Access host database from a docker container

Question

If I have a mysql database running on some host machine, and that host is also running a docker container: How would I access the mysql database from within the docker container that is running on the host?.

For instance, is there a way to publish a hosts port to the container (the inverse of what docker run -p does)?

Answer 1

From the 18.03 docs:

I want to connect from a container to a service on the host

The host has a changing IP address (or none if you have no network access). From 18.03 onwards our recommendation is to connect to the special DNS name host.docker.internal, which resolves to the internal IP address used by the host.

The gateway is also reachable as gateway.docker.internal.

EXAMPLE: Here's what I use for my MySQL connection string inside my container to access the MySQL instance on my host:

mysql://host.docker.internal:3306/my_awesome_database