in /opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my_custom.cnf. Create a file named my_custom.cnf and mount it at /opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my_custom.cnf.

For example, in order to override the max_allowed_packet directive:

Step 1: Write your my_custom.cnf file with the following content

[mysqld]
max_allowed_packet=32M

Step 2: Run the mariaDB image with the designed volume attached

docker run --name mariadb \
    -p 3306:3306 \
    -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes \
    -v /path/to/my_custom.cnf:/opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my_custom.cnf:ro \
    -v /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb \
    bitnami/mariadb:latest

or by modifying the docker-compose.yml file present in this repository:

services:
  mariadb:
  ...
    volumes:
      - /path/to/my_custom.cnf:/opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my_custom.cnf:ro
      - /path/to/mariadb-persistence:/bitnami/mariadb
  ...

After that, your changes will be taken into account in the server's behaviour.

Refer to the MariaDB server option and variable reference guide for the complete list of configuration options.

Overwrite the main Configuration file

It is also possible to use your custom my.cnf and overwrite the main configuration file.

docker run --name mariadb  -e ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes -v /path/to/my.cnf:/opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my.cnf:ro bitnami/mariadb:latest

Customize this image

The Bitnami MariaDB Docker image is designed to be extended so it can be used as the base image for your custom configuration.

Extend this image

Before extending this image, please note there are certain configuration settings you can modify using the original image:

  • Settings that can be adapted using environment variables. For instance, you can change the ports used by MariaDB, by setting the environment variables MARIADB_PORT_NUMBER or the character set using MARIADB_CHARACTER_SET respectively.

If your desired customizations cannot be covered using the methods mentioned above, extend the image. To do so, create your own image using a Dockerfile with the format below:

FROM bitnami/mariadb
### Put your customizations below
...

Here is an example of extending the image with the following modifications:

  • Install the vim editor
  • Modify the MariaDB configuration file
  • Modify the ports used by MariaDB
  • Change the user that runs the container
FROM bitnami/mariadb

### Change user to perform privileged actions
USER 0
### Install 'vim'
RUN install_packages vim
### Revert to the original non-root user
USER 1001

### modify configuration file.
RUN ini-file set --section "mysqld" --key "collation-server" --value "utf8_general_ci" "/opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my.cnf"

### Modify the ports used by MariaDB by default
## It is also possible to change these environment variables at runtime
ENV MARIADB_PORT_NUMBER=3307
EXPOSE 3307

### Modify the default container user
USER 1002

Based on the extended image, you can use a Docker Compose file like the one below to add other features:

  • Add a custom configuration
version: '2'

services:
  mariadb:
    build: .
    ports:
      - 3306:3307
    volumes:
      - /path/to/my_custom.cnf:/opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my_custom.cnf:ro
      - data:/bitnami/mariadb/data
volumes:
  data:
    driver: local

Logging

The Bitnami MariaDB Docker image sends the container logs to the stdout. To view the logs:

docker logs mariadb

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose logs mariadb

To increase the verbosity on intialization or add extra debug information, you can assign the BITNAMI_DEBUG environment variable to true.

You can configure the containers logging driver using the --log-driver option if you wish to consume the container logs differently. In the default configuration docker uses the json-file driver.

Maintenance

Upgrade this image

Bitnami provides up-to-date versions of MariaDB, including security patches, soon after they are made upstream. We recommend that you follow these steps to upgrade your container.

Step 1: Get the updated image

docker pull bitnami/mariadb:latest

or if you're using Docker Compose, update the value of the image property to bitnami/mariadb:latest.

Step 2: Stop and backup the currently running container

Stop the currently running container using the command

docker stop mariadb

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose stop mariadb

Next, take a snapshot of the persistent volume /path/to/mariadb-persistence using:

rsync -a /path/to/mariadb-persistence /path/to/mariadb-persistence.bkp.$(date +%Y%m%d-%H.%M.%S)

You can use this snapshot to restore the database state should the upgrade fail.

Step 3: Remove the currently running container

docker rm -v mariadb

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose rm -v mariadb

Step 4: Run the new image

Re-create your container from the new image.

docker run --name mariadb bitnami/mariadb:latest

or using Docker Compose:

docker-compose up mariadb

Note: Automatic upgrade behavior at startup can be forced setting the env var MARIADB_UPGRADE to FORCE (that will run mysql_upgrade --force)

Useful Links

Notable Changes

10.4.34-debian-12-r4, 10.5.25-debian-12-r4, 10.6.18-debian-12-r4, 10.11.8-debian-12-r4, 11.1.5-debian-12-r4, 11.2.4-debian-12-r3, 11.3.2-debian-12-r8

  • mysql_upgrade can be forced at startup setting the env var MARIADB_UPGRADE to FORCE.

10.2.41-debian-10-r12, 10.3.32-debian-10-r13, 10.4.22-debian-10-r13, 10.5.13-debian-10-r14, 10.6.5-debian-10-r13, 10.3.38-debian-11-r5, 10.4.28-debian-11-r5, 10.5.19-debian-11-r5, 10.6.12-debian-11-r5, 10.7.8-debian-11-r5, 10.8.7-debian-11-r5, 10.9.5-debian-11-r5 and 10.10.3-debian-11-r6

  • The command mysql_upgrade no longer includes the flag --force. Nonetheless, it can be enabled by using the [mysql_upgrade] option group in the MariaDB configuration.

10.4.13-debian-10-r12, 10.3.23-debian-10-r14, 10.2.32-debian-10-r14 and 10.1.45-debian-10-r15

  • This image has been adapted so it's easier to customize. See the Customize this image section for more information.

10.1.36-r14 and 10.2.27-r36

  • Decrease the size of the container. It is not necessary Node.js anymore. MariaDB configuration moved to bash scripts in the rootfs/ folder.
  • The recommended mount point to persist data changes to /bitnami/mariadb.
  • The MariaDB configuration files are not persisted in a volume anymore. Now, they can be found at /opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf.
  • Backwards compatibility is not guaranteed when data is persisted using docker-compose. You can use the workaround below to overcome it:
$ docker-compose down
## Change the mount point
sed -i -e 's#mariadb_data:/bitnami#mariadb_data:/bitnami/mariadb#g' docker-compose.yml
## Pull the latest bitnami/mariadb image
$ docker pull bitnami/mariadb:latest
$ docker-compose up -d

10.1.28-r2 and 10.2.16-r2

  • The MariaDB container has been migrated to a non-root user approach. Previously the container ran as the root user and the MariaDB daemon was started as the mysql user. From now on, both the container and the MariaDB daemon run as user 1001. As a consequence, the data directory must be writable by that user. You can revert this behavior by changing USER 1001 to USER root in the Dockerfile.

10.2.14-r2 and 10.1.32-r1

  • The mariadb conf file is not in a persistent volume by default.

  • The user is able to specify a custom file in the default location '/opt/bitnami/mariadb/conf/my.cnf'.

10.1.28-r2

  • The mariadb container has been migrated to a non-root container approach. Previously the container run as root user and the mariadb daemon was started as mysql user. From now own, both the container and the mariadb daemon run as user 1001. As a consequence, the configuration files are writable by the user running the mariadb process.

10.1.24-r2

  • VOLUME instruction has been removed from the Dockerfile.

10.1.21-r2

  • MARIADB_MASTER_USER has been renamed to MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_USER
  • MARIADB_MASTER_PASSWORD has been renamed to MARIADB_MASTER_ROOT_PASSWORD
  • MARIADB_ROOT_USER has been added to the available env variables. It can be used to specify the admin user.
  • ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD has been added to the available env variables. It can be used to allow blank passwords for MariaDB.
  • By default the MariaDB image requires a root password to start. You can specify it using the MARIADB_ROOT_PASSWORD env variable or disable this requirement by setting the ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD env variable to yes (testing or development scenarios).

10.1.13-r0

  • All volumes have been merged at /bitnami/mariadb. Now you only need to mount a single volume at /bitnami/mariadb for persistence.
  • The logs are always sent to the stdout and are no longer collected in the volume.

Using docker-compose.yaml

Please be aware this file has not undergone internal testing. Consequently, we advise its use exclusively for development or testing purposes. For production-ready deployments, we highly recommend utilizing its associated Bitnami Helm chart.

If you detect any issue in the docker-compose.yaml file, feel free to report it or contribute with a fix by following our Contributing Guidelines.

Contributing

We'd love for you to contribute to this container. You can request new features by creating an issue or submitting a pull request with your contribution.

Issues

If you encountered a problem running this container, you can file an issue. For us to provide better support, be sure to fill the issue template.

License

Copyright © 2025 Broadcom. The term "Broadcom" refers to Broadcom Inc. and/or its subsidiaries.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.