[HOME]

dbdeployer expects to get the binaries from $HOME/opt/mysql/x.x.xx. For example, when you run the command dbdeployer deploy single 8.0.11, you must have the binaries for MySQL 8.0.11 expanded into a directory named $HOME/opt/mysql/8.0.11.

If you want to keep several directories with the same version, you can differentiate them using a prefix:

$HOME/opt/mysql/
            8.0.11
            lab_8.0.11
            ps_8.0.11
            myown_8.0.11

In the above cases, running dbdeployer deploy single lab_8.0.11 will do what you expect, i.e. dbdeployer will use the binaries in lab_8.0.11 and recognize 8.0.11 as the version for the database.

When the extracted tarball directory name that you want to use doesn't contain the full version number (such as /home/dbuser/build/path/5.7-extra) you need to provide the version using the option --binary-version. For example:

dbdeployer deploy single 5.7-extra \
    --sandbox-binary=/home/dbuser/build/path \
    --binary-version=5.7.22

In the above command, --sandbox-binary indicates where to search for the binaries, 5.7-extra is where the binaries are, and --binary-version indicates which version should be used.

Just to be clear, dbdeployer will recognize the directory as containing a version if it is only "x.x.x" or if it ends with "x.x.x" (as in lab_8.0.11.)