Initialize Tinode Server with Custom Data

[Deena Sun]

Hello! I am trying to set up my own Tinode Server with a MySQL database. I am using the basic docker-compose file for a single instance from the GitHub. I changed just a few things, such as using mysql:8.0. I am able to access Tinode through localhost:6060 on my computer, and I see that I can log in as alice and view some messages. Is there a way I can set up the Tinode server to fill the database with my own custom data and fake users rather than the sandbox users?

Thank you!

[Gene]

Sure, follow instructions here:

https://github.com/tinode/chat/tree/master/docker

Specifically, look at SAMPLE_DATA variable and https://github.com/tinode/chat/blob/master/tinode-db/data.json 

[Deena Sun]

Thanks Gene! I’ll give this a try.

I had a quick follow up question. I'm trying to follow the least access principle model by creating a MySQL database with a dedicated "tinode" user/password. But when I set up my docker configuration file like this:

services:

db:

image: mysql:8.0

container_name: mysql

restart: always

# Use your own volume.

# volumes:

# - <mysql directory in your file system>:/var/lib/mysql

environment:

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: root

MYSQL_DATABASE: tinode

MYSQL_USER: tinode

MYSQL_PASSWORD: tinode

healthcheck:

test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin" ,"ping", "-h", "localhost", "-utinode", "-ptinode"]

timeout: 5s

retries: 10

networks:

- private_net

tinode-server:

image: tinode/tinode-mysql:0.23

platform: linux/amd64

container_name: tinode-server

hostname: tinode-server

depends_on:

- db

restart: always

# You can mount your volumes as necessary:

# volumes:

# # E.g. external config (assuming EXT_CONFIG is set).

# - <path to your tinode.conf>:/etc/tinode/tinode.conf

# # Logs directory.

# - <path to your tinode-0 logs directory>:/var/log

ports:

- "6060:6060"

environment:

MYSQL_DSN: tinode:tinode@tcp(db)/tinode

RESET_DB: true

WAIT_FOR: db:3306

networks:

- private_net

- shared_net

networks:

private_net:

driver: bridge

internal: true

shared_net:

My tinode-server container is unable to start properly because of this error:
```
tinode-server  | 2025/07/26 16:51:56 Database adapter: 'mysql'; version: 113
tinode-server  | 2025/07/26 16:51:56 Database not found. Creating.
tinode-server  | 2025/07/26 16:51:56 Failure: Error 1007 (HY000): Can't create database 'tinode'; database exists
tinode-server  | ./init-db failed. Quitting.

```

I assume this is because in the db service, we already create a database with the name "tinode" via the MYSQL_DATABASE environment variable. But I thought this was necessary to specify so that the MYSQL_USER gets properly created with admin access to the MYSQL_DATABASE.

Is there a way I can set up my docker-compose such that my Tinode server connects via a dedicated user to the MySQL container?

[Deena Sun]

I've tried a few variations with setting "REST_DB" to false in my docker-compose file, which still results in the same error.

environment:

MYSQL_DSN: tinode:tinode@tcp(db)/tinode

RESET_DB: false

WAIT_FOR: db:3306

When I instead try to add NO_DB_INIT, I get an error saying "Database not found."

environment:

MYSQL_DSN: tinode:tinode@tcp(db)/tinode

RESET_DB: true

WAIT_FOR: db:3306

NO_DB_INIT: true

 
As a follow-up, if I add "NO_DB_INIT" does that also prevent me from being able to prepopulate MySQL with the data.json we were talking about earlier? What kind of actions does .init-db handle? (I wasn't able to find the init-db file directly in the Tinode chat GitHub repo)

[Gene]

The user which creates the tinode database (runs init-db) should have permission to create the database.

Then you can run tinode server as a user with just read-write permissions.  

[Deena Sun]

If I start the MySQL database and the Tinode server with a docker compose up command, does the Tinode server container try to log in as the "tinode" user (based on ths DSN I've set in my docker-compose file) and create the "tinode" database based on this schema.sql? If I simply try to connect to the MySQL container by using `docker exec -it mysql mysql -u tinode -p` I'm able to log in and perform actions on the "tinode" server.

I found that if I add this command under the db service, the init-db script that the Tinode server container runs seems to work.

db:

image: mysql:8.0

container_name: mysql

restart: always

# Use your own volume.

# volumes:

# - <mysql directory in your file system>:/var/lib/mysql

command: >

bash -c "

docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld &

sleep 5 &&

mysql -u root -p${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD} -e \"DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS ${MYSQL_DATABASE}; GRANT CREATE ON *.* TO '${MYSQL_USER}'@'%'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;\" &&

wait

"

But for some reason, init-db within the tinode-server container seems to fail with the message that it can't create the database 'tinode' because it already exists if I don't first drop the database via a separate command in the MySQL container.

[Gene]

On Sunday, July 27, 2025 at 7:01:07 PM UTC+3 Deena Sun wrote:

If I start the MySQL database and the Tinode server with a docker compose up command, does the Tinode server container try to log in as the "tinode" user (based on ths DSN I've set in my docker-compose file) and create the "tinode" database based on this schema.sql? If I simply try to connect to the MySQL container by using `docker exec -it mysql mysql -u tinode -p` I'm able to log in and perform actions on the "tinode" server.

I found that if I add this command under the db service, the init-db script that the Tinode server container runs seems to work.

db:

image: mysql:8.0

container_name: mysql

restart: always

# Use your own volume.

# volumes:

# - <mysql directory in your file system>:/var/lib/mysql

command: >

bash -c "

docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld &

sleep 5 &&

mysql -u root -p${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD} -e \"DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS ${MYSQL_DATABASE}; GRANT CREATE ON *.* TO '${MYSQL_USER}'@'%'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;\" &&

wait

"

But for some reason, init-db within the tinode-server container seems to fail with the message that it can't create the database 'tinode' because it already exists if I don't first drop the database via a separate command in the MySQL container.

If the database already exists and you want to drop and recreate it, then you need to set RESET_DB=true.

[Deena Sun]

I do currently have REST_DB=true in my docker-compose. If I try to compose the db and tinode-server and comment out the command under the "db" service to drop the tinode database, I still receive the following error log:

```

tinode-server  | db (172.20.0.2:3306) open
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Database adapter: 'mysql'; version: 113
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Database not found. Creating.
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Failure: Error 1007 (HY000): Can't create database 'tinode'; database exists
tinode-server  | ./init-db failed. Quitting.
tinode-server exited with code 0
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Database adapter: 'mysql'; version: 113
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Database not found. Creating.
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Failure: Error 1007 (HY000): Can't create database 'tinode'; database exists
tinode-server  | ./init-db failed. Quitting.
tinode-server exited with code 1

```

For reference, here is what my docker-compose file looks like:

services:

db:

image: mysql:8.0

container_name: mysql

restart: always

# command: >

# bash -c "

# docker-entrypoint.sh mysqld &

# sleep 5 &&

# mysql -u root -p${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD} -e \"DROP DATABASE IF EXISTS ${MYSQL_DATABASE}; GRANT CREATE ON *.* TO '${MYSQL_USER}'@'%'; FLUSH PRIVILEGES;\" &&

# wait

# "

environment:

MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD}

MYSQL_USER: ${MYSQL_USER}

MYSQL_PASSWORD: ${MYSQL_PASSWORD}

MYSQL_DATABASE: ${MYSQL_DATABASE}

healthcheck:

test: ["CMD", "mysqladmin" ,"ping", "-h", "localhost", "-u${MYSQL_USER}", "-p${MYSQL_PASSWORD}"]

timeout: 5s

retries: 10

networks:

- private_net

tinode-server:

image: tinode/tinode-mysql:0.23

platform: linux/amd64

container_name: tinode-server

hostname: tinode-server

depends_on:

db:

condition: service_healthy

restart: always

volumes:

- ./data.json:/opt/tinode/data.json

ports:

- "6060:6060"

environment:

MYSQL_DSN: ${TINODE_MYSQL_DSN}

RESET_DB: true

WAIT_FOR: db:3306

SAMPLE_DATA: "/opt/tinode/data.json"

networks:

- private_net

- shared_net

networks:

private_net:

driver: bridge

internal: true

shared_net:

[Gene S]

On Sun, Jul 27, 2025 at 7:31 PM 'Deena Sun' via Tinode General <tin...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I do currently have REST_DB=true in my docker-compose. If I try to compose the db and tinode-server and comment out the command under the "db" service to drop the tinode database, I still receive the following error log:

```

tinode-server  | db (172.20.0.2:3306) open
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Database adapter: 'mysql'; version: 113
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Database not found. Creating.
tinode-server  | 2025/07/27 16:29:11 Failure: Error 1007 (HY000): Can't create database 'tinode'; database exists

You have an empty database named 'tinode', not an existing 'tinode' database. Existence of database is checked by reading from the table kvmeta.

If you want to do something custom, then please read the code.

 

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