The recommended way to install MySQL on RPM-based Linux distributions is by using the RPM packages provided by Oracle. There are two sources for obtaining them, for the Community Edition of MySQL:
From the MySQL software repositories:
The MySQL Yum repository (see Section 2.5.1, “Installing MySQL on Linux Using the MySQL Yum Repository” for details).
The MySQL SLES repository (see Section 2.5.3, “Installing MySQL on Linux Using the MySQL SLES Repository” for details).
From the Download MySQL Community Server page in the MySQL Developer Zone.
RPM distributions of MySQL are also provided by other vendors. Be aware that they may differ from those built by Oracle in features, capabilities, and conventions (including communication setup), and that the installation instructions in this manual do not necessarily apply to them. The vendor's instructions should be consulted instead.
MySQL RPM Packages
Table 2.9 RPM Packages for MySQL Community Edition
Package Name | Summary |
---|---|
mysql-community-client |
MySQL client applications and tools |
mysql-community-client-plugins |
Shared plugins for MySQL client applications |
mysql-community-common |
Common files for server and client libraries |
mysql-community-devel |
Development header files and libraries for MySQL database client applications |
mysql-community-embedded-compat |
MySQL server as an embedded library with compatibility for applications using version 18 of the library |
mysql-community-icu-data-files |
MySQL packaging of ICU data files needed by MySQL regular expressions |
mysql-community-libs |
Shared libraries for MySQL database client applications |
mysql-community-libs-compat |
Shared compatibility libraries for previous MySQL installations; only present if previous MySQL versions are supported by the platform |
mysql-community-server |
Database server and related tools |
mysql-community-server-debug |
Debug server and plugin binaries |
mysql-community-test |
Test suite for the MySQL server |
mysql-community |
The source code RPM looks similar to mysql-community-8.0.39-1.el7.src.rpm, depending on selected OS |
Additional *debuginfo* RPMs | There are several debuginfo packages:
mysql-community-client-debuginfo,
mysql-community-libs-debuginfo
mysql-community-server-debug-debuginfo
mysql-community-server-debuginfo, and
mysql-community-test-debuginfo. |
Table 2.10 RPM Packages for the MySQL Enterprise Edition
Package Name | Summary |
---|---|
mysql-commercial-backup |
MySQL Enterprise Backup (added in 8.0.11) |
mysql-commercial-client |
MySQL client applications and tools |
mysql-commercial-client-plugins |
Shared plugins for MySQL client applications |
mysql-commercial-common |
Common files for server and client libraries |
mysql-commercial-devel |
Development header files and libraries for MySQL database client applications |
mysql-commercial-embedded-compat |
MySQL server as an embedded library with compatibility for applications using version 18 of the library |
mysql-commercial-icu-data-files |
MySQL packaging of ICU data files needed by MySQL regular expressions |
mysql-commercial-libs |
Shared libraries for MySQL database client applications |
mysql-commercial-libs-compat |
Shared compatibility libraries for previous MySQL installations; only present if previous MySQL versions are supported by the platform. The version of the libraries matches the version of the libraries installed by default by the distribution you are using. |
mysql-commercial-server |
Database server and related tools |
mysql-commercial-test |
Test suite for the MySQL server |
Additional *debuginfo* RPMs | There are several debuginfo packages:
mysql-commercial-client-debuginfo,
mysql-commercial-libs-debuginfo
mysql-commercial-server-debug-debuginfo
mysql-commercial-server-debuginfo, and
mysql-commercial-test-debuginfo. |
The full names for the RPMs have the following syntax:
packagename-version-distribution-arch.rpm
The distribution
and
arch
values indicate the Linux
distribution and the processor type for which the package was
built. See the table below for lists of the distribution
identifiers:
Table 2.11 MySQL Linux RPM Package Distribution Identifiers
Distribution Value | Intended Use |
---|---|
el{version} where
{version} is the major Enterprise
Linux version, such as el8 |
EL6 (8.0), EL7, EL8, and EL9-based platforms (for example, the corresponding versions of Oracle Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and CentOS) |
fc{version} where
{version} is the major Fedora
version, such as fc37 |
Fedora 38, 39, and 40 |
sles12 |
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 12 |
To see all files in an RPM package (for example,
mysql-community-server
), use the following
command:
$> rpm -qpl mysql-community-server-version-distribution-arch.rpm
The discussion in the rest of this section applies only to an installation process using the RPM packages directly downloaded from Oracle, instead of through a MySQL repository.
Dependency relationships exist among some of the packages. If you plan to install many of the packages, you may wish to download the RPM bundle tar file instead, which contains all the RPM packages listed above, so that you need not download them separately.
In most cases, you need to install the
mysql-community-server
,
mysql-community-client
,
mysql-community-client-plugins
,
mysql-community-libs
,
mysql-community-icu-data-files
,
mysql-community-common
, and
mysql-community-libs-compat
packages to get a
functional, standard MySQL installation. To perform such a
standard, basic installation, go to the folder that contains all
those packages (and, preferably, no other RPM packages with
similar names), and issue the following command:
$> sudo yum install mysql-community-{server,client,client-plugins,icu-data-files,common,libs}-*
Replace yum with zypper for SLES, and with dnf for Fedora.
While it is much preferable to use a high-level package management tool like yum to install the packages, users who prefer direct rpm commands can replace the yum install command with the rpm -Uvh command; however, using rpm -Uvh instead makes the installation process more prone to failure, due to potential dependency issues the installation process might run into.
To install only the client programs, you can skip
mysql-community-server
in your list of packages
to install; issue the following command:
$> sudo yum install mysql-community-{client,client-plugins,common,libs}-*
Replace yum with zypper for SLES, and with dnf for Fedora.
A standard installation of MySQL using the RPM packages result in files and resources created under the system directories, shown in the following table.
Table 2.12 MySQL Installation Layout for Linux RPM Packages from the MySQL Developer Zone
Files or Resources | Location |
---|---|
Client programs and scripts | /usr/bin |
mysqld server | /usr/sbin |
Configuration file | /etc/my.cnf |
Data directory | /var/lib/mysql |
Error log file |
For RHEL, Oracle Linux, CentOS or Fedora platforms:
For SLES: |
Value of secure_file_priv |
/var/lib/mysql-files |
System V init script |
For RHEL, Oracle Linux, CentOS or Fedora platforms:
For SLES: |
Systemd service |
For RHEL, Oracle Linux, CentOS or Fedora platforms:
For SLES: |
Pid file | /var/run/mysql/mysqld.pid |
Socket | /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock |
Keyring directory | /var/lib/mysql-keyring |
Unix manual pages | /usr/share/man |
Include (header) files | /usr/include/mysql |
Libraries | /usr/lib/mysql |
Miscellaneous support files (for example, error messages, and character set files) | /usr/share/mysql |
The installation also creates a user named
mysql
and a group named
mysql
on the system.
The
mysql
user is created using the-r
and-s /bin/false
options of theuseradd
command, so that it does not have login permissions to your server host (see Creating the mysql User and Group for details). To switch to themysql
user on your OS, use the--shell=/bin/bash
option for thesu
command:su - mysql --shell=/bin/bash
Installation of previous versions of MySQL using older packages might have created a configuration file named
/usr/my.cnf
. It is highly recommended that you examine the contents of the file and migrate the desired settings inside to the file/etc/my.cnf
file, then remove/usr/my.cnf
.
MySQL is NOT automatically started at the end of the installation process. For Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Oracle Linux, CentOS, and Fedora systems, use the following command to start MySQL:
$> systemctl start mysqld
For SLES systems, the command is the same, but the service name is different:
$> systemctl start mysql
If the operating system is systemd enabled, standard
systemctl (or alternatively,
service with the arguments reversed) commands
such as stop, start,
status, and restart should
be used to manage the MySQL server service. The
mysqld
service is enabled by default, and it
starts at system reboot. Notice that certain things might work
differently on systemd platforms: for example, changing the
location of the data directory might cause issues. See
Section 2.5.9, “Managing MySQL Server with systemd” for additional information.
During an upgrade installation using RPM and DEB packages, if the MySQL server is running when the upgrade occurs then the MySQL server is stopped, the upgrade occurs, and the MySQL server is restarted. One exception: if the edition also changes during an upgrade (such as community to commercial, or vice-versa), then MySQL server is not restarted.
At the initial start up of the server, the following happens, given that the data directory of the server is empty:
The server is initialized.
An SSL certificate and key files are generated in the data directory.
validate_password
is installed and enabled.A superuser account
'root'@'localhost'
is created. A password for the superuser is set and stored in the error log file. To reveal it, use the following command for RHEL, Oracle Linux, CentOS, and Fedora systems:$> sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log
Use the following command for SLES systems:
$> sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysql/mysqld.log
The next step is to log in with the generated, temporary password and set a custom password for the superuser account:
$> mysql -uroot -p
mysql> ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'MyNewPass4!';
validate_password
is installed by default. The default password policy implemented
by validate_password
requires that passwords
contain at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one
digit, and one special character, and that the total password
length is at least 8 characters.
If something goes wrong during installation, you might find debug
information in the error log file
/var/log/mysqld.log
.
For some Linux distributions, it might be necessary to increase the limit on number of file descriptors available to mysqld. See Section B.3.2.16, “File Not Found and Similar Errors”
Installing Client Libraries from Multiple MySQL Versions.
It is possible to install multiple client library versions, such
as for the case that you want to maintain compatibility with
older applications linked against previous libraries. To install
an older client library, use the --oldpackage
option with rpm. For example, to install
mysql-community-libs-5.5
on an EL6 system
that has libmysqlclient.21
from MySQL 8.0,
use a command like this:
$> rpm --oldpackage -ivh mysql-community-libs-5.5.50-2.el6.x86_64.rpm
Debug Package.
A special variant of MySQL Server compiled with the
debug package has been
included in the server RPM packages. It performs debugging and
memory allocation checks and produces a trace file when the
server is running. To use that debug version, start MySQL with
/usr/sbin/mysqld-debug
, instead of starting
it as a service or with /usr/sbin/mysqld
.
See Section 7.9.4, “The DBUG Package” for the debug options you can
use.
The default plugin directory for debug builds changed from
/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin
to
/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin/debug
in MySQL
8.0.4. Previously, it was necessary to change
plugin_dir
to
/usr/lib64/mysql/plugin/debug
for debug
builds.
Rebuilding RPMs from source SRPMs. Source code SRPM packages for MySQL are available for download. They can be used as-is to rebuild the MySQL RPMs with the standard rpmbuild tool chain.