Kubernetes + MySQL : Creating custom database and user in a Kubernetes container

I am trying to create a Django + MySQL app using Google Container Engine and Kubernetes. Following the docs from official MySQL docker image and Kubernetes docs for creating MySQL container I have created the following replication controller

apiVersion: v1
kind: ReplicationController
metadata: labels: name: mysql name: mysql
spec: replicas: 1 template: metadata: labels: name: mysql spec: containers: - image: mysql:5.6.33 name: mysql env: #Root password is compulsory - name: "MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" value: "root_password" - name: "MYSQL_DATABASE" value: "custom_db" - name: "MYSQL_USER" value: "custom_user" - name: "MYSQL_PASSWORD" value: "custom_password" ports: - name: mysql containerPort: 3306 volumeMounts: # This name must match the volumes.name below. - name: mysql-persistent-storage mountPath: /var/lib/mysql volumes: - name: mysql-persistent-storage gcePersistentDisk: # This disk must already exist. pdName: mysql-disk fsType: ext4

According to the docs, passing the environment variables MYSQL_DATABASE. MYSQL_USER, MYSQL_PASSWORD, a new user will be created with that password and assigned rights to the newly created database. But this does not happen. When I SSH into that container, the ROOT password is set. But neither the user, nor the database is created.

I have tested this by running locally and passing the same environment variables like this

docker run -d --name some-mysql -e MYSQL_USER="custom_user" -e MYSQL_DATABASE="custom_db" -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD="root_password" -e MYSQL_PASSWORD="custom_password" mysql

When I SSH into that container, the database and users are created and everything works fine.

I am not sure what I am doing wrong here. Could anyone please point out my mistake. I have been at this the whole day.