--- a/testing/docker/builder-bmoweb/Dockerfile
+++ b/testing/docker/builder-bmoweb/Dockerfile
@@ -95,16 +95,17 @@ RUN git clone https://github.com/mozilla
 RUN cd $BUGZILLA_HOME/bugzilla && wget -q -O vendor.tar.gz http://s3.amazonaws.com/moz-devservices-bmocartons/mozreview/vendor.tar.gz && tar zxf vendor.tar.gz --transform 's/mozreview\///'
 
 ADD checksetup_answers.txt $BUGZILLA_HOME/checksetup_answers.txt
 RUN cd $BUGZILLA_HOME/bugzilla && perl checksetup.pl --check-modules
 
 # Configure MySQL
 RUN rm -rf /var/lib/mysql
 ADD my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf
+RUN chmod a-w /etc/mysql/my.cnf
 ADD mysql-init.sh /tmp/mysql-init.sh
 RUN /usr/bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql --datadir=/var/lib/mysql
 RUN chown -R mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql
 
 # Configure Apache
 RUN rm /etc/apache2/sites-enabled/*
 RUN /usr/sbin/a2dismod mpm_event && /usr/sbin/a2enmod mpm_prefork
 RUN /usr/sbin/a2enmod expires

--- a/testing/docker/builder-bmoweb/entrypoint.py
+++ b/testing/docker/builder-bmoweb/entrypoint.py
@@ -127,18 +127,18 @@ while True:
         print('attempting to connect to database...')
         # There appear to be race conditions between MySQL opening the socket
         # and MySQL actually responding. So we wait on a successful MySQL
         # connection before continuing.
         mysql.connector.connect(user=db_user, password=db_pass,
                                 unix_socket='/dev/shm/mysqld.sock')
         print('connected to MySQL database as %s' % db_user)
         break
-    except (ConnectionError, mysql.connector.errors.Error):
-        print('error')
+    except (ConnectionError, mysql.connector.errors.Error) as e:
+        print(e)
 
     if time.time() - time_start > db_timeout:
         print('could not connect to database before timeout; giving up')
         sys.exit(1)
 
     time.sleep(0.100)
 
 mysql_args = [