MySQL Configuration and Installation - Installing MySQL on UNIX from a Binary Tarball Distribution
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In case you’re using a Linux distribution that doesn’t support RPM, you can also install MySQL using a binary tarball from the MySQL web site.
Installing from a binary distribution essentially means that you need to perform the installation steps manually rather than letting RPM automatically take care of it for you. Here’s how you go about doing it:
1. Ensure that you’re logged in as root:
[user@host]# su - root
2. Extract the content of the tarball to an appropriate directory
on your system—I’ll assume this location is /usr/local/.
Remember to replace the file name in italics with the file name
of your tarball.
[root@host]# cd /usr/local
[root@host]# tar -xzvf
mysql-standard-4.0.9-gamma-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz
The MySQL files should get extracted into a directory named
according to the format mysql-version-os-architecture—for
example, mysql-standard-4.0.9-gamma-pc-linux-i686.
3. Now you’ll notice that the directory created in the previous
step has a somewhat long and cumbersome directory name—
something like mysql-standard-4.0.9-gamma-pc-linux-i686.
For ease of use, create a soft link to this directory named
mysql in the same location.
[root@host]# ln -s mysql-standard-4.0.9-gamma-pc-linux-i686 mysql 4. Change into this directory, and take a look at how the files are
arranged. You should see something like Figure 3-3. (Take a
look at the sidebar entitled “Up a Tree” for more information
on what each directory contains.)
Figure 3-3. The directory structure obtained on unpackaging of a MySQL binary tarball on Linux
Up a Tree
If you have the time (and the inclination), you might find it instructive to explore
the MySQL directory structure to help you better understand where the important files are located.
For a binary distribution, the directory structure for a typical MySQL installation looks like this:
<mysql-install-root>
|-- bin [client and server binaries]
|-- data [databases and error log]
|-- include [header files]
|-- lib [compiled libraries]
|-- man [manual pages]
|-- mysql-test [test suite]
|-- share [error messages in different
languages]
|-- scripts [startup, shutdown and
initialization scripts]
|-- sql-bench [queries and data files for
benchmark tests]
|-- support-files[sample configuration files]
|-- tests [test cases]
For a source distribution, the directory structure for a typical MySQL installation looks like this:
<mysql-install-root>
|-- bin [client binaries]
|-- libexec [server binaries]
|-- var [databases and error log]
|-- lib [compiled libraries]
|-- include [header files]
|-- info [info pages]
|-- man [manual pages]
|-- mysql-test [test suite]
|-- share [error messages in
different languages]
|-- sql-bench [queries and data files
for benchmark tests]
Take a look at the documentation that ships with the MySQL distribution for a more detailed discussion of this directory structure.
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5. The MySQL database server can run as either the system root
user or any other user on the system. From the security point
of view, it’s considered a bad idea to run the MySQL database
server as root ; hence, it becomes necessary for you to create
a special mysql user and group for this purpose.
You can accomplish this using the groupadd and useradd
commands:
[root@host]# groupadd mysql
[root@host]# useradd –g mysql mysql
6. Run the initialization script, mysql_install_db, that ships with
the program:
[root@host] # /usr/local/mysql/scripts/mysql_install_db
Figure 3-4 demonstrates what you should see when you do
this.:
As you can see from the output in the figure, this initialization
script prepares and installs the various MySQL base tables and
also sets up default access permissions for MySQL.
7. Alter the ownership of the MySQL binaries so that they are
owned by root:
[root@host]# chown -R root /usr/local/mysql 8. Now ensure that the newly-minted mysql user has read/write
access to the MySQL data directories:
[root@host]# chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/data
[root@host]# chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
9. Start the MySQL server by manually running the mysqld
daemon:
[root@host]# /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe
–user=mysql &
MySQL should start up normally, reading the base tables
created in /usr/local/mysql/data.
Figure 3-4. The output of running the MySQL initialization script
Once installation has been successfully completed, you can skip to the section titled “Testing MySQL,” later in this chapter, to verify that your server is functioning properly.
Next: Installing MySQL on UNIX from a Source Distribution >>
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 This article is taken from chapter three of the book My SQL The Complete Reference by Vikram Vaswani (McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003; ISBN 0072224770). Check it out at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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