A MySQL-Max server is a version of the mysqld MySQL server that has been built to include additional features. The MySQL-Max distribution to use depends on your platform:

You can find the MySQL-Max binaries on the MySQL Web site at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/.

We build the MySQL-Max servers by using the following configure options:

MySQL-Max binary distributions are a convenience for those who wish to install precompiled programs. If you build MySQL using a source distribution, you can build your own Max-like server by enabling the same features at configuration time that the MySQL-Max binary distributions are built with.

MySQL-Max servers include the BerkeleyDB (BDB) storage engine whenever possible, but not all platforms support BDB.

The following table shows on which platforms MySQL-Max binaries include support for BDB and NDB Cluster:

As of MySQL 4.1.2, MySQL Cluster is supported on Linux (on most platforms), Solaris, Mac OS X, and HP-UX only. Some users have reported success in using MySQL Cluster built from source on BSD operating systems, but these are not officially supported at this time. Note that, even for servers compiled with Cluster support, the NDBCLUSTER storage engine is not enabled by default. You must start the server with the --ndbcluster option to use it as part of a MySQL Cluster. (For details, see Section 15.3, “MySQL Cluster Configuration”.)

The following table shows the platforms for which MySQL-Max binaries include support for BDB and NDBCLUSTER.

To find out which storage engines your server supports, use the SHOW ENGINES statement. (See Section 12.4.5.10, “SHOW ENGINES Syntax”.) For example:

mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
 Engine: MyISAM
Support: DEFAULT
Comment: Default engine as of MySQL 3.23 with great performance
*************************** 2. row ***************************
 Engine: HEAP
Support: YES
Comment: Alias for MEMORY
*************************** 3. row ***************************
 Engine: MEMORY
Support: YES
Comment: Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables
*************************** 4. row ***************************
 Engine: MERGE
Support: YES
Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables
...

Before MySQL 4.1.2, SHOW ENGINES is unavailable. Use the following statement instead and check the value of the variable for the storage engine in which you are interested:

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have%';
+-----------------------+-------+
| Variable_name         | Value |
+-----------------------+-------+
| have_archive          | YES   |
| have_bdb              | YES   |
| have_blackhole_engine | YES   |
| have_compress         | YES   |
| have_crypt            | YES   |
| have_csv              | YES   |
| have_example_engine   | YES   |
| have_geometry         | YES   |
| have_innodb           | YES   |
| have_isam             | NO    |
| have_ndbcluster       | NO    |
| have_openssl          | YES   |
| have_query_cache      | YES   |
| have_raid             | NO    |
| have_rtree_keys       | YES   |
| have_symlink          | YES   |
+-----------------------+-------+
16 rows in set (0.00 sec)

The precise output from these statements may vary according to the MySQL version used (and the features that are enabled). The values of the second column of the output indicate the server's level of support for each feature, as shown here:

A value of NO means that the server was compiled without support for the feature, so it cannot be activated at runtime.

A value of DISABLED occurs either because the server was started with an option that disables the feature, or because not all options required to enable it were given. In the latter case, the error log file should contain a reason indicating why the option is disabled. See Section 5.3.1, “The Error Log”.

One situation in which you might see DISABLED occurs with MySQL 3.23 when the InnoDB storage engine is compiled in. In MySQL 3.23, you must supply at least the innodb_data_file_path option at runtime to set up the InnoDB tablespace. Without this option, InnoDB disables itself. See Section 13.2.2, “InnoDB in MySQL 3.23”. You can specify configuration options for the BDB storage engine, too, but BDB does not disable itself if you do not provide them. See Section 13.5.3, “BDB Startup Options”.

You might also see DISABLED for a storage engine if the server was compiled to support it, but was started with a --skip-engine_name option. For example, --skip-innodb disables the InnoDB engine. For the NDB Cluster storage engine, DISABLED means the server was compiled with support for MySQL Cluster, but was not started with the --ndb-cluster option.

As of version 3.23, all MySQL servers support MyISAM tables, because MyISAM is the default storage engine.