Can't get MariaDB docker to work without password

Question

I want to add MariaDB to my docker compose file, like this:

version: '3'
services:
    mariadb:
        image: 'mariadb:10.3'
        ports:
            - "3306:3306"
        volumes:
            - "${PWD}/data/mariadb:/var/lib/mysql:rw"
        environment:
            MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: 'rootpass'
            MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD: 'yes'
            MYSQL_USER: 'dev'

Now I can connect using -uroot -p and entering the rootpass password, but I can't connect using -udev and no password. It says:

ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user 'dev'@'172.31.0.1' (using password: NO)

I also tried adding MYSQL_PASSWORD: ~ or MYSQL_PASSWORD: '' to the environment variables, but that also doesn't work.

It works when I add an actual password MYSQL_PASSWORD: 'dev', but I can't get it working without password. Does anyone know the magic combination of env vars?

The reason I want to achieve this, is because my team has this set up currently in a different way and everyone has a .my.cnf file containing user=dev and password=. So it would be nice if everyone could keep this local config unchanged.

Answer 1

The code from the entrypoint is:

    if  [ -n "$MARIADB_PASSWORD" ] || [ -n "$MARIADB_PASSWORD_HASH" ] && [ -n "$MARIADB_USER" ]; then
        mysql_note "Creating user ${MARIADB_USER}"
        if [ -n "$MARIADB_PASSWORD_HASH" ]; then
            createUser="CREATE USER '$MARIADB_USER'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY PASSWORD '$MARIADB_PASSWORD_HASH';"
        else
            # SQL escape the user password, \ followed by '
            local userPasswordEscaped
            userPasswordEscaped=$( docker_sql_escape_string_literal "${MARIADB_PASSWORD}" )
            createUser="CREATE USER '$MARIADB_USER'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY '$userPasswordEscaped';"
        fi

        if [ -n "$MARIADB_DATABASE" ]; then
            mysql_note "Giving user ${MARIADB_USER} access to schema ${MARIADB_DATABASE}"
            userGrants="GRANT ALL ON \`${MARIADB_DATABASE//_/\\_}\`.* TO '$MARIADB_USER'@'%';"
        fi
    fi

So the MARIADB_PASSWORD (and the old MYSQL_PASSWORD that gets copied to MARIADB_PASSWORD) must not be empty for it to create a user.

MARIADB_ALLOW_EMPTY_ROOT_PASSWORD (aka MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD) only ever applied to the root password hence the name change.

One way is to use the /docker-entrypoint-initdb.d to have a reset_pass.sql file:

SET PASSWORD FOR dev@`%` = PASSWORD('')