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MySQL 5.4 Reference Manual :: 2 Installing and Upgrading MySQL :: 2.4 Installing MySQL from RPM Packages on Linux
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2.4. 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 Section 2.1.3, “How to Get MySQL”.

For non-RPM Linux distributions, you can install MySQL using a .tar.gz package. See Section 2.9, “Installing MySQL from tar.gz Packages on Other Unix-Like Systems”.

We do provide some platform-specific RPMs; the difference between a platform-specific RPM and a generic RPM is that a platform-specific RPM is built on the targeted platform and is linked dynamically whereas a generic RPM is linked statically with LinuxThreads.

Note

RPM distributions of MySQL often are provided by other vendors. Be aware that they may differ in features and capabilities from those built by us, and that the instructions in this manual do not necessarily apply to installing them. The vendor's instructions should be consulted instead.

If you have problems with an RPM file (for example, if you receive the error Sorry, the host 'xxxx' could not be looked up), see Section 2.13.1.2, “Linux Binary Distribution Notes”.

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.  Standard MySQL server RPMs built by MySQL do not provide support for the NDBCLUSTER storage engine.

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 MySQL Cluster Multi-Computer Installation.

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.

If you get a dependency failure when trying to install MySQL packages (for example, error: removing these packages would break dependencies: libmysqlclient.so.10 is needed by ...), you should also install the MySQL-shared-compat package, which includes both the shared libraries for backward compatibility (libmysqlclient.so.12 for MySQL 4.0 and libmysqlclient.so.10 for MySQL 3.23).

Some Linux distributions still ship with MySQL 3.23 and they usually link applications dynamically to save disk space. If these shared libraries are in a separate package (for example, MySQL-shared), it is sufficient to simply leave this package installed and just upgrade the MySQL server and client packages (which are statically linked and do not depend on the shared libraries). For distributions that include the shared libraries in the same package as the MySQL server (for example, Red Hat Linux), you could either install our 3.23 MySQL-shared RPM, or use the MySQL-shared-compat package instead. (Do not install both.)

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, as 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. 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 MySQL 3.23, 4.0, and so on, 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-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. See Section 2.15, “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.

glibc23 Platform independent, should run on any Linux distribution that supports glibc 2.3
rhel3, rhel4 Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3 or 4
sles9, sles10 SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 or 10

In MySQL 5.4, only glibc23 packages are available currently.

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

i386 x86 processor, 386 and up
i586 x86 processor, Pentium and up
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 Section 2.1.4, “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 don't lose it when you install a newer RPM.) See Section 2.11.2.2, “Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically”, for more information on how MySQL can be started automatically on system startup.

If you want to install the MySQL RPM on older Linux distributions that do not support initialization scripts in /etc/init.d (directly or via a symlink), you should create a symbolic link that points to the location where your initialization scripts actually are installed. For example, if that location is /etc/rc.d/init.d, use these commands before installing the RPM to create /etc/init.d as a symbolic link that points there: 

shell> cd /etc
shell> ln -s rc.d/init.d .

However, all current major Linux distributions should support the new directory layout that uses /etc/init.d, because it is required for LSB (Linux Standard Base) compliance.

If the RPM files that you install include MySQL-server, the mysqld server should be up and running after installation. You should be able to start using MySQL.

If something goes wrong, you can find more information in the binary installation section. See Section 2.9, “Installing MySQL from tar.gz Packages on Other Unix-Like Systems”.

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 Section 2.11, “Post-Installation 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 ensured 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.

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 andgroup exists and manually transfers ownership following the actions in the RPM spec file.


User Comments

Posted by A Sung on October 1 2003 8:45am[Delete] [Edit]

I successfully installed MySQL 4.0.15 onto a Cobalt RaQ4i running Red Hat Cobalt Linux 6.0, even though Sun's Cobalt Support Desk says it won't install because of the glibc version available on this appliance. The standard installation (server and client only) is compatible with this particular web appliance.

I used RPM to install both server and client. Because I wanted to change the location of where the actual data would be stored, I tried configuring the my.cnf file and using symlinks. I found using the symlinks to be easier and more compatible.

My data directory is /home/mysql.

The following is what I did to change the data directory after using RPM to install.

1. stop mysql server
2. mkdir /home/mysql
3. mv /var/lib/mysql/* /home/mysql/
4. rmdir /var/lib/mysql
5. ln -s /home/mysql /var/lib/mysql
6. chown -R mysql:mysql /home/mysql
7. start mysql server again

Posted by Glen Mazza on December 12 2003 2:35am[Delete] [Edit]

Here is an explanation of where to edit the my.cnf file to change data file locations:

http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/128959

Posted by Rohit Baisakhiya on January 16 2005 6:31pm[Delete] [Edit]

Instead of using symlinks,you can just modify the my.cnf file by including "datadir = /path/to/ur/dir/"
and copy all the data from existing data dir to the new data dir.

Posted by Dean Eckstrom on April 19 2005 2:21pm[Delete] [Edit]

If your installing in a 2.6 kernel, either disable SELinux or set a new policy before trying to install MySQL-server. Without it the mysql_install_db and mysqld steps of the RPM will fail.

Posted by raja sekar on May 30 2005 9:26am[Delete] [Edit]

be very cautitous about the configuration s that u perform in the following files
/etc/my.cnf
/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
these are to be read first before moving on to the post installation steps procedure.
this will help in saving time later.

Posted by Matthew Rizzo on September 12 2005 8:55pm[Delete] [Edit]

This simplest way to disable SELinux without reboot.

Q:

How do I temporarily turn off enforcing mode without having to reboot?
A:

This situation usually arises when you can't perform an action that is being prevented by policy. Run the command setenforce 0 to turn off enforcing mode in real time. When you are finished, run setenforce 1 to turn enforcing back on.

(my setenforce was in /usr/sbin)

Posted by Simon Hobbs on October 13 2005 10:45am[Delete] [Edit]

Start Mysql........ERROR! Great help Mr. RPM.

I wanted to post my experience someone, because I uncovered nothing on the internet that was useful.

I was trying to install mysql server 4.1 RPM on Fedora2, and any instructions I found on this site just told me essentially to download and run the RPM.

Anyway, from what I can tell. The mysql 4.0 that was already running already was installed without RPM). So, after screwing around looking for non-existent help to uninstall mysql manually I eventually worked something out.

1.log in as root

2.look for processes run as root:
# ps ux

3.look in the PID (process id) COLUMN for the process with
the string "mysql_safe" in the COMMAND column

4.kill that process (replace PID with the process ID)
# kill -9 PID

5.log in as mysql (it is possible that mysql runs under another user - if so use "#ps axu" to find out which user.

6. get the *first* PID of the mysql process again using:
# ps ux

7. Kill the first process, should kill the rest but check afterwards:
# kill -9 PID

After that, try installing the rpm.
# rpm -i mysql...

Some tips:
-Don't type in the full file name after the -i (eg. .i386.rpm)

-If there is something about "V3 DSA signature: NOKEY" just ignore it because I a dozen threads in which that was present and no-one cared.

-If it complains of failed dependencies PERL(DBI) just ignore because that is apparently a very common package that will be there, just rpm is not "man"ager enough to find it.

Hope my ten minutes saves someone else 3 hours.
Now I'm going to find something else to screw up.

Thanks
sime

Posted by Anthony Volodkin on December 1 2005 12:30am[Delete] [Edit]

When installing 5.0.16-server on a FC4 machine (or possibly any other machine with selinux) you may notice:

- safe_mysqld starts perfectly with all the options from /etc/init.d/mysql
- /etc/init.d/mysql quietly fails to start mysql without any errors

Disabling selinux and restarting the server solves this startup problem. You can disable selinux in /etc/sysconfig/selinux on an FC4 server.

Posted by Michael Berinde on March 30 2006 2:51pm[Delete] [Edit]

Installing 5.0.19 rpm on redhat 4 advanced server the mysql init script parsing messes up variables, for exemple mysqlmanager=/var/lib/bin/mysqlmanager
Fix: copy the mysqld script from the stock redhat 4 mysql rpm, rename to mysql and change the permissions on the script(+x) .

Posted by Joshua Hatfield on April 11 2006 9:55pm[Delete] [Edit]

I found also that 4.1.16-server does not like to run normally on Fedora Core 4 because of the selinux. It appears my /etc/sysconfig/selinux was a symlink to /etc/selinux/config . After changing that file (the directions are in the file for disabling selinux) and rebooting, 5 and 4 both installed and started fine for me.

Posted by brother seven on May 20 2006 4:50pm[Delete] [Edit]

After installed the download RPM version of 5.0.21 server for RH4, pls modify the line in /etc/my.cnf from "basedir="/var/lib" to "basedir=/usr" in order for successful starting the mysql service

Posted by James Attard on August 11 2006 11:49am[Delete] [Edit]

If you are doing an upgrade and you are having problems to start the MySQL server on RHEL, make sure you delete the file /etc/my.cnf

Posted by Ryan Golhar on August 15 2006 8:45pm[Delete] [Edit]

Correct installation steps for MySQL 5.0.24 on RedHat Enterprise Linux 4 with RPM:

Pre-reqs:
1. If you have /etc/my.cnf, delete it.
2. If you have /var/lib/mysql directory, remove it.

Then do:
1. /usr/sbin/setenforce 0
2. rpm -Uvh MySQL-server-standard-5.0.24-0.rhel4.i386.rpm MySQL-client-standard-5.0.24-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
3. /usr/sbin/setenforce 1

The server then starts okay once the rpm installation is complete.

Posted by [name withheld] on August 28 2006 3:47pm[Delete] [Edit]

Unfortunately, the basic rpm install didn't work for me. It just returned a slough of libmysql dependency errors. So eventually here is what I did to get it to work:

# setenforce 0
# rm -rf /usr/lib/libmysql*
# rpm -Uvh --force MySQL-server-standard-5.0.24-0.rhel4.i386.rpm MySQL-client-standard-5.0.24-0.rhel4.i386.rpm MySQL-shared-standard-5.0.24-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
# cp /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.15 /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.14
# cp /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.15.0.0 /usr/lib/libmysqlclient.14.0.0
# rm /var/lib/ib*
# chown -R mysql /var/lib/mysql
# setenforce 1
# service mysql start

Check /var/lib/mysql/{YOUR_SERVER}.err
It should report no errors (except recreating the ib* files) and state version 5.0.24 running.

NOTE: Rather than deleting the libmysql* files, you may prefer to move them somewhere safe. Also, it's possible that the libmysql* increment numbers will not match mine. The libmysqlclient I copied was the only one there (post install), and the copy I made was simply named to match an error that Apache was giving when I tried to restart.

Also, don't forget that you may need to re-compile PHP after this upgrade with the "--with-mysqli" option instead of "--with-mysql", or you will get an error saying "MySQL extension not loaded".

Posted by brunello d on November 16 2006 8:23am[Delete] [Edit]

when installing on RHEL4 with selinux enabled is still had problems when i enbled selinux after installation. apparently there's still a problem with the way the mysql rpm installs on redhat. long version here: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=167551

Installing worked for me after relabeling the files in selinux with the restorecon commando.

step by step installation:

setenforce 0 #disbles selinux temporarily
rpm -ivh MySQL-server-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel4.i386.rpm
restorecon -R /var/lib/mysql/ #restore selinux labels
setenforce 1 #enable selinux again

test by stopping and starting mysql again after with selinux enabled

Posted by Len Umina on December 11 2006 10:36pm[Delete] [Edit]

Mandriva Linux

The ln -s instructions do not provide a workable pointer in Mandriva for some reason I don't understand. I was able to work around this by using mv and moving/renameing the subdirectory of the unzipped archive to /usr/local/mysql instead of using a link to it.

ln -s mysql [etc] did create a link, as the instructions said, but the link did not act as the rest of the instructions indicated it should. By moving/renaming the problem went away.

Posted by clfever maximus on March 9 2008 7:20am[Delete] [Edit]

1- # rpm -ivh MySQL-* --aid --force: To install both Mysql-server and Mysql-client
2- Copy the configuration file to /etc/my.cnf
# cd /usr/share/doc/packages/MySQL-server-community
# cp my-small.cnf /etc/my.cnf
3- If you want to change the default port "3306" for mysql:
# vi /etc/my.cnf :
:set number
go to line 20 and change mysql default port, then
:wq;

# chkconfig --level 35 mysql on

# service mysql restart

. To Give the prmission to waseele user to loging remotely:
# mysql
mysql>
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'waseele'@'localhost'
IDENTIFIED BY 'waseele' WITH GRANT OPTION;

mysql>
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'waseele'@'%'
IDENTIFIED BY 'waseele' WITH GRANT OPTION;

mysql> exit;

Posted by Kyle Joiner on May 19 2009 3:19pm[Delete] [Edit]

Note the following bug and forum information for SELinux problems:

http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=12676

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?11,39505,46941

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