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.

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.

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:

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.