Docker: correct way of persisting container data to host - mysql

Question

I'm using OSX and running docker over a Boot2docker VM.
I've been trying to figure out how to persist a container's data (MySQL official docker image) to the host but without much success.
I keep receiving an error stating that the /var/lib/mysql directory that the MySQL service is trying to write to is not accessible.
docker run -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=12345 -v "$(pwd)/.docker-volumes/mysql:/var/lib/mysql" mysql:5.6
Looking at the permissions of the mounted library in the container, this is what I see:
root#mysql:/# ls -la /var/lib/
total 44
drwxr-xr-x 16 root root 4096 Jan 27 18:35 .
drwxr-xr-x 18 root root 4096 Jan 27 18:35 ..
drwxr-xr-x 7 root root 4096 Jan 27 18:35 apt
drwxr-xr-x 14 root root 4096 Jan 27 18:35 dpkg
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 14 2013 initscripts
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 14 2013 insserv
drwxrwsr-x 2 libuuid libuuid 4096 Dec 11 2012 libuuid
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Dec 24 13:41 misc
drwxr-xr-x 1 1000 staff 102 Feb 4 15:10 mysql
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jan 27 16:48 pam
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Nov 23 2012 update-rc.d
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 Jul 14 2013 urandom
As you can see, the mysql directory is owned by 1000 and belongs to the group 'staff'.
My assumption is that the service process running MySQL is probably set to another user (mysql) and therefore I get this error.
I've read that this specific issue can be solved using volume data containers, but since they persist the data only until the last container actually uses their volume, It's not a good solution for me.
Am I approaching this in the wrong way?
Thanks.

Answer 1

You're definitely better off using a data-volume container, I do the same thing with local psql and couchdb databases. The data actually persists, it's just not accessible unless you link the volume to a container. To actually force the volume to be removed you have to specify docker rm -v, that will remove the data volume if no other container is linked to it.