MySQL & MariaDB

Detailed information on the MySQL state store component

Component format

The MySQL state store components allows connecting to both MySQL and MariaDB databases. In this document, we refer to “MySQL” to indicate both databases.

To setup MySQL state store create a component of type state.mysql. See this guide on how to create and apply a state store configuration.

  1. apiVersion: dapr.io/v1alpha1
  2. kind: Component
  3. metadata:
  4.   name: <NAME>
  5. spec:
  6.   type: state.mysql
  7.   version: v1
  8.   metadata:
  9.   - name: connectionString
  10.     value: "<CONNECTION STRING>"
  11.   - name: schemaName
  12.     value: "<SCHEMA NAME>"
  13.   - name: tableName
  14.     value: "<TABLE NAME>"
  15.   - name: timeoutInSeconds
  16.     value: "30"
  17.   - name: pemPath # Required if pemContents not provided. Path to pem file.
  18.     value: "<PEM PATH>"
  19.   - name: pemContents # Required if pemPath not provided. Pem value.
  20.     value: "<PEM CONTENTS>"

Warning

The above example uses secrets as plain strings. It is recommended to use a secret store for the secrets as described here.

If you wish to use MySQL as an actor store, append the following to the yaml.

  1.   - name: actorStateStore
  2.     value: "true"

Spec metadata fields

FieldRequiredDetailsExample
connectionStringYThe connection string to connect to MySQL. Do not add the schema to the connection stringNon SSL connection: “<user>:<password>@tcp(<server>:3306)/?allowNativePasswords=true”, Enforced SSL Connection: “<user>:<password>@tcp(<server>:3306)/?allowNativePasswords=true&tls=custom”
schemaNameNThe schema name to use. Will be created if schema does not exist. Defaults to “dapr_state_store”“custom_schema”, “dapr_schema”
tableNameNThe table name to use. Will be created if table does not exist. Defaults to “state”“table_name”, “dapr_state”
timeoutInSecondsNTimeout for all database operations. Defaults to 2030
pemPathNFull path to the PEM file to use for enforced SSL Connection required if pemContents is not provided. Cannot be used in K8s environment“/path/to/file.pem”, “C:\path\to\file.pem”
pemContentsNContents of PEM file to use for enforced SSL Connection required if pemPath is not provided. Can be used in K8s environment“pem value”
cleanupIntervalInSecondsNInterval, in seconds, to clean up rows with an expired TTL. Default: 3600 (that is 1 hour). Setting this to values <=0 disables the periodic cleanup.1800, -1

Setup MySQL

Dapr can use any MySQL instance - containerized, running on your local dev machine, or a managed cloud service.

Run an instance of MySQL. You can run a local instance of MySQL in Docker CE with the following command:

This example does not describe a production configuration because it sets the password in plain text and the user name is left as the MySQL default of “root”.

  1. docker run --name dapr-mysql -p 3306:3306 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=my-secret-pw -d mysql:latest

We can use Helm to quickly create a MySQL instance in our Kubernetes cluster. This approach requires Installing Helm.

  1. Install MySQL into your cluster.

    1. helm repo add bitnami https://charts.bitnami.com/bitnami
    2. helm install dapr-mysql bitnami/mysql

  2. Run kubectl get pods to see the MySQL containers now running in your cluster.

  3. Next, we’ll get our password, which is slightly different depending on the OS we’re using:

    • Windows: Run [System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetString([System.Convert]::FromBase64String($(kubectl get secret --namespace default dapr-mysql -o jsonpath="{.data.mysql-root-password}"))) and copy the outputted password.

    • Linux/MacOS: Run kubectl get secret --namespace default dapr-mysql -o jsonpath="{.data.mysql-root-password}" | base64 --decode and copy the outputted password.

  4. With the password you can construct your connection string.

Azure MySQL

If you are using MySQL on Azure see the Azure documentation on SSL database connections, for information on how to download the required certificate.

AWS MySQL

GCP MySQL

Non SSL connection

Replace the <CONNECTION STRING> value with your connection string. The connection string is a standard MySQL connection string. For example, "<user>:<password>@tcp(<server>:3306)/?allowNativePasswords=true".

Enforced SSL connection

If your server requires SSL your connection string must end with &tls=custom for example, "<user>:<password>@tcp(<server>:3306)/?allowNativePasswords=true&tls=custom". You must replace the <PEM PATH> with a full path to the PEM file. The connection to MySQL will require a minimum TLS version of 1.2.

TTLs and cleanups

This state store supports Time-To-Live (TTL) for records stored with Dapr. When storing data using Dapr, you can set the ttlInSeconds metadata property to indicate when the data should be considered “expired”.

Because MySQL doesn’t have built-in support for TTLs, this is implemented in Dapr by adding a column in the state table indicating when the data is to be considered “expired”. Records that are “expired” are not returned to the caller, even if they’re still physically stored in the database. A background “garbage collector” periodically scans the state table for expired rows and deletes them.

The interval at which the deletion of expired records happens is set with the cleanupIntervalInSeconds metadata property, which defaults to 3600 seconds (that is, 1 hour).

  • Longer intervals require less frequent scans for expired rows, but can require storing expired records for longer, potentially requiring more storage space. If you plan to store many records in your state table, with short TTLs, consider setting cleanupIntervalInSeconds to a smaller value, for example 300 (300 seconds, or 5 minutes).
  • If you do not plan to use TTLs with Dapr and the MySQL state store, you should consider setting cleanupIntervalInSeconds to a value <= 0 (e.g. 0 or -1) to disable the periodic cleanup and reduce the load on the database.