MySQL database 5.7 with template mysql-persistent fails with pod log error code ERROR 1133 (42000)

Issue

• Deploying a MySQL database 5.7 with template mysql-persistent doesn't work. The database pod fails with the below error message:

2018-08-20T12:30:52.521784Z 0 [Note] /opt/rh/rh-mysql57/root/usr/libexec/mysqld: ready for connections.
Version: '5.7.21'  socket: '/tmp/mysql.sock'  port: 0  MySQL Community Server (GPL)
---> 12:30:52     MySQL started successfully
/usr/bin/run-mysqld: line 24: [: missing `]'
=> sourcing 40-datadir-action.sh ...
---> 12:30:52     Running datadir action: upgrade-warn
---> 12:30:52     MySQL server version check passed, both server and data directory are version 5.7.
=> sourcing 50-passwd-change.sh ...
---> 12:30:52     Setting passwords ...
ERROR 1133 (42000) at line 1: Can't find any matching row in the user table

• Fail to connect to mysql db with the above error. Same deployment works on non VMWare environments or non EFS storage on AWS.