Database conect problem

Current config, running on ubuntu 14

 ./drupalci status
Running Status Checks ... 
Checking Docker Version ... 
Docker version: Docker version 1.8.2, build 0a8c2e3

No errors found!

---------------- Start config set: CURRENT DCI ENVIRONMENT ----------------
Defined in ~/.drupalci/config:
DCI_TESTGROUPS: action
DCI_UseLocalCodebase: /home/peter/projecten/poa2/webdata/www
DCI_PHPVersion: 5.4
DCI_DBVersion: mariadb-5.5

The LocalCodebase contains a site as well

Running ./drupalci -vvv run simpletest does the following

Calculating job definition
Loading DrupalCI platform default arguments:
DCI_CodeBase,DCI_IsDrupal,DCI_DrupalVersion
Loading job type default arguments:
DCI_DBVersion,DCI_PHPVersion,DCI_CoreRepository,DCI_CoreBranch,DCI_GitCheckoutDepth,DCI_RunScript,DCI_DBUser,DCI_DBPassword,DCI_DBUrl,DCI_TestGroups,DCI_SQLite,DCI_Concurrency,DCI_GitCommitHash,DCI_PHPInterpreter,DCI_RunOptions
Loading local DrupalCI environment config override arguments.
DCI_TESTGROUPS,DCI_UseLocalCodebase,DCI_PHPVersion,DCI_DBVersion
Creating codebase data volume directory
Checkout directory created at /tmp/simpletest_1443433049
Parsing required database container image names ...
Adding image: drupalci/mariadb-5.5
Validating container images exist
Found image drupalci/mariadb-5.5 with ID 76d0c4d8
Found existing drupalci/mariadb-5.5 service container instance.
Attempting to connect to database server.
Could not connect to database server.
Sleeping 10 seconds to allow service to start.
Attempting to connect to database server.
Could not connect to database server.
Sleeping 10 seconds to allow service to start.

docker exec -ti drupaltestbot-db-mariadb-5-5 /bin/bash allows me to connect, but

root@25f37e76cef2:/# service mysql status
/usr/bin/mysqladmin: connect to server at 'localhost' failed
error: 'Access denied for user 'debian-sys-maint'@'localhost' (using password: YES)'
 * 
root@25f37e76cef2:/# service mysql start 
 * Starting MariaDB database server mysqld
   ...done.
root@25f37e76cef2:/# service mysql restart
 * Stopping MariaDB database server mysqld
   ...fail!
 * Starting MariaDB database server mysqld
   ...done.
root@25f37e76cef2:/# service mysql stop   
 * Stopping MariaDB database server mysqld
   ...fail!
root@25f37e76cef2:/# mysqladmin status
Uptime: 621  Threads: 1  Questions: 2  Slow queries: 0  Opens: 0  Flush tables: 2  Open tables: 26  Queries per second avg: 0.003

So it seems I can start the db, but it stops right away.