MySQL installation
last modified January 10, 2023
In this part of the MySQL tutorial, we are going to cover the installation of the MySQL database management system. In this chapter, we will install MySQL on Linux.
There are several ways how we can install MySQL on our system. We can install MySQL from packages, from binaries or from the sources.
Installing MySQL from packages
The easiest way to install MySQL is through package system.
$ sudo apt-get install mysql-server
On Ubuntu and other Debian based distributions, we can easily install MySQL
from packages by using the apt-get tool. This command installs the MySQL
server and various other packages. While installing the packages, we are
prompted to enter a password for the MySQL root account.
$ sudo yum install mysql-server
On CentOS, we install MySQL server with the above command.
Installing MySQL from sources
Installing MySQL from sources gives us the most options to build MySQL according to our preferences. We can customise installation locations, various build parameters or compiler optimisations.
Installing necessary tools
Before we start to build MySQL, we need to install several prerequisites.
$ sudo apt-get install g++
We must install C++ compiler if not present.
$ sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev
We also need the development version of the Curses library.
$ sudo apt-get install cmake bison $ which cmake bison perl /usr/bin/cmake /usr/bin/bison /usr/bin/perl
In addition, we need to the following three tools installed on our system: cmake,
bison, and perl. In our case, we had to install the cmake tool.
The cmake tool has replaced the configure tool, because it is
more portable.
Installing Boost
We need to install the Boost C++ library. MySQL 5.7.17 requires Boost 1.59.0.
$ wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/boost/files/boost/1.59.0/boost_1_59_0.tar.gz
We download the sources of the Boost library.
$ tar xzvf boost_1_59_0.tar.gz $ cd boost_1_59_0/
We decompress the archive and go the the boost_1_59_0 directory.
$ ./bootstrap.sh $ sudo ./b2 install
With these two commands, we install Boost.
Pre-configuration setup
We create a mysql group and user.
$ sudo addgroup --system mysql $ sudo adduser --system mysql --no-create-home -ingroup mysql
We create a mysql system group and a mysql system user on our computer. Each process in Linux is owned by a specific user. The MySQL daemon will be owned by user mysql. Note that mysql is not a normal user account; it is a system user.
Getting MySQL sources
From https://www.mysql.com/downloads/, we select the MySQL Community Edition, then MySQL Community Server, and Generally available MySQL Community Release. From the Select platform combo box, we choose Source Code option. We choose the sources targeted for Ubuntu Linux, 64-bit.
$ wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.7/mysql-community-source_5.7.17-1ubuntu16.10_amd64.deb
After we figured the location of the archive, we can use the wget tool to dowload
the sources.
$ ls -sh mysql-community-source_5.7.17-1ubuntu16.10_amd64.deb 136M mysql-community-source_5.7.17-1ubuntu16.10_amd64.deb
We have downloaded MySQL 5.7.17 sources for Ubuntu Linux on 64-bit architecture in a
deb package.
$ md5sum mysql-community-source_5.7.17-1ubuntu16.10_amd64.deb
We verify the sources with the md5sum tool and compare the generated hash
with the one on the website.
$ expr 0b966bc6434d8a8020b9c4f32c93a1e7 == 0b966bc6434d8a8020b9c4f32c93a1e7 1
We can use the expr command to quickly compare the two hashes.
$ sudo dpkg -i mysql-community-source_5.7.17-1ubuntu16.10_amd64.deb
We install the deb package. The files are installed to
the /usr/src/mysql directory.
$ mkdir build_mysql $ cd build_mysql $ cp /usr/src/mysql/mysql-community_5.7.17.orig.tar.gz .
We create a build directory, chande to that directory, and copy the sources into it.
$ tar xzvf mysql-community_5.7.17.orig.tar.gz
Now we decompress the sources.
$ cd mysql-5.7.17/
We go to the mysql-5.7.17 directory, where we have the sources.
$ ls BUILD Docs libmysqld README unittest client Doxyfile-perfschema libservices regex VERSION cmake extra man scripts vio CMakeLists.txt include mysql-test sql win cmd-line-utils INSTALL mysys sql-common zlib config.h.cmake libbinlogevents mysys_ssl storage configure.cmake libbinlogstandalone packaging strings COPYING libevent plugin support-files dbug libmysql rapid testclients
We show the source directory.
$ cmake -L -- Running cmake version 3.5.1 -- Could NOT find Git (missing: GIT_EXECUTABLE) -- Configuring with MAX_INDEXES = 64U -- SIZEOF_VOIDP 8 -- MySQL 5.7.17 -- Packaging as: mysql-5.7.17-Linux-x86_64 -- Found /usr/local/include/boost/version.hpp -- BOOST_VERSION_NUMBER is #define BOOST_VERSION 105900 -- BOOST_INCLUDE_DIR /usr/local/include -- Found Curses: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurses.so -- Looking for tputs in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurses.so -- Looking for tputs in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libcurses.so - found -- Performing Test HAVE_DECL_TGOTO -- Performing Test HAVE_DECL_TGOTO - Success ...
The -L option shows some of the default configure options.
The system is going to be installed to /usr/loca/mysql directory.
For us it is important to have InnoDB storage engine configured to be included.
$ cmake .
We configure the build. We leave all the default settings. In case we
wanted to have also the MySQL embedded system, we would provide
the -DWITH_EMBEDDED_SERVER=1 option.
$ make $ sudo make install
We make the system and install it.
Post-installation setup
Additional steps are required after MySQL was installed on our system.
$ cd /usr/local/mysql $ sudo chown -R mysql . $ sudo chgrp -R mysql .
We are located in the /usr/local/mysql directory. We change the
group and owner of all files located in the mentioned directory. The
-R option means recursive operation. This means that the two
commands operate on all files and directories and the contents of the directories.
$ ls -l total 56 drwxr-xr-x 2 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:54 bin -rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql 17987 Nov 28 14:32 COPYING drwxr-xr-x 2 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:53 docs drwxr-xr-x 3 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:53 include drwxr-xr-x 4 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:54 lib drwxr-xr-x 4 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:53 man drwxr-xr-x 10 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:55 mysql-test -rw-r--r-- 1 mysql mysql 2478 Nov 28 14:32 README drwxr-xr-x 28 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:55 share drwxr-xr-x 2 mysql mysql 4096 Jan 26 15:55 support-files
We have changed the owners and groups of MySQL files.
$ sudo bin/mysqld --initialize --user=mysql
We initialize MySQL data directory using mysqld. The command
also creates a temporary root password.
Prior to MySQL 5.7.6, this task was accomplished with
mysql_install_db command.
$ sudo bin/mysql_ssl_rsa_setup
The mysql_ssl_rsa_setup tool creates the SSL certificate and key files
and RSA key-pair files required to support secure connections using SSL and secure
password exchange using RSA over unencrypted connections, if those files are missing.
$ sudo chown -R root . $ sudo chown -R mysql data
We change the owner for all files back to the user root, except for the data directory. The MySQL server, which is owned by the mysql user, must have access to the data directory. The database files are stored in this directory.
Starting and stopping MySQL server
The following commands can be use to start and stop MySQL server.
$ sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start
This command starts MySQL server.
$ sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop
This command stops MySQL server.
Other settings
After we have installed the MySQL on our system and changed a password for the root account, there are still some modifications left to do.
MySQL has a configuration file called my.cnf, which is located
in the /etc directory. By editing the options in this file,
we can configure the server to our needs.
$ sudo cp /usr/local/mysql/support-files/my-default.cnf /etc/my.cnf $ cp /usr/local/mysql/support-files/my-default.cnf ~/.my.cnf
There are configuration templates in the support-files directory.
In the first command, we create MySQL global configuration file. In the second
example, we create a personal file in the home directory of the user.
$ export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin/ $ export MANPATH=$MANPATH:/usr/local/mysql/man/
Another useful thing to do is to add bin directory to your PATH variable.
This way we can launch MySQL commands and scripts without specifying the full path.
In addition, we add the path to the manual pages of the MySQL tools and commands to
the MANPATH variable. Now we can view MySQL man pages with the man
command. Place both commands to your shell configuration file. This could be
.bashrc or .profile.
Changing the root password
Previously, we have been given an expired root password. It is time to set a new password for the root.
$ /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql -u root -p
We start the mysql command line tool. (The server must be running.)
We connect as root.
mysql> SET PASSWORD = PASSWORD('newpassowrd');
We set a new password.
Hardening MySQL
We can use mysql_secure_installation to increase security
our MySQL server.
$ /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_secure_installation
We are given the choice to improve the MySQL root password, remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of localhost, and remove test databases.
In this part of the MySQL tutorial, we have covered the installation of the MySQL database system.