Connect to a Docker database hosted in your home server from outside your home network

Content

Connect to a Docker database

Step 1: Spin up a MySQL Docker database

Step 2: Connect to the database locally

Step 3: Find your IP

Step 4: Open a port

Step 5: Connect database from the internet

Requirements

Assumptions

• You know how to host and connect to a MySQL docker database locally (within your home network)
• You know how to do a port forwarding. Read more about the port forwarding on howtogeek.com.

Operating system

Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. I am using this operating system. The concept below should be applicable to any other Linux system.

Caution: This article is just for learning purposes. Do close the port once you are done experimenting.

Step 1: Spin up a MySQL Docker database

Use docker run command to spin up a Docker database. The -p option will bind the MySQL container's default port, 3306, to the port 23306 on your Docker host machine.

                
                
docker run --name mysqltest -p 23306:3306 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=rootpass -d mysql:8
            

Tips

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During port forwarding, you will use this port, 23306, as an internal port.

Step 2: Connect to the database locally

Use the code below to connect the database locally.

                
                
mysql -h 127.0.0.1 --port 23306 -uroot -prootpass -e 'show databases;'
            

Example:

Tips

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You will need to wait till the database is ready.

Step 3: Find your IP

Find your IP address. You can use whatismyipaddress.com, but my favorite is curl ifconfig.me in a command terminal.

Tips

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Learn to install ifconfig on Ubuntu/Debian from linuxize.com

Step 4: Open a port

Open a port (i.e., external port) in your router and map it to your internal port (your host machine, for us it's 23306). The external port is of your choice. You can keep both internal and external ports as 23306 to keep things easy for now.

Tips

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If you are using a spectrum wifi, use this article from spectrum to follow spectrum guidelines on how to do a port forwarding.

Step 5: Connect database from the internet

Well I hope this is why you are here. Now you want to access this database from outside your network. Two approaches are listed below:

1. Option 1: Get on the network outside yours such as of your friends.
2. Option 2: Or, you can use a cloud shell on the google cloud shell. This guarantees that you are out on the internet.

Connect database from the internet

                
                
mysql -h youripaddress --port exposed-port-from-router -uroot -prootpass -e 'show databases;'
            

Example:

Tips

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Learn to launch Google Cloud Shell.

Troubleshooting

If you try to locally connect to the docker database over the internet (using your ip address), and the connection fails, you might need to do hole punching.