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2.1. Installing MySQL from RPM Packages on Linux

The recommended way to install MySQL on RPM-based Linux distributions is by using the RPM packages. The RPMs that we provide to the community should work on all versions of Linux that support RPM packages and use glibc 2.3. To obtain RPM packages, see How to Get MySQL.

For non-RPM Linux distributions, you can install MySQL using a .tar.gz package. See Chapter 1, Installing MySQL from Generic Binaries on Unix/Linux.

Installations created from our Linux RPM distributions result in files under the following system directories.

Table 2.1. MySQL Installation Layout for Linux RPM

Directory Contents of Directory
/usr/bin Client programs and scripts
/usr/sbin The mysqld server
/var/lib/mysql Log files, databases
/usr/share/info Manual in Info format
/usr/share/man Unix manual pages
/usr/include/mysql Include (header) files
/usr/lib/mysql Libraries
/usr/share/mysql Miscellaneous support files, including error messages, character set files, sample configuration files, SQL for database installation
/usr/share/sql-bench Benchmarks
Note

RPM distributions of MySQL are also provided by other vendors. Be aware that they may differ from those built by us in features, capabilities, and conventions (including communication setup), and that the instructions in this manual do not necessarily apply to installing them. The vendor's instructions should be consulted instead. Because of these differences, RPM packages built by us check whether such RPMs built by other vendors are installed. If so, the RPM does not install and produces a message explaining this.

In most cases, you need to install only the MySQL-server and MySQL-client packages to get a functional MySQL installation. The other packages are not required for a standard installation.

RPMs for MySQL Cluster.  Beginning with MySQL 5.1.24, standard MySQL server RPMs built by MySQL no longer provide support for the NDBCLUSTER storage engine. MySQL Cluster users should check the MySQL Cluster Downloads page at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/cluster/ for RPMs that should work with most Linux distributions for both of these release series.

Important

When upgrading a MySQL Cluster RPM installation, you must upgrade all installed RPMs, including the Server and Client RPMs.

For more information about installing MySQL Cluster from RPMs, see Installing MySQL Cluster from RPM.

For upgrades, if your installation was originally produced by installing multiple RPM packages, it is best to upgrade all the packages, not just some. For example, if you previously installed the server and client RPMs, do not upgrade just the server RPM.

The RPM packages shown in the following list are available. The names shown here use a suffix of .glibc23.i386.rpm, but particular packages can have different suffixes, described later.

  • MySQL-server-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    The MySQL server. You need this unless you only want to connect to a MySQL server running on another machine.

  • MySQL-client-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    The standard MySQL client programs. You probably always want to install this package.

  • MySQL-devel-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    The libraries and include files that are needed if you want to compile other MySQL clients, such as the Perl modules.

  • MySQL-debuginfo-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    This package contains debugging information. It is specific to Red Hat Enterprise Linux. debuginfo RPMs are never needed to use MySQL software; this is true both for the server and for client programs. However, they contain additional information that might be needed by a debugger to analyze a crash.

  • MySQL-shared-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    This package contains the shared libraries (libmysqlclient.so*) that certain languages and applications need to dynamically load and use MySQL. It contains single-threaded and thread-safe libraries. If you install this package, do not install the MySQL-shared-compat package.

  • MySQL-shared-compat-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    This package includes the shared libraries for older releases, up to the current release. It contains single-threaded and thread-safe libraries. Install this package instead of MySQL-shared if you have applications installed that are dynamically linked against older versions of MySQL but you want to upgrade to the current version without breaking the library dependencies.

  • MySQL-shared-compat-advanced-gpl-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm, MySQL-shared-compat-advanced-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    These are like the MySQL-shared-compat package, but are for the “MySQL Enterprise Server – Advanced Edition” products. Install these packages rather than the normal MySQL-shared-compat package if you want to included shared client libraries for older MySQL versions.

  • MySQL-embedded-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    The embedded MySQL server library.

  • MySQL-ndb-management-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm, MySQL-ndb-storage-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm, MySQL-ndb-tools-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm, MySQL-ndb-extra-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    Packages that contain additional files for MySQL Cluster installations.

    Note

    The MySQL-ndb-tools RPM requires a working installation of perl. Prior to MySQL 5.1.18, the DBI and HTML::Template packages were also required. See Perl Installation Notes, and ndb_size.pl, for more information.

  • MySQL-test-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

    This package includes the MySQL test suite.

  • MySQL-VERSION.src.rpm

    This contains the source code for all of the previous packages. It can also be used to rebuild the RPMs on other architectures (for example, Alpha or SPARC).

The suffix of RPM package names (following the VERSION value) has the following syntax: 

.PLATFORM.CPU.rpm

The PLATFORM and CPU values indicate the type of system for which the package is built. PLATFORM indicates the platform and CPU indicates the processor type or family.

All packages are dynamically linked against glibc 2.3. The PLATFORM value indicates whether the package is platform independent or intended for a specific platform, as shown in the following table.

Table 2.2. MySQL Linux Installation Packages

PLATFORM Value Intended Use
glibc23 Platform independent, should run on any Linux distribution that supports glibc 2.3
rhel4, rhel5 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 or 5
sles10, sles11 SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 or 11

In MySQL 5.1, only glibc23 packages are available currently.

The CPU value indicates the processor type or family for which the package is built.

Table 2.3. MySQL Installation Packages for Linux CPU Identifier

CPU Value Intended Processor Type or Family
i386, i586, i686 Pentium processor or better, 32 bit
x86_64 64-bit x86 processor
ia64 Itanium (IA-64) processor

To see all files in an RPM package (for example, a MySQL-server RPM), run a command like this: 

shell> rpm -qpl MySQL-server-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

To perform a standard minimal installation, install the server and client RPMs: 

shell> rpm -i MySQL-server-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm
shell> rpm -i MySQL-client-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

To install only the client programs, install just the client RPM: 

shell> rpm -i MySQL-client-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

RPM provides a feature to verify the integrity and authenticity of packages before installing them. If you would like to learn more about this feature, see Verifying Package Integrity Using MD5 Checksums or GnuPG.

The server RPM places data under the /var/lib/mysql directory. The RPM also creates a login account for a user named mysql (if one does not exist) to use for running the MySQL server, and creates the appropriate entries in /etc/init.d/ to start the server automatically at boot time. (This means that if you have performed a previous installation and have made changes to its startup script, you may want to make a copy of the script so that you do not lose it when you install a newer RPM.) See Section 6.2, “Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically”, for more information on how MySQL can be started automatically on system startup.

In MySQL 5.1.49 and later, during an upgrade installation using the RPM packages, if the MySQL server is running when the upgrade occurs, the MySQL server is stopped, the upgrade occurs, and the MySQL server is restarted. If the MySQL server is not already running when the RPM upgrade occurs, the MySQL server is not started at the end of the installation.

If something goes wrong, you can find more information in the binary installation section. See Chapter 1, Installing MySQL from Generic Binaries on Unix/Linux.

Note

The accounts that are listed in the MySQL grant tables initially have no passwords. After starting the server, you should set up passwords for them using the instructions in Postinstallation Setup and Testing.

During RPM installation, a user named mysql and a group named mysql are created on the system. This is done using the useradd, groupadd, and usermod commands. Those commands require appropriate administrative privileges, which is required for locally managed users and groups (as listed in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files) by the RPM installation process being run by root.

If you log in as the mysql user, you may find that MySQL displays “Invalid (old?) table or database name” errors that mention .mysqlgui, lost+found, .mysqlgui, .bash_history, .fonts.cache-1, .lesshst, .mysql_history, .profile, .viminfo, and similar files created by MySQL or operating system utilities. You can safely ignore these error messages or remove the files or directories that cause them if you do not need them.

For nonlocal user management (LDAP, NIS, and so forth), the administrative tools may require additional authentication (such as a password), and will fail if the installing user does not provide this authentication. Even if they fail, the RPM installation will not abort but succeed, and this is intentional. If they failed, some of the intended transfer of ownership may be missing, and it is recommended that the system administrator then manually ensures some appropriate user and group exists and manually transfers ownership following the actions in the RPM spec file.

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