How to Deploy Spring Boot Application with MySQL Database with Docker

Updated August 2026 — full tutorial restored for this URL.

This tutorial shows how to run a Spring Boot API and MySQL together with Docker Compose — the setup I use for demos and simple VPS deploys.

See also: Multi-stage Dockerfile with Spring Boot and PostgreSQL.

1. Prerequisites
2. application.properties for containers
3. Dockerfile
4. docker-compose.yml
5. Build, run, verify

1. Prerequisites

• Docker + Docker Compose installed
• A Spring Boot app that already talks to MySQL locally

2. application.properties for containers

spring.datasource.url=jdbc:mysql://mysql:3306/appdb?createDatabaseIfNotExist=true&useSSL=false&allowPublicKeyRetrieval=true
spring.datasource.username=app
spring.datasource.password=secret
spring.jpa.hibernate.ddl-auto=update
server.port=8080

Hostname mysql matches the Compose service name (Docker DNS).

3. Dockerfile

FROM eclipse-temurin:17-jdk AS build
WORKDIR /app
COPY . .
RUN ./mvnw -DskipTests package

FROM eclipse-temurin:17-jre
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=build /app/target/*.jar app.jar
EXPOSE 8080
ENTRYPOINT ["java","-jar","/app/app.jar"]

4. docker-compose.yml

services:
  mysql:
    image: mysql:8.0
    environment:
      MYSQL_DATABASE: appdb
      MYSQL_USER: app
      MYSQL_PASSWORD: secret
      MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: rootsecret
    ports:
      - "3306:3306"
    volumes:
      - mysql_data:/var/lib/mysql
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin", "ping", "-h", "localhost"]
      interval: 5s
      retries: 10

  api:
    build: .
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    depends_on:
      mysql:
        condition: service_healthy

volumes:
  mysql_data:

5. Build, run, verify

docker compose up --build
curl http://localhost:8080/actuator/health   # or your own endpoint

Common fixes: wait for MySQL healthy before the app starts; match JDBC URL host to service name; persist data with a named volume.