MySQL Reference Manual for version 3.23.58.


1 General Information

The MySQL (R) software delivers a very fast, multi-threaded, multi-user, and robust SQL (Structured Query Language) database server. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software. MySQL is a trademark of MySQL AB.

The MySQL software is Dual Licensed. Users can choose to use the MySQL software as an Open Source/Free Software product under the terms of the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/) or can purchase a standard commercial license from MySQL AB. See section 1.4 MySQL Support and Licensing.

The MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest information about the MySQL software.

The following list describes some sections of particular interest in this manual:

Important:

Reports of errors (often called bugs), as well as questions and comments, should be sent to the general MySQL mailing list. See section 1.6.1.1 The MySQL Mailing Lists. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.

The mysqlbug script should be used to generate bug reports on Unix. (Windows distributions contain a file `mysqlbug.txt' in the base directory that can be used as a template for a bug report.)

For source distributions, the mysqlbug script can be found in the `scripts' directory. For binary distributions, mysqlbug can be found in the `bin' directory (`/usr/bin' for the MySQL-server RPM package).

If you have found a sensitive security bug in MySQL Server, you should send an e-mail to security@mysql.com.

1.1 About This Manual

This is the MySQL reference manual; it documents MySQL up to Version 3.23.58. Functional changes are always indicated with reference to the version, so this manual is also suitable if you are using an older version of the MySQL software (such as 3.23 or 4.0-production). There are also references for version 5.0 (development).

Being a reference manual, it does not provide general instruction on SQL or relational database concepts.

As the MySQL Database Software is under constant development, the manual is also updated frequently. The most recent version of this manual is available at http://www.mysql.com/documentation/ in many different formats, including HTML, PDF, and Windows HLP versions.

The primary document is the Texinfo file. The HTML version is produced automatically using a modified version of texi2html. The plain text and Info versions are produced with makeinfo. The PostScript version is produced using texi2dvi and dvips. The PDF version is produced with pdftex.

If you have a hard time finding information in the manual, you can try our searchable version at http://www.mysql.com/doc/.

If you have any suggestions concerning additions or corrections to this manual, please send them to the documentation team at docs@mysql.com.

This manual was initially written by David Axmark and Michael (Monty) Widenius. It is now maintained by the MySQL Documentation Team, consisting of Arjen Lentz, Paul DuBois and Stefan Hinz. For the many other contributors, see section C Credits.

The copyright (2003) to this manual is owned by the Swedish company MySQL AB. See section 1.4.2 Copyrights and Licenses Used by MySQL.

1.1.1 Conventions Used in This Manual

This manual uses certain typographical conventions:

constant
Constant-width font is used for command names and options; SQL statements; database, table, and column names; C and Perl code; and environment variables. Example: ``To see how mysqladmin works, invoke it with the --help option.''
`filename'
Constant-width font with surrounding quotes is used for filenames and pathnames. Example: ``The distribution is installed under the `/usr/local/' directory.''
`c'
Constant-width font with surrounding quotes is also used to indicate character sequences. Example: ``To specify a wildcard, use the `%' character.''
italic
Italic font is used for emphasis, like this.
boldface
Boldface font is used in table headings and to convey especially strong emphasis.

When commands are shown that are meant to be executed by a particular program, the program is indicated by a prompt shown before the command. For example, shell> indicates a command that you execute from your login shell, and mysql> indicates a command that you execute from the mysql client program:

shell> type a shell command here
mysql> type a mysql command here

Shell commands are shown using Bourne shell syntax. If you are using a csh-style shell, you may need to issue commands slightly differently. For example, the sequence to set an environment variable and run a command looks like this in Bourne shell syntax:

shell> VARNAME=value some_command

For csh, you would execute the sequence like this:

shell> setenv VARNAME value
shell> some_command

Database, table, and column names must often be substituted into commands. To indicate that such substitution is necessary, this manual uses db_name, tbl_name, and col_name. For example, you might see a statement like this:

mysql> SELECT col_name FROM db_name.tbl_name;

This means that if you were to enter a similar statement, you would supply your own database, table, and column names, perhaps like this:

mysql> SELECT author_name FROM biblio_db.author_list;

SQL keywords are not case-sensitive and may be written in uppercase or lowercase. This manual uses uppercase.

In syntax descriptions, square brackets (`[' and `]') are used to indicate optional words or clauses. For example, in the following statement, IF EXISTS is optional:

DROP TABLE [IF EXISTS] tbl_name

When a syntax element consists of a number of alternatives, the alternatives are separated by vertical bars (`|'). When one member from a set of choices may be chosen, the alternatives are listed within square brackets (`[' and `]'):

TRIM([[BOTH | LEADING | TRAILING] [remstr] FROM] str)

When one member from a set of choices must be chosen, the alternatives are listed within braces (`{' and `}'):

{DESCRIBE | DESC} tbl_name {col_name | wild}

1.2 What Is MySQL?

MySQL, the most popular Open Source SQL database, is developed, distributed, and supported by MySQL AB. MySQL AB is a commercial company, founded by the MySQL developers, that builds its business providing services around the MySQL database. See section 1.3 What Is MySQL AB?.

The MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest information about MySQL software and MySQL AB.

MySQL is a database management system.
A database is a structured collection of data. It may be anything from a simple shopping list to a picture gallery or the vast amounts of information in a corporate network. To add, access, and process data stored in a computer database, you need a database management system such as MySQL Server. Since computers are very good at handling large amounts of data, database management systems play a central role in computing, as stand-alone utilities or as parts of other applications.
MySQL is a relational database management system.
A relational database stores data in separate tables rather than putting all the data in one big storeroom. This adds speed and flexibility. The SQL part of ``MySQL'' stands for ``Structured Query Language''. SQL is the most common standardised language used to access databases and is defined by the ANSI/ISO SQL Standard.(The SQL standard has been evolving since 1986 and several versions exist. In this manual, ''SQL-92'' refers to the standard released in 1992, ''SQL-99'' refers to the standard released in 1999, and ''SQL:2003'' refers to the version of the standard that is expected to be released in mid-2003.We use the term ''the SQL standard'' to mean the current version of the SQL Standard at any time.)
MySQL software is Open Source.
Open Source means that it is possible for anyone to use and modify the software. Anybody can download the MySQL software from the Internet and use it without paying anything. If you wish, you may study the source code and change it to suit your needs. The MySQL software uses the GPL (GNU General Public License), http://www.gnu.org/licenses/, to define what you may and may not do with the software in different situations. If you feel uncomfortable with the GPL or need to embed MySQL code into a commercial application you can buy a commercially licensed version from us. See section 1.4.3 MySQL Licenses.
Why use the MySQL Database Server?
The MySQL Database Server is very fast, reliable, and easy to use. If that is what you are looking for, you should give it a try. MySQL Server also has a practical set of features developed in close cooperation with our users. You can find a performance comparison of MySQL Server with other database managers on our benchmark page. See section 5.1.4 The MySQL Benchmark Suite. MySQL Server was originally developed to handle large databases much faster than existing solutions and has been successfully used in highly demanding production environments for several years. Though under constant development, MySQL Server today offers a rich and useful set of functions. Its connectivity, speed, and security make MySQL Server highly suited for accessing databases on the Internet.
The technical features of MySQL Server
For advanced technical information, see section 6 MySQL Language Reference. The MySQL Database Software is a client/server system that consists of a multi-threaded SQL server that supports different backends, several different client programs and libraries, administrative tools, and a wide range of programming interfaces (APIs). We also provide MySQL Server as a multi-threaded library which you can link into your application to get a smaller, faster, easier-to-manage product.
There is a large amount of contributed MySQL software available.
It is very likely that you will find that your favorite application or language already supports the MySQL Database Server.

The official way to pronounce MySQL is ``My Ess Que Ell'' (not ``my sequel''), but we don't mind if you pronounce it as ``my sequel'' or in some other localised way.

1.2.1 History of MySQL

We started out with the intention of using mSQL to connect to our tables using our own fast low-level (ISAM) routines. However, after some testing we came to the conclusion that mSQL was not fast enough nor flexible enough for our needs. This resulted in a new SQL interface to our database but with almost the same API interface as mSQL. This API was chosen to ease porting of third-party code.

The derivation of the name MySQL is not clear. Our base directory and a large number of our libraries and tools have had the prefix ``my'' for well over 10 years. However, co-founder Monty Widenius's daughter (some years younger) is also named My. Which of the two gave its name to MySQL is still a mystery, even for us.

The name of the MySQL Dolphin (our logo) is Sakila. Sakila was chosen by the founders of MySQL AB from a huge list of names suggested by users in our "Name the Dolphin" contest. The winning name was submitted by Ambrose Twebaze, an open source software developer from Swaziland, Africa. According to Ambrose, the name Sakila has its roots in SiSwati, the local language of Swaziland. Sakila is also the name of a town in Arusha, Tanzania, near Ambrose's country of origin, Uganda.

1.2.2 The Main Features of MySQL

The following list describes some of the important characteristics of the MySQL Database Software. See section 1.5.1 MySQL 4.0 in a Nutshell.

Internals and Portability
Column Types
Commands and Functions
Security
Scalability and Limits
Connectivity
Localisation
Clients and Tools

1.2.3 How Stable Is MySQL?

This section addresses the questions ``How stable is MySQL Server?'' and ``Can I depend on MySQL Server in this project?'' We will try to clarify these issues and answer some important questions that concern many potential users. The information in this section is based on data gathered from the mailing list, which is very active in identifying problems as well as reporting types of use.

Original code stems back from the early '80s, providing a stable code base, and the ISAM table format remains backward-compatible. At TcX, the predecessor of MySQL AB, MySQL code has worked in projects since mid-1996, without any problems. When the MySQL Database Software was released to a wider public, our new users quickly found some pieces of ``untested code''. Each new release since then has had fewer portability problems (even though each new release has also had many new features).

Each release of the MySQL Server has been usable. Problems have occurred only when users try code from the ``gray zones.'' Naturally, new users don't know what the gray zones are; this section therefore attempts to document those areas that are currently known. The descriptions mostly deal with Version 3.23 and 4.0 of MySQL Server. All known and reported bugs are fixed in the latest version, with the exception of those listed in the bugs section, which are things that are design-related. See section 1.7.6 Known Errors and Design Deficiencies in MySQL.

The MySQL Server design is multi-layered with independent modules. Some of the newer modules are listed here with an indication of how well-tested each of them is:

Replication -- Gamma
Large server clusters using replication are in production use, with good results. Work on enhanced replication features is continuing in MySQL 4.x.
InnoDB tables -- Stable (in 3.23 from 3.23.49)
The InnoDB transactional storage engine has been declared stable in the MySQL 3.23 tree, starting from version 3.23.49. InnoDB is being used in large, heavy-load production systems.
BDB tables -- Gamma
The Berkeley DB code is very stable, but we are still improving the BDB transactional storage engine interface in MySQL Server, so it will take some time before this is as well tested as the other table types.
FULLTEXT -- Beta
Full-text search works but is not yet widely used. Important enhancements have been implemented in MySQL 4.0.
MyODBC 3.51 (uses ODBC SDK 3.51) -- Stable
In wide production use. Some issues brought up appear to be application-related and independent of the ODBC driver or underlying database server.
Automatic recovery of MyISAM tables -- Gamma
This status applies only to the new code in the MyISAM storage engine that checks if the table was closed properly on open and executes an automatic check/repair of the table if it wasn't.
Bulk-insert -- Alpha
New feature in MyISAM tables in MySQL 4.0 for faster insert of many rows.
Locking -- Gamma
This is very system-dependent. On some systems there are big problems using standard OS locking (fcntl()). In these cases, you should run mysqld with the --skip-external-locking flag. Problems are known to occur on some Linux systems, and on SunOS when using NFS-mounted filesystems.

MySQL AB provides high-quality support for paying customers, and the MySQL mailing list usually provides answers to common questions. Bugs are usually fixed right away with a patch; for serious bugs, there is almost always a new release.

1.2.4 How Big Can MySQL Tables Be?

MySQL Version 3.22 had a 4 GB (4 gigabyte) limit on table size. With the MyISAM table type in MySQL Version 3.23, the maximum table size was pushed up to 8 million terabytes (2 ^ 63 bytes).

In effect, then, the table size for MySQL databases is normally limited by the operating system.

Note, however, that operating systems have their own file-size limits. Here are some examples:

Operating System File-Size Limit
Linux-Intel 32 bit 2 GB, much more when using LFS
Linux-Alpha 8 TB (?)
Solaris 2.5.1 2 GB (possible 4GB with patch)
Solaris 2.6 4 GB (can be changed with flag)
Solaris 2.7 Intel 4 GB
Solaris 2.7 UltraSPARC 512 GB

On Linux 2.2 you can get tables larger than 2 GB in size by using the LFS patch for the ext2 filesystem. On Linux 2.4 patches also exist for ReiserFS to get support for big files. Most current distributions are based on kernel 2.4 and already include all the required Large File Support (LFS) patches. However, the maximum available file size still depends on several factors, one of them being the file system used to store MySQL tables.

For a very detailed overview about LFS in Linux, have a look at Andreas Jaeger's "Large File Support in Linux" page at http://www.suse.de/~aj/linux_lfs.html.

By default, MySQL tables have a maximum size of about 4 GB. You can check the maximum table size for a table with the SHOW TABLE STATUS command or with the myisamchk -dv table_name. See section 4.5.7 SHOW Syntax.

If you need a table that will be larger than 4 GB in size (and your operating system supports it), set the AVG_ROW_LENGTH and MAX_ROWS parameters accordingly when you create your table. See section 6.5.3 CREATE TABLE Syntax. You can also set these parameters later, with ALTER TABLE. See section 6.5.4 ALTER TABLE Syntax.

If your big table is a read-only table, you could use myisampack to merge and compress many tables into one. myisampack usually compresses a table by at least 50%, so you can have, in effect, much bigger tables. See section 4.7.4 myisampack, The MySQL Compressed Read-only Table Generator.

You can get around the operating system file limit for MyISAM datafiles using the RAID option. See section 6.5.3 CREATE TABLE Syntax.

Another solution can be the included MERGE library, which allows you to handle a collection of identical tables as one. See section 7.2 MERGE Tables.

1.2.5 Year 2000 Compliance

The MySQL Server itself has no problems with Year 2000 (Y2K) compliance:

You may run into problems with applications that use MySQL Server in a way that is not Y2K-safe. For example, many old applications store or manipulate years using 2-digit values (which are ambiguous) rather than 4-digit values. This problem may be compounded by applications that use values such as 00 or 99 as ``missing'' value indicators.

Unfortunately, these problems may be difficult to fix because different applications may be written by different programmers, each of whom may use a different set of conventions and date-handling functions.

Here is a simple demonstration illustrating that MySQL Server doesn't have any problems with dates until the year 2030:

mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS y2k;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE y2k (date DATE,
    ->                   date_time DATETIME,
    ->                   time_stamp TIMESTAMP);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO y2k VALUES
    -> ("1998-12-31","1998-12-31 23:59:59",19981231235959),
    -> ("1999-01-01","1999-01-01 00:00:00",19990101000000),
    -> ("1999-09-09","1999-09-09 23:59:59",19990909235959),
    -> ("2000-01-01","2000-01-01 00:00:00",20000101000000),
    -> ("2000-02-28","2000-02-28 00:00:00",20000228000000),
    -> ("2000-02-29","2000-02-29 00:00:00",20000229000000),
    -> ("2000-03-01","2000-03-01 00:00:00",20000301000000),
    -> ("2000-12-31","2000-12-31 23:59:59",20001231235959),
    -> ("2001-01-01","2001-01-01 00:00:00",20010101000000),
    -> ("2004-12-31","2004-12-31 23:59:59",20041231235959),
    -> ("2005-01-01","2005-01-01 00:00:00",20050101000000),
    -> ("2030-01-01","2030-01-01 00:00:00",20300101000000),
    -> ("2050-01-01","2050-01-01 00:00:00",20500101000000);
Query OK, 13 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Records: 13  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> SELECT * FROM y2k;
+------------+---------------------+----------------+
| date       | date_time           | time_stamp     |
+------------+---------------------+----------------+
| 1998-12-31 | 1998-12-31 23:59:59 | 19981231235959 |
| 1999-01-01 | 1999-01-01 00:00:00 | 19990101000000 |
| 1999-09-09 | 1999-09-09 23:59:59 | 19990909235959 |
| 2000-01-01 | 2000-01-01 00:00:00 | 20000101000000 |
| 2000-02-28 | 2000-02-28 00:00:00 | 20000228000000 |
| 2000-02-29 | 2000-02-29 00:00:00 | 20000229000000 |
| 2000-03-01 | 2000-03-01 00:00:00 | 20000301000000 |
| 2000-12-31 | 2000-12-31 23:59:59 | 20001231235959 |
| 2001-01-01 | 2001-01-01 00:00:00 | 20010101000000 |
| 2004-12-31 | 2004-12-31 23:59:59 | 20041231235959 |
| 2005-01-01 | 2005-01-01 00:00:00 | 20050101000000 |
| 2030-01-01 | 2030-01-01 00:00:00 | 20300101000000 |
| 2050-01-01 | 2050-01-01 00:00:00 | 00000000000000 |
+------------+---------------------+----------------+
13 rows in set (0.00 sec)

This example shows that the DATE and DATETIME datatypes will not give any problems with future dates (they handle dates until the year 9999).

The TIMESTAMP datatype, which is used to store the current time, supports values that range from 19700101000000 to 20300101000000 on 32-bit machines (signed value). On 64-bit machines, TIMESTAMP handles values up to 2106 (unsigned value).

Even though MySQL Server is Y2K-compliant, it is your responsibility to provide unambiguous input. See section 6.2.2.1 Y2K Issues and Date Types for MySQL Server's rules for dealing with ambiguous date input data (data containing 2-digit year values).

1.3 What Is MySQL AB?

MySQL AB is the company of the MySQL founders and main developers. MySQL AB was originally established in Sweden by David Axmark, Allan Larsson, and Michael Monty Widenius.

The developers of the MySQL server are all employed by the company. We are a virtual organisation with people in a dozen countries around the world. We communicate extensively over the Net every day with one another and with our users, supporters, and partners.

We are dedicated to developing the MySQL software and spreading our database to new users. MySQL AB owns the copyright to the MySQL source code, the MySQL logo and trademark, and this manual. See section 1.2 What Is MySQL?.

The MySQL core values show our dedication to MySQL and Open Source.

We want the MySQL Database Software to be:

MySQL AB and the people at MySQL AB:

The MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest information about MySQL and MySQL AB.

By the way, the ``AB'' part of the company name is the acronym for the Swedish ``aktiebolag'', or ``stock company.'' It translates to ``MySQL, Inc.'' In fact, MySQL Inc. and MySQL GmbH are examples of MySQL AB subsidiaries. They are located in the US and Germany, respectively.

1.3.1 The Business Model and Services of MySQL AB

One of the most common questions we encounter is: ``How can you make a living from something you give away for free?'' This is how.

MySQL AB makes money on support, services, commercial licenses, and royalties. We use these revenues to fund product development and to expand the MySQL business.

The company has been profitable since its inception. In October 2001, we accepted venture financing from leading Scandinavian investors and a handful of business angels. This investment is used to solidify our business model and build a basis for sustainable growth.

1.3.1.1 Support

MySQL AB is run and owned by the founders and main developers of the MySQL database. The developers are committed to giving support to customers and other users in order to stay in touch with their needs and problems. All our support is given by qualified developers. Really tricky questions are answered by Michael Monty Widenius, principal author of the MySQL Server. See section 1.4.1 Support Offered by MySQL AB.

For more information and ordering support at various levels, see http://www.mysql.com/support/ or contact our sales staff at sales@mysql.com.

1.3.1.2 Training and Certification

MySQL AB delivers MySQL and related training worldwide. We offer both open courses and in-house courses tailored to the specific needs of your company. MySQL Training is also available through our partners, the Authorised MySQL Training Centers.

Our training material uses the same example databases used in our documentation and our sample applications, and is always updated to reflect the latest MySQL version. Our trainers are backed by the development team to guarantee the quality of the training and the continuous development of the course material. This also ensures that no questions raised during the courses remain unanswered.

Attending our training courses will enable you to achieve your MySQL application goals. You will also:

If you are interested in our training as a potential participant or as a training partner, please visit the training section at http://www.mysql.com/training/ or contact us at: training@mysql.com.

For details about the MySQL Certification Program, please see http://www.mysql.com/certification/.

1.3.1.3 Consulting

MySQL AB and its Authorised Partners offer consulting services to users of MySQL Server and to those who embed MySQL Server in their own software, all over the world.

Our consultants can help you design and tune your databases, construct efficient queries, tune your platform for optimal performance, resolve migration issues, set up replication, build robust transactional applications, and more. We also help customers embed MySQL Server in their products and applications for large-scale deployment.

Our consultants work in close collaboration with our development team, which ensures the technical quality of our professional services. Consulting assignments range from 2-day power-start sessions to projects that span weeks and months. Our expertise not only covers MySQL Server---it also extends into programming and scripting languages such as PHP, Perl, and more.

If you are interested in our consulting services or want to become a consulting partner, please visit the consulting section of our web site at http://www.mysql.com/consulting/ or contact our consulting staff at consulting@mysql.com.

1.3.1.4 Commercial Licenses

The MySQL database is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This means that the MySQL software can be used free of charge under the GPL. If you do not want to be bound by the GPL terms (such as the requirement that your application must also be GPL, you may purchase a commercial license for the same product from MySQL AB; see http://www.mysql.com/products/pricing.html. Since MySQL AB owns the copyright to the MySQL source code, we are able to employ Dual Licensing, which means that the same product is available under GPL and under a commercial license. This does not in any way affect the Open Source commitment of MySQL AB. For details about when a commercial license is required, please see section 1.4.3 MySQL Licenses.

We also sell commercial licenses of third-party Open Source GPL software that adds value to MySQL Server. A good example is the InnoDB transactional storage engine that offers ACID support, row-level locking, crash recovery, multi-versioning, foreign key support, and more. See section 7.5 InnoDB Tables.

1.3.1.5 Partnering

MySQL AB has a worldwide partner programme that covers training courses, consulting and support, publications, plus reselling and distributing MySQL and related products. MySQL AB Partners get visibility on the http://www.mysql.com/ web site and the right to use special versions of the MySQL trademarks to identify their products and promote their business.

If you are interested in becoming a MySQL AB Partner, please e-mail partner@mysql.com.

The word MySQL and the MySQL dolphin logo are trademarks of MySQL AB. See section 1.4.4 MySQL AB Logos and Trademarks. These trademarks represent a significant value that the MySQL founders have built over the years.

The MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/) is popular among developers and users. In October 2001, we served 10 million page views. Our visitors represent a group that makes purchase decisions and recommendations for both software and hardware. Twelve percent of our visitors authorise purchase decisions, and only nine percent are not involved in purchase decisions at all. More than 65% have made one or more online business purchases within the last half-year, and 70% plan to make one in the next few months.

1.3.2 Contact Information

The MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/) provides the latest information about MySQL and MySQL AB.

For press services and inquiries not covered in our News releases (http://www.mysql.com/news/), please send an e-mail to press@mysql.com.

If you have a valid support contract with MySQL AB, you will get timely, precise answers to your technical questions about the MySQL software. For more information, see section 1.4.1 Support Offered by MySQL AB. On our web site, see http://www.mysql.com/support/, or send an e-mail to sales@mysql.com.

For information about MySQL training, please visit the training section at http://www.mysql.com/training/. If you have restricted access to the Internet, please contact the MySQL AB training staff via e-mail at training@mysql.com. See section 1.3.1.2 Training and Certification.

For information on the MySQL Certification Program, please see http://www.mysql.com/certification/. See section 1.3.1.2 Training and Certification.

If you're interested in consulting, please visit the consulting section of our web site at http://www.mysql.com/consulting/. If you have restricted access to the Internet, please contact the MySQL AB consulting staff via e-mail at consulting@mysql.com. See section 1.3.1.3 Consulting.

Commercial licenses may be purchased online at https://order.mysql.com/. There you will also find information on how to fax your purchase order to MySQL AB. More information about licensing can be found at http://www.mysql.com/products/pricing.html. If you have questions regarding licensing or you want a quote for a high-volume license deal, please fill in the contact form on our web site (http://www.mysql.com/) or send an e-mail message to licensing@mysql.com (for licensing questions) or to sales@mysql.com (for sales inquiries). See section 1.4.3 MySQL Licenses.

If you represent a business that is interested in partnering with MySQL AB, please send an e-mail to partner@mysql.com. See section 1.3.1.5 Partnering.

For more information on the MySQL trademark policy, refer to http://www.mysql.com/company/trademark.html or send an e-mail to trademark@mysql.com. See section 1.4.4 MySQL AB Logos and Trademarks.

If you are interested in any of the MySQL AB jobs listed in our jobs section (http://www.mysql.com/company/jobs/), please send an e-mail to jobs@mysql.com. Please do not send your CV as an attachment, but rather as plain text at the end of your e-mail message.

For general discussion among our many users, please direct your attention to the appropriate mailing list. See section 1.6.1 MySQL Mailing Lists.

Reports of errors (often called bugs), as well as questions and comments, should be sent to the general MySQL mailing list. See section 1.6.1.1 The MySQL Mailing Lists. If you have found a sensitive security bug in the MySQL Server, please send an e-mail to security@mysql.com. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.

If you have benchmark results that we can publish, please contact us via e-mail at benchmarks@mysql.com.

If you have suggestions concerning additions or corrections to this manual, please send them to the manual team via e-mail at docs@mysql.com.

For questions or comments about the workings or content of the MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/), please send an e-mail to webmaster@mysql.com.

MySQL AB has a privacy policy, which can be read at http://www.mysql.com/company/privacy.html. For any queries regarding this policy, please send an e-mail to privacy@mysql.com.

For all other inquires, please send an e-mail to info@mysql.com.

1.4 MySQL Support and Licensing

This section describes MySQL support and licensing arrangements.

1.4.1 Support Offered by MySQL AB

Technical support from MySQL AB means individualised answers to your unique problems direct from the software engineers who code the MySQL database engine.

We try to take a broad and inclusive view of technical support. Almost any problem involving MySQL software is important to us if it's important to you. Typically customers seek help on how to get different commands and utilities to work, remove performance bottlenecks, restore crashed systems, understand operating system or networking impacts on MySQL, set up best practices for backup and recovery, utilise APIs, and so on. Our support covers only the MySQL server and our own utilities, not third-party products that access the MySQL server, though we try to help with these where we can.

Detailed information about our various support options is given at http://www.mysql.com/support/, where support contracts can also be ordered online. If you have restricted access to the Internet, please contact our sales staff via e-mail at sales@mysql.com.

Technical support is like life insurance. You can live happily without it for years, but when your hour arrives it becomes critically important, yet it's too late to buy it. If you use MySQL Server for important applications and encounter sudden difficulties, it may be too time consuming to figure out all the answers yourself. You may need immediate access to the most experienced MySQL troubleshooters available, those employed by MySQL AB.

1.4.2 Copyrights and Licenses Used by MySQL

MySQL AB owns the copyright to the MySQL source code, the MySQL logos and trademarks and this manual. See section 1.3 What Is MySQL AB?. Several different licenses are relevant to the MySQL distribution:

  1. All the MySQL-specific source in the server, the mysqlclient library and the client, as well as the GNU readline library is covered by the GNU General Public License. See section H GNU General Public License. The text of this license can be found as the file `COPYING' in the distribution.
  2. The GNU getopt library is covered by the GNU Lesser General Public License. See section I GNU Lesser General Public License.
  3. Some parts of the source (the regexp library) are covered by a Berkeley-style copyright.
  4. Older versions of MySQL (3.22 and earlier) are subject to a stricter license (http://www.mysql.com/products/mypl.html). See the documentation of the specific version for information.
  5. The MySQL reference manual is currently not distributed under a GPL-style license. Use of the manual is subject to the following terms: Please send an e-mail to docs@mysql.com for more information or if you are interested in doing a translation.

For information about how the MySQL licenses work in practice, please refer to section 1.4.3 MySQL Licenses. Also see section 1.4.4 MySQL AB Logos and Trademarks.

1.4.3 MySQL Licenses

The MySQL software is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is probably the best known Open Source license. The formal terms of the GPL license can be found at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/. See also http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/enforcing-gpl.html.

Since the MySQL software is released under the GPL, it may often be used for free, but for certain uses you may want or need to buy commercial licenses from MySQL AB at https://order.mysql.com/. See http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html for more information.

Older versions of MySQL (3.22 and earlier) are subject to a stricter license (http://www.mysql.com/products/mypl.html). See the documentation of the specific version for information.

Please note that the use of the MySQL software under commercial license, GPL, or the old MySQL license does not automatically give you the right to use MySQL AB trademarks. See section 1.4.4 MySQL AB Logos and Trademarks.

1.4.3.1 Using the MySQL Software Under a Commercial License

The GPL license is contagious in the sense that when a program is linked to a GPL program all the source code for all the parts of the resulting product must also be released under the GPL. If you do not follow this GPL requirement, you break the license terms and forfeit your right to use the GPL program altogether. You also risk damages.

You need a commercial license:

If you require a license, you will need one for each installation of the MySQL software. This covers any number of CPUs on a machine, and there is no artificial limit on the number of clients that connect to the server in any way.

For commercial licenses, please visit our website at http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html. For support contracts, see http://www.mysql.com/support/. If you have special needs or you have restricted access to the Internet, please contact our sales staff via e-mail at sales@mysql.com.

1.4.3.2 Using the MySQL Software for Free Under GPL

You can use the MySQL software for free under the GPL if you adhere to the conditions of the GPL. For additional details, including answers to common questions about the GPL, see the generic FAQ from the Free Software Foundation at http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html. Common uses of the GPL include:

If your use of MySQL database software does not require a commercial license, we encourage you to purchase support from MySQL AB anyway. This way you contribute toward MySQL development and also gain immediate advantages for yourself. See section 1.4.1 Support Offered by MySQL AB.

If you use the MySQL database software in a commercial context such that you profit by its use, we ask that you further the development of the MySQL software by purchasing some level of support. We feel that if the MySQL database helps your business, it is reasonable to ask that you help MySQL AB. (Otherwise, if you ask us support questions, you are not only using for free something into which we've put a lot a work, you're asking us to provide free support, too.)

1.4.4 MySQL AB Logos and Trademarks

Many users of the MySQL database want to display the MySQL AB dolphin logo on their web sites, books, or boxed products. We welcome and encourage this, although it should be noted that the word MySQL and the MySQL dolphin logo are trademarks of MySQL AB and may only be used as stated in our trademark policy at http://www.mysql.com/company/trademark.html.

1.4.4.1 The Original MySQL Logo

The MySQL dolphin logo was designed by the Finnish advertising agency Priority in 2001. The dolphin was chosen as a suitable symbol for the MySQL database since it is a smart, fast, and lean animal, effortlessly navigating oceans of data. We also happen to like dolphins.

The original MySQL logo may only be used by representatives of MySQL AB and by those having a written agreement allowing them to do so.

1.4.4.2 MySQL Logos that may be Used Without Written Permission

We have designed a set of special Conditional Use logos that may be downloaded from our web site at http://www.mysql.com/press/logos.html and used on third-party web sites without written permission from MySQL AB. The use of these logos is not entirely unrestricted but, as the name implies, subject to our trademark policy that is also available on our web site. You should read through the trademark policy if you plan to use them. The requirements are basically as follows:

Contact us via e-mail at trademark@mysql.com to inquire about special arrangements to fit your needs.

1.4.4.3 When do you need a Written Permission to use MySQL Logos?

You need written permission from MySQL AB before using MySQL logos in the following cases:

Due to legal and commercial reasons we monitor the use of MySQL trademarks on products, books, and other items. We usually require a fee for displaying MySQL AB logos on commercial products, since we think it is reasonable that some of the revenue is returned to fund further development of the MySQL database.

1.4.4.4 MySQL AB Partnership Logos

MySQL partnership logos may be used only by companies and persons having a written partnership agreement with MySQL AB. Partnerships include certification as a MySQL trainer or consultant. For more information, please see section 1.3.1.5 Partnering.

1.4.4.5 Using the word MySQL in Printed Text or Presentations

MySQL AB welcomes references to the MySQL database, but it should be noted that the word MySQL is a trademark of MySQL AB. Because of this, you must append the trademark symbol (TM) to the first or most prominent use of the word MySQL in a text and, where appropriate, state that MySQL is a trademark of MySQL AB. For more information, please refer to our trademark policy at http://www.mysql.com/company/trademark.html.

1.4.4.6 Using the word MySQL in Company and Product Names

Use of the word MySQL in product or company names or in Internet domain names is not allowed without written permission from MySQL AB.

1.5 MySQL Development Roadmap

This section provides a snapshot of the MySQL development roadmap, including major features implemented or planned for MySQL 4.0, 4.1, and 5.0. The following sections provide information for each release. Plans for some of the most requested features are summarized in the following table.

Feature MySQL version
Unions 4.0
Subqueries 4.1
R-trees 4.1 (for MyISAM tables)
Stored procedures 5.0
Cursors 5.0
Foreign keys 5.1 (3.23 with InnoDB)
Views 5.1
Triggers 5.1
Full outer join 5.1
Constraints 5.1

1.5.1 MySQL 4.0 in a Nutshell

Long promised by MySQL AB and long awaited by our users, MySQL Server 4.0 is now available in production version.

MySQL 4.0 is available for download from http://www.mysql.com/ and from our mirrors. MySQL 4.0 has been tested by a large number of users and is in production use at many large sites.

The major new features of MySQL Server 4.0 are geared toward our existing business and community users, enhancing the MySQL database software as the solution for mission-critical, heavy-load database systems. Other new features target the users of embedded databases.

MySQL Version 4.0.12 was declared stable for production use in March 2003. This means that, in future, only bug fixes will be done for the 4.0 release series and only critical bug fixes will be done for the older 3.23 series. See section 2.5.2 Upgrading From Version 3.23 to 4.0.

New features to the MySQL software are being added to MySQL 4.1 which is now also available (alpha version). See section 1.5.2 MySQL 4.1 in a Nutshell.

1.5.1.1 Features Available in MySQL 4.0

Speed enhancements
Embedded MySQL Server introduced
InnoDB storage engine as standard
New functionality
Standards compliance, portability, and migration
Internationalisation
Usability enhancements
In the process of building features for new users, we have not forgotten requests from our community of loyal users.

The news section of this manual includes a more in-depth list of features. See section D.3 Changes in release 4.0.x (Production).

1.5.1.2 Embedded MySQL Server

libmysqld makes MySQL Server suitable for a vastly expanded realm of applications. Using the embedded MySQL server library, one can embed MySQL Server into various applications and electronics devices, where the end user has no knowledge of there actually being an underlying database. Embedded MySQL Server is ideal for use behind the scenes in Internet appliances, public kiosks, turnkey hardware/software combination units, high performance Internet servers, self-contained databases distributed on CD-ROM, and so on.

Many users of libmysqld will benefit from the MySQL Dual Licensing. For those not wishing to be bound by the GPL, the software is also made available under a commercial license. The embedded MySQL library uses the same interface as the normal client library, so it is convenient and easy to use. See section 9.1.15 libmysqld, the Embedded MySQL Server Library.

1.5.2 MySQL 4.1 in a Nutshell

MySQL Server 4.0 laid the foundation for new features such as nested subqueries and Unicode (implemented in version 4.1) and for the work on SQL-99 stored procedures being done for version 5.0. These features come at the top of the wish list of many of our customers.

With these additions, critics of the MySQL Database Server have to be more imaginative than ever in pointing out deficiencies in the MySQL Database Management System. Already well-known for its stability, speed, and ease of use, MySQL Server will be able to fulfill the requirement checklists of very demanding buyers.

1.5.2.1 Features Available in MySQL 4.1

The features listed in this section are implemented in MySQL 4.1. A few other features are still planned for MySQL 4.1. See section 1.8.1 New Features Planned For 4.1.

Most new features being coded, such as stored procedures, will be available in MySQL 5.0. See section 1.8.2 New Features Planned For 5.0.

Support for subqueries and derived tables
Speed enhancements
New functionality
Standards compliance, portability, and migration
Internationalisation
Usability enhancements

The news section in this manual includes a more in-depth list of features. See section D.2 Changes in release 4.1.x (Alpha).

1.5.2.2 Stepwise Rollout

New features are being added to MySQL 4.1, which is already available for download (alpha version). See section 1.5.2.3 Ready for Immediate Development Use.

The set of features that are being added to version 4.1 is mostly fixed. Additional development is already ongoing for version 5.0. MySQL 4.1 will go through the steps of Alpha (during which time new features might still be added/changed), Beta (when we have feature freeze and only bug corrections will be done), and Gamma (indicating that a production release is just weeks ahead). At the end of this process, MySQL 4.1 will become the new production release.

1.5.2.3 Ready for Immediate Development Use

MySQL 4.1 is currently in the alpha stage, and binaries are available for download at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-4.1.html. All binary releases pass our extensive test suite without any errors on the platforms on which we test. See section D.2 Changes in release 4.1.x (Alpha).

For those wishing to use the most recent development source for MySQL 4.1, we have made our 4.1 BitKeeper repository publicly available. See section 2.3.4 Installing from the Development Source Tree.

1.5.3 MySQL 5.0, The Next Development Release

New development for MySQL is focused on the 5.0 release, featuring Stored Procedures and other new features. See section 1.8.2 New Features Planned For 5.0.

For those wishing to take a look at the bleeding edge of MySQL development, we have made our BitKeeper repository for MySQL version 5.0 publicly available. See section 2.3.4 Installing from the Development Source Tree.

1.6 MySQL Information Sources

1.6.1 MySQL Mailing Lists

This section introduces you to the MySQL mailing lists and gives some guidelines as to how the lists should be used. When you subscribe to a mailing list, you will receive, as e-mail messages, all postings to the list. You will also be able to send your own questions and answers to the list.

1.6.1.1 The MySQL Mailing Lists

To subscribe to or unsubscribe from any of the mailing lists described in this section, visit http://lists.mysql.com/. Please do not send messages about subscribing or unsubscribing to any of the mailing lists, because such messages are distributed automatically to thousands of other users.

Your local site may have many subscribers to a MySQL mailing list. If so, the site may have a local mailing list, so that messages sent from lists.mysql.com to your site are propagated to the local list. In such cases, please contact your system administrator to be added to or dropped from the local MySQL list.

If you wish to have traffic for a mailing list go to a separate mailbox in your mail program, set up a filter based on the message headers. You can use either the List-ID: or Delivered-To: headers to identify list messages.

The MySQL mailing lists are as follows:

announce
This list is for announcements of new versions of MySQL and related programs. This is a low-volume list to which all MySQL users should subscribe.
mysql
This is the main list for general MySQL discussion. Please note that some topics are better discussed on the more-specialised lists. If you post to the wrong list, you may not get an answer.
mysql-digest
This is the mysql list in digest form. Subscribing to this list means you will get all list messages, sent as one large mail message once a day.
bugs
This list will be of interest to you if you want to stay informed about issues reported since the last release of MySQL or if you want to be actively involved in the process of bug hunting and fixing. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.
bugs-digest
This is the bugs list in digest form.
internals
This list is for people who work on the MySQL code. This is also the forum for discussions on MySQL development and post patches.
internals-digest
This is the internals list in digest form.
mysqldoc
This list is for people who work on the MySQL documentation: people from MySQL AB, translators, and other community members.
mysqldoc-digest
This is the mysqldoc list in digest form.
benchmarks
This list is for anyone interested in performance issues. Discussions concentrate on database performance (not limited to MySQL) but also include broader categories such as performance of the kernel, file system, disk system, and so on.
benchmarks-digest
This is the benchmarks list in digest form.
packagers
This list is for discussions on packaging and distributing MySQL. This is the forum used by distribution maintainers to exchange ideas on packaging MySQL and on ensuring that MySQL looks and feels as similar as possible on all supported platforms and operating systems.
packagers-digest
This is the packagers list in digest form.
java
This list is for discussions about the MySQL server and Java.It is mostly used to discuss JDBC drivers, including MySQL Connector/J.
java-digest
This is the java list in digest form.
win32
This list is for all things concerning the MySQL software on Microsoft operating systems, such as Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP.
win32-digest
This is the win32 list in digest form.
myodbc
This list is for all things concerning connecting to the MySQL server with ODBC.
myodbc-digest
This is the myodbc list in digest form.
mysqlcc
This list is for all things concerning the MySQL Control Center graphical client.
mysqlcc-digest
This is the mysqlcc list in digest form.
plusplus
This list is for all things concerning programming with the C++ API to MySQL.
plusplus-digest
This is the plusplus list in digest form.
msql-mysql-modules
This list is for all things concerning the Perl support for MySQL with msql-mysql-modules, which is now named DBD-mysql.
msql-mysql-modules-digest
This is the msql-mysql-modules list in digest form.

If you're unable to get an answer to your question(s) from a MySQL mailing list, one option is to pay for support from MySQL AB. This will put you in direct contact with MySQL developers. See section 1.4.1 Support Offered by MySQL AB.

The following table shows some MySQL mailing lists in languages other than English. These lists are not operated by MySQL AB, so we can't guarantee their quality.

mysql-france-subscribe@yahoogroups.com A French mailing list
list@tinc.net A Korean mailing list
E-mail subscribe mysql your@e-mail.address to this list.
mysql-de-request@lists.4t2.com A German mailing list
E-mail subscribe mysql-de your@e-mail.address to this list. You can find information about this mailing list at http://www.4t2.com/mysql/.
mysql-br-request@listas.linkway.com.br A Portuguese mailing list
E-mail subscribe mysql-br your@e-mail.address to this list.
mysql-alta@elistas.net A Spanish mailing list
E-mail subscribe mysql your@e-mail.address to this list.

1.6.1.2 Asking Questions or Reporting Bugs

Before posting a bug report or question, please do the following:

If you can't find an answer in the manual or the archives, check with your local MySQL expert. If you still can't find an answer to your question, please follow the guidelines on sending mail to a MySQL mailing list, outlined in the next section, before contacting us.

1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems

Our bugs database is public, and can be browsed and searched by anyone at http://bugs.mysql.com/. If you log into the system, you will also be able to enter new reports.

Writing a good bug report takes patience, but doing it right the first time saves time both for us and for yourself. A good bug report, containing a full test case for the bug, makes it very likely that we will fix the bug in the next release. This section will help you write your report correctly so that you don't waste your time doing things that may not help us much or at all.

We encourage everyone to use the mysqlbug script to generate a bug report (or a report about any problem). mysqlbug can be found in the `scripts' directory (source distribution) and in the `bin' directory under your MySQL installation directory (binary distribution). If you are unable to use mysqlbug (for instance, if you are running on Windows), it is still vital that you include all the necessary information noted in this section (most importantly a description of the operating system and the MySQL version).

The mysqlbug script helps you generate a report by determining much of the following information automatically, but if something important is missing, please include it with your message. Please read this section carefully and make sure that all the information described here is included in your report.

Preferably, you should test the problem using the latest production or development version of MySQL Server before posting. Anyone should be able to repeat the bug by just using 'mysql test < script' on the included test case or run the shell or Perl script that is included in the bug report.

All bugs posted in the bugs database at http://bugs.mysql.com/ will be corrected or documented in the next MySQL release. If only minor code changes are needed to correct a problem, we will also post a patch that fixes the problem.

The normal place to report bugs is http://bugs.mysql.com/.

If you have found a sensitive security bug in MySQL, please send an e-mail to security@mysql.com.

If you have a repeatable bug report, please report this into the bugs database at http://bugs.mysql.com/. Note that even in this case it's good to run the mysqlbug script first to find information about your system. Any bug that we are able to repeat has a high chance of being fixed in the next MySQL release.

To report other problems, you can use one of the MySQL mailing lists.

Remember that it is possible for us to respond to a message containing too much information, but not to one containing too little. People often omit facts because they think they know the cause of a problem and assume that some details don't matter. A good principle is: if you are in doubt about stating something, state it. It is a thousand times faster and less troublesome to write a couple of lines more in your report than to be forced to ask again and wait for the answer because you didn't include enough information the first time.

The most common errors made in bug reports are (a) not including the version number of the MySQL distribution used and (b) not fully describing the platform on which the MySQL server is installed (including the platform type and version number). This is highly relevant information, and in 99 cases out of 100 the bug report is useless without it. Very often we get questions like, ``Why doesn't this work for me?'' Then we find that the feature requested wasn't implemented in that MySQL version, or that a bug described in a report has already been fixed in newer MySQL versions. Sometimes the error is platform-dependent; in such cases, it is next to impossible for us to fix anything without knowing the operating system and the version number of the platform.

Remember also to provide information about your compiler, if it is related to the problem. Often people find bugs in compilers and think the problem is MySQL-related. Most compilers are under development all the time and become better version by version. To determine whether your problem depends on your compiler, we need to know what compiler you use. Note that every compiling problem should be regarded as a bug and reported accordingly.

It is most helpful when a good description of the problem is included in the bug report. That is, give a good example of all the things you did that led to the problem and describe, in exact detail, the problem itself. The best reports are those that include a full example showing how to reproduce the bug or problem. See section E.1.6 Making a Test Case If You Experience Table Corruption.

If a program produces an error message, it is very important to include the message in your report. If we try to search for something from the archives using programs, it is better that the error message reported exactly matches the one that the program produces. (Even the case should be observed.) You should never try to remember what the error message was; instead, copy and paste the entire message into your report.

If you have a problem with MyODBC, please try to generate a MyODBC trace file and send it with your report. See section 9.2.7 Reporting Problems with MyODBC.

Please remember that many of the people who will read your report will do so using an 80-column display. When generating reports or examples using the mysql command-line tool, you should therefore use the --vertical option (or the \G statement terminator) for output that would exceed the available width for such a display (for example, with the EXPLAIN SELECT statement; see the example later in this section).

Please include the following information in your report:

If you are a support customer, please cross-post the bug report to mysql-support@mysql.com for higher-priority treatment, as well as to the appropriate mailing list to see if someone else has experienced (and perhaps solved) the problem.

For information on reporting bugs in MyODBC, see section 9.2.4 How to Report Problems with MyODBC.

For solutions to some common problems, see section A Problems and Common Errors.

When answers are sent to you individually and not to the mailing list, it is considered good etiquette to summarise the answers and send the summary to the mailing list so that others may have the benefit of responses you received that helped you solve your problem.

1.6.1.4 Guidelines for Answering Questions on the Mailing List

If you consider your answer to have broad interest, you may want to post it to the mailing list instead of replying directly to the individual who asked. Try to make your answer general enough that people other than the original poster may benefit from it. When you post to the list, please make sure that your answer is not a duplication of a previous answer.

Try to summarise the essential part of the question in your reply; don't feel obliged to quote the entire original message.

Please don't post mail messages from your browser with HTML mode turned on. Many users don't read mail with a browser.

1.6.2 MySQL Community Support on IRC (Internet Relay Chat)

In addition to the various MySQL mailing lists, you can find experienced community people on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). These are the best networks/channels currently known to us:

If you are looking for IRC client software to connect to an IRC network, take a look at X-Chat (http://www.xchat.org/). X-Chat (GPL licensed) is available for Unix as well as for Windows platforms.

1.7 MySQL Standards Compliancy

This section describes how MySQL relates to the ANSI/ISO SQL standards. MySQL Server has many extensions to the SQL standard, and here you will find out what they are and how to use them. You will also find information about functionality missing from MySQL Server, and how to work around some differences.

Our goal is to not, without a very good reason, restrict MySQL Server usability for any usage. Even if we don't have the resources to do development for every possible use, we are always willing to help and offer suggestions to people who are trying to use MySQL Server in new territories.

One of our main goals with the product is to continue to work toward compliance with the SQL-99 standard, but without sacrificing speed or reliability. We are not afraid to add extensions to SQL or support for non-SQL features if this greatly increases the usability of MySQL Server for a big part of our users. (The new HANDLER interface in MySQL Server 4.0 is an example of this strategy. See section 6.4.2 HANDLER Syntax.)

We will continue to support transactional and non-transactional databases to satisfy both heavy web/logging usage and mission-critical 24/7 usage.

MySQL Server was designed from the start to work with medium size databases (10-100 million rows, or about 100 MB per table) on small computer systems. We will continue to extend MySQL Server to work even better with terabyte-size databases, as well as to make it possible to compile a reduced MySQL version that is more suitable for hand-held devices and embedded usage. The compact design of the MySQL server makes both of these directions possible without any conflicts in the source tree.

We are currently not targeting realtime support or clustered databases (even if you can already do a lot of things with our replication services).

We are looking at providing XML support in the database server.

1.7.1 What Standards Does MySQL Follow?

Entry-level SQL-92. ODBC levels 0-3.51.

We are aiming toward supporting the full SQL-99 standard, but without concessions to speed and quality of the code.

1.7.2 Running MySQL in ANSI Mode

If you start mysqld with the --ansi or --sql-mode=ANSI option, the following behaviours of MySQL Server change:

Running the server in ANSI mode is the same as starting it with these options:

--sql-mode=REAL_AS_FLOAT,PIPES_AS_CONCAT,ANSI_QUOTES,IGNORE_SPACE,ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY
--transaction-isolation=SERIALIZABLE

In MySQL 4.1, you can achieve the same effect with these two statements:

SET GLOBAL TRANSACTION ISOLATION LEVEL SERIALIZABLE;
SET GLOBAL sql_mode =
  "REAL_AS_FLOAT,PIPES_AS_CONCAT,ANSI_QUOTES,IGNORE_SPACE,ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY";

In MySQL 4.1.1, the sql_mode options shown can be also be set with:

SET GLOBAL sql_mode="ansi";

In this case, the value of the sql_mode variable will be set to all options that are relevant for ANSI mode. You can check the result by doing:

mysql> SET GLOBAL sql_mode="ansi";
mysql> SELECT @@GLOBAL.sql_mode;
         -> "REAL_AS_FLOAT,PIPES_AS_CONCAT,ANSI_QUOTES,IGNORE_SPACE,ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY,ANSI"

1.7.3 MySQL Extensions To The SQL-92 Standard

MySQL Server includes some extensions that you probably will not find in other SQL databases. Be warned that if you use them, your code will not be portable to other SQL servers. In some cases, you can write code that includes MySQL extensions, but is still portable, by using comments of the form /*! ... */. In this case, MySQL Server will parse and execute the code within the comment as it would any other MySQL statement, but other SQL servers will ignore the extensions. For example:

SELECT /*! STRAIGHT_JOIN */ col_name FROM table1,table2 WHERE ...

If you add a version number after the '!', the syntax will be executed only if the MySQL version is equal to or newer than the used version number:

CREATE /*!32302 TEMPORARY */ TABLE t (a INT);

This means that if you have Version 3.23.02 or newer, MySQL Server will use the TEMPORARY keyword.

The following is a list of MySQL extensions:

1.7.4 MySQL Differences Compared To SQL-92

We try to make MySQL Server follow the ANSI SQL standard (SQL-92/SQL-99) and the ODBC SQL standard, but in some cases MySQL Server does things differently:

For a prioritised list indicating when new extensions will be added to MySQL Server, you should consult the online MySQL TODO list at http://www.mysql.com/doc/en/TODO.html. That is the latest version of the TODO list in this manual. See section 1.8 MySQL and The Future (The TODO).

1.7.4.1 Subqueries

Subqueries are supported in MySQL version 4.1. See section 1.5.2.1 Features Available in MySQL 4.1.

Up to version 4.0, only nested queries of the form INSERT ... SELECT ... and REPLACE ... SELECT ... are supported. You can, however, use the function IN() in other contexts.

You can often rewrite the query without a subquery:

SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM table2);

This can be rewritten as:

SELECT table1.* FROM table1,table2 WHERE table1.id=table2.id;

The queries:

SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE id NOT IN (SELECT id FROM table2);
SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE NOT EXISTS (SELECT id FROM table2
                                       WHERE table1.id=table2.id);

Can be rewritten as:

SELECT table1.* FROM table1 LEFT JOIN table2 ON table1.id=table2.id
                                       WHERE table2.id IS NULL;

Using a LEFT [OUTER] JOIN is generally much faster than an equivalent subquery because the server can optimise it better, a fact that is not specific to MySQL Server alone. Prior to SQL-92, outer joins did not exist, so subqueries were the only way to do certain things in those bygone days. But that is no longer the case, MySQL Server and many other modern database systems offer a whole range of outer joins types.

For more complicated subqueries you can often create temporary tables to hold the subquery. In some cases, however, this option will not work. The most frequently encountered of these cases arises with DELETE statements, for which standard SQL does not support joins (except in subqueries). For this situation there are three options available:

MySQL Server 4.0 supports multi-table DELETEs that can be used to efficiently delete rows based on information from one table or even from many tables at the same time.

1.7.4.2 SELECT INTO TABLE

MySQL Server doesn't yet support the Oracle SQL extension: SELECT ... INTO TABLE .... Instead, MySQL Server supports the SQL-99 syntax INSERT INTO ... SELECT ..., which is basically the same thing. See section 6.4.3.1 INSERT ... SELECT Syntax.

INSERT INTO tblTemp2 (fldID) SELECT tblTemp1.fldOrder_ID
       FROM tblTemp1 WHERE tblTemp1.fldOrder_ID > 100;

Alternatively, you can use SELECT INTO OUTFILE... or CREATE TABLE ... SELECT.

1.7.4.3 Transactions and Atomic Operations

MySQL Server (version 3.23-max and all versions 4.0 and above) supports transactions with the InnoDB and BDB Transactional storage engines. InnoDB provides full ACID compliance. See section 7 MySQL Table Types.

The other non-transactional table types (such as MyISAM) in MySQL Server follow a different paradigm for data integrity called ``Atomic Operations.'' In transactional terms, MyISAM tables effectively always operate in AUTOCOMMIT=1 mode. Atomic operations often offer comparable integrity with higher performance.

With MySQL Server supporting both paradigms, the user is able to decide if he needs the speed of atomic operations or if he needs to use transactional features in his applications. This choice can be made on a per-table basis.

As noted, the trade off for transactional vs. non-transactional table types lies mostly in performance. Transactional tables have significantly higher memory and diskspace requirements, and more CPU overhead. That said, transactional table types such as InnoDB do of course offer many unique features. MySQL Server's modular design allows the concurrent use of all these different storage engines to suit different requirements and deliver optimum performance in all situations.

But how does one use the features of MySQL Server to maintain rigorous integrity even with the non-transactional MyISAM tables, and how do these features compare with the transactional table types?

  1. In the transactional paradigm, if your applications are written in a way that is dependent on the calling of ROLLBACK instead of COMMIT in critical situations, transactions are more convenient. Transactions also ensure that unfinished updates or corrupting activities are not committed to the database; the server is given the opportunity to do an automatic rollback and your database is saved. MySQL Server, in almost all cases, allows you to resolve potential problems by including simple checks before updates and by running simple scripts that check the databases for inconsistencies and automatically repair or warn if such an inconsistency occurs. Note that just by using the MySQL log or even adding one extra log, one can normally fix tables perfectly with no data integrity loss.
  2. More often than not, critical transactional updates can be rewritten to be atomic. Generally speaking, all integrity problems that transactions solve can be done with LOCK TABLES or atomic updates, ensuring that you never will get an automatic abort from the server, which is a common problem with transactional database systems.
  3. Even a transactional system can lose data if the server goes down. The difference between different systems lies in just how small the time-lap is where they could lose data. No system is 100% secure, only ``secure enough.'' Even Oracle, reputed to be the safest of transactional database systems, is reported to sometimes lose data in such situations. To be safe with MySQL Server, whether using transactional tables or not, you only need to have backups and have the binary logging turned on. With this you can recover from any situation that you could with any other transactional database system. It is, of course, always good to have backups, independent of which database system you use.

The transactional paradigm has its benefits and its drawbacks. Many users and application developers depend on the ease with which they can code around problems where an abort appears to be, or is necessary. However, even if you are new to the atomic operations paradigm, or more familiar with transactions, do consider the speed benefit that non-transactional tables can offer on the order of three to five times the speed of the fastest and most optimally tuned transactional tables.

In situations where integrity is of highest importance, MySQL Server offers transaction-level reliability and integrity even for non-transactional tables. If you lock tables with LOCK TABLES, all updates will stall until any integrity checks are made. If you only obtain a read lock (as opposed to a write lock), reads and inserts are still allowed to happen. The new inserted records will not be seen by any of the clients that have a read lock until they release their read locks. With INSERT DELAYED you can queue inserts into a local queue, until the locks are released, without having the client wait for the insert to complete. See section 6.4.4 INSERT DELAYED Syntax.

``Atomic,'' in the sense that we mean it, is nothing magical. It only means that you can be sure that while each specific update is running, no other user can interfere with it, and there will never be an automatic rollback (which can happen with transactional tables if you are not very careful). MySQL Server also guarantees that there will not be any dirty reads.

Following are some techniques for working with non-transactional tables:

1.7.4.4 Stored Procedures and Triggers

Stored procedures are being implemented in our version 5.0 development tree. See section 2.3.4 Installing from the Development Source Tree.

This effort is based on SQL-99, which has a basic syntax similar (but not identical) to Oracle PL/SQL. In addition to this, we are implementing the SQL-99 framework to hook in external languages.

A stored procedure is a set of SQL commands that can be compiled and stored in the server. Once this has been done, clients don't need to keep re-issuing the entire query but can refer to the stored procedure. This provides better overall performance because the query has to be parsed only once, and less information needs to be sent between the server and the client. You can also raise the conceptual level by having libraries of functions in the server. However, stored procedures of course do increase the load on the database server system, as more of the work is done on the server side and less on the client (application) side.

Triggers will also be implemented. A trigger is effectively a type of stored procedure, one that is invoked when a particular event occurs. For example, you can install a stored procedure that is triggered each time a record is deleted from a transactional table and that stored procedure automatically deletes the corresponding customer from a customer table when all his transactions are deleted.

1.7.4.5 Foreign Keys

In MySQL Server 3.23.44 and up, InnoDB tables support checking of foreign key constraints, including CASCADE, ON DELETE, and ON UPDATE. See section 7.5.5.2 FOREIGN KEY Constraints.

For other table types, MySQL Server only parses the FOREIGN KEY syntax in CREATE TABLE commands, but does not use/store this info.

Note that foreign keys in SQL are not used to join tables, but are used mostly for checking referential integrity (foreign key constraints). If you want to get results from multiple tables from a SELECT statement, you do this by joining tables:

SELECT * FROM table1,table2 WHERE table1.id = table2.id;

See section 6.4.1.1 JOIN Syntax. See section 3.6.6 Using Foreign Keys.

When used as a constraint, FOREIGN KEYs don't need to be used if the application inserts rows into MyISAM tables in the proper order.

For MyISAM tables, you can work around the lack of ON DELETE by adding the appropriate DELETE statement to an application when you delete records from a table that has a foreign key. In practice this is as quick (in some cases quicker) and much more portable than using foreign keys.

In MySQL Server 4.0 you can use multi-table delete to delete rows from many tables with one command. See section 6.4.6 DELETE Syntax.

The FOREIGN KEY syntax without ON DELETE ... is often used by ODBC applications to produce automatic WHERE clauses.

In the near future we will extend the FOREIGN KEY implementation so that the information is stored in the table specification file and may be retrieved by mysqldump and ODBC. At a later stage we will implement foreign key constraints for MyISAM tables as well.

Do keep in mind that foreign keys are often misused, which can cause severe problems. Even when used properly, it is not a magic solution for the referential integrity problem, although it can make things easier.

Some advantages of foreign key enforcement:

Disadvantages:

1.7.4.6 Views

We plan to implement views in MySQL Server in version 5.1

Historically, MySQL Server has been most used in applications and on web systems where the application writer has full control over database usage. Of course, usage has shifted over time, and so we find that an increasing number of users now regard views as an important aspect.

Views are useful for allowing users to access a set of relations as if it were a single table, and limiting their access to just that. Many DBMS don't allow updates to a view, instead you have to perform the updates on the individual tables.

Views can also be used to restrict access to rows (a subset of a particular table). One does not need views to restrict access to columns, as MySQL Server has a sophisticated privilege system. See section 4.2 General Security Issues and the MySQL Access Privilege System.

In designing our implementation of views, we aim toward (as fully as possible within the confines of SQL) compliance with ``Codd's Rule #6'' for relational database systems: all views that are theoretically updatable, should in practice also be updatable. This is a complex issue, and we are taking the time to make sure we get it right.

The implementation itself will be done in stages. Unnamed views (derived tables, a subquery in the FROM clause of a SELECT) are already implemented in version 4.1.

Note: If you are an enterprise level user with an urgent need for views, please contact sales@mysql.com to discuss sponsoring options. Targeted financing of this particular effort by one or more companies would allow us to allocate additional resources to it. One example of a feature sponsored in the past is replication.

1.7.4.7 `--' as the Start of a Comment

Some other SQL databases use `--' to start comments. MySQL Server has `#' as the start comment character. You can also use the C comment style /* this is a comment */ with MySQL Server. See section 6.1.6 Comment Syntax.

MySQL Server Version 3.23.3 and above support the `--' comment style, provided the comment is followed by a space (or by a control character such as a newline). This is because this comment style has caused many problems with automatically generated SQL queries that have used something like the following code, where we automatically insert the value of the payment for !payment!:

UPDATE tbl_name SET credit=credit-!payment!

Think about what happens if the value of payment is negative. Because 1--1 is legal in SQL, the consequences of allowing comments to start with `--' are terrible.

Using our implementation of this method of commenting in MySQL Server Version 3.23.3 and up, 1-- This is a comment is actually safe.

Another safe feature is that the mysql command-line client removes all lines that start with `--'.

The following information is relevant only if you are running a MySQL version earlier than 3.23.3:

If you have an SQL program in a text file that contains `--' comments you should use:

shell> replace " --" " #" < text-file-with-funny-comments.sql \
         | mysql database

instead of the usual:

shell> mysql database < text-file-with-funny-comments.sql

You can also edit the command file ``in place'' to change the `--' comments to `#' comments:

shell> replace " --" " #" -- text-file-with-funny-comments.sql

Change them back with this command:

shell> replace " #" " --" -- text-file-with-funny-comments.sql

1.7.5 How MySQL deals with constraints

As MySQL allows you to work with both transactional and non-transactional tables (which don't allow rollback), constraint handling is a bit different in MySQL than in other databases.

We have to handle the case when you have updated a lot of rows with a non-transactional table which can't rollback on errors.

The basic philosophy is to try to give an error for anything that we can detect on compile time but try to recover from any errors we get run time. We do this in most cases, but not yet for all. See section 1.8.4 New Features Planned For The Near Future.

The basic options MySQL has is to stop the statement in the middle or do it's best to recover from the problem and continue.

Here follows what happens with the different types of constraints.

1.7.5.1 Constraint PRIMARY KEY / UNIQUE

Normally you will get an error when you try to INSERT / UPDATE a row that causes a primary key, unique key or foreign key violation. If you are using a transactional storage engine, like InnoDB, MySQL will automatically roll back the transaction. If you are using a non-transactional storage engine MySQL will stop at the wrong row and leave the rest of the rows unprocessed.

To make life easier MySQL has added support for the IGNORE directive to most commands that can cause a key violation (like INSERT IGNORE ...). In this case MySQL will ignore any key violation and continue with processing the next row. You can get information of what MySQL did with the mysql_info() API function and in later MySQL 4.1 version with the SHOW WARNINGS command. See section 9.1.3.122 mysql_info(). See section 4.5.7.9 SHOW WARNINGS | ERRORS.

Note that for the moment only InnoDB tables support foreign keys. See section 7.5.5.2 FOREIGN KEY Constraints. Foreign key support in MyISAM tables is scheduled for inclusion in the MySQL 5.0 source tree.

1.7.5.2 Constraint NOT NULL and DEFAULT values

To be able to support easy handling of non-transactional tables all fields in MySQL have default values.

If you insert a 'wrong' value in a column like a NULL in a NOT NULL column or a too big numerical value in a numerical column, MySQL will instead of giving an error instead set the column to the 'best possible value'. For numerical values this is 0, the smallest possible values or the largest possible value. For strings this is either the empty string or the longest possible string that can be in the column.

This means that if you try to store NULL into a column that doesn't take NULL values, MySQL Server will store 0 or '' (empty string) in it instead. This last behaviour can, for single row inserts, be changed with the -DDONT_USE_DEFAULT_FIELDS compile option.) See section 2.3.3 Typical configure Options. This causes INSERT statements to generate an error unless you explicitly specify values for all columns that require a non-NULL value.

The reason for the above rules is that we can't check these conditions before the query starts to execute. If we encounter a problem after updating a few rows, we can't just rollback as the table type may not support this. The option to stop is not that good as in this case the update would be 'half done' which is probably the worst possible scenario. In this case it's better to 'do the best you can' and then continue as if nothing happened. In MySQL 5.0 we plan to improve this by providing warnings for automatic field conversions, plus an option to let you roll back statements that only use transactional tables in case one such statement does a field assignment that is not allowed.

The above means that one should generally not use MySQL to check field content, but instead handle this in the application.

1.7.5.3 Constraint ENUM and SET

In MySQL 4.x ENUM is not a real constrain but a more efficient way to store fields that can only contain a given set of values. This is because of the same reasons NOT NULL is not honoured. See section 1.7.5.2 Constraint NOT NULL and DEFAULT values.

If you insert an wrong value in an ENUM field, it will be set to the reserved enum number 0, which will be displayed as an empty string in string context. See section 6.2.3.3 The ENUM Type.

If you insert an wrong option in a SET field, the wrong value will be ignored. See section 6.2.3.4 The SET Type.

1.7.6 Known Errors and Design Deficiencies in MySQL

1.7.6.1 Errors in 3.23 Fixed in a Later MySQL Version

The following known errors/bugs are not fixed in MySQL 3.23 because fixing them would involves changing a lot of code which could introduce other even worse bugs. The bugs are also classified as 'not fatal' or 'bearable'.

1.7.6.2 Open Bugs / Design Deficiencies in MySQL

The following problems are known and fixing them is a high priority:

The following problems are known and will be fixed in due time:

The following are known bugs in earlier versions of MySQL:

For platform-specific bugs, see the sections about compiling and porting.

1.8 MySQL and The Future (The TODO)

This section summarises the features that we plan to implement in MySQL Server. The lists are broken up per version, and the items are approximately in the order they will be done.

Note: If you are an enterprise level user with an urgent need for a particular feature, please contact sales@mysql.com to discuss sponsoring options. Targeted financing by one or more companies allows us to allocate additional resources for that specific purpose. One example of a feature sponsored in the past is replication.

1.8.1 New Features Planned For 4.1

The features below are not yet implemented in MySQL 4.1, but are planned for implementation before MySQL 4.1 moves into its beta phase. For a list what is already done in MySQL 4.1, see section 1.5.2.1 Features Available in MySQL 4.1.

Development of other things has already shifted to the 5.0 tree.

1.8.2 New Features Planned For 5.0

The following features are planned for inclusion into MySQL 5.0. Note that because we have many developers that are working on different projects, there will also be many additional features. There is also a small chance that some of these features will be added to MySQL 4.1. For a list what is already done in MySQL 4.1, see section 1.5.2.1 Features Available in MySQL 4.1.

For those wishing to take a look at the bleeding edge of MySQL development, we have made our BitKeeper repository for MySQL version 5.0 publicly available. See section 2.3.4 Installing from the Development Source Tree.

Stored Procedures
New functionality
Standards compliance, portability and migration
Speed enhancements
Internationalisation
Usability enhancements

1.8.3 New Features Planned For 5.1

New functionality
Speed enhancements
Usability enhancements

1.8.4 New Features Planned For The Near Future

New functionality
Standards compliance, portability and migration
Speed enhancements
Internationalisation
Usability enhancements
New operating systems

1.8.5 New Features Planned For The Mid-Term Future

Time is given according to amount of work, not real time.

1.8.6 New Features We Don't Plan To Do

2 Installing MySQL

This chapter describes how to obtain and install MySQL:

2.1 Quick Standard Installation of MySQL

This chapter covers the installation of MySQL on platforms where we offer packages using the native packaging format of the respective platform. However, binary distributions of MySQL are available for many other platforms as well, see section 2.2.11 Installing a MySQL Binary Distribution for generic installation instructions for these packages that apply to all platforms.

See section 2.2 General Installation Issues for more information on what other binary distributions are available on how to obtain them.

2.1.1 Installing MySQL on Windows

The MySQL server for Windows is available in two distribution formats:

Generally speaking, you should use the binary distribution. It's simpler, and you need no additional tools to get MySQL up and running.

You will need the following:

2.1.1.1 Installing the Binaries

  1. If you are working on an NT/2000/XP server, log on as a user with administrator privileges.
  2. If you are doing an upgrade of an earlier MySQL installation, it is necessary to stop the current server. If you are running the server as a service, stop it using this command:
    C:\> NET STOP MySQL
    
    Otherwise, stop the server like this:
    C:\mysql\bin> mysqladmin -u root shutdown
    
  3. On NT/2000/XP machines, if you want to change the server executable (for example, -max or -nt), it is also necessary to remove the service:
    C:\mysql\bin> mysqld --remove
    
  4. Exit the WinMySQLadmin program if it is running.
  5. Unzip the distribution file to a temporary directory.
  6. Run the setup.exe program to begin the installation process. If you want to install into another directory than the default (`C:\mysql'), use the Browse button to specify your preferred directory.
  7. Finish the install process.

2.1.1.2 Preparing the Windows MySQL Environment

Starting with MySQL 3.23.38, the Windows distribution includes both the normal and the MySQL-Max server binaries. Here is a list of the different MySQL servers from which you can choose:

Binary Description
mysqld Compiled with full debugging and automatic memory allocation checking, symbolic links, InnoDB, and BDB tables.
mysqld-opt Optimised binary with no support for transactional tables in version 3.23. For version 4.0, InnoDB is enabled.
mysqld-nt Optimised binary for NT/2000/XP with support for named pipes.
mysqld-max Optimised binary with support for symbolic links, InnoDB and BDB tables.
mysqld-max-nt Like mysqld-max, but compiled with support for named pipes.

All of the preceding binaries are optimised for modern Intel processors but should work on any Intel processor >= i386.

When run on a version of Windows that supports named pipes (NT, 2000, XP), the mysqld-nt and mysqld-max-nt servers support named pipe connections. However, starting from 3.23.50, named pipes are enabled only if you start these servers with the --enable-named-pipe option. (The servers can be run on Windows 98 or Me, but TCP/IP must be installed, and named pipe connections cannot be used. On Windows 95, these servers cannot be used.)

You will find it helpful to use an option file to specify your MySQL configuration under the following circumstances:

On Windows, the MySQL installer places the data directory directly under the directory where you install MySQL. If you would like to use a data directory in a different location, you should copy the entire contents of the `data' directory to the new location. For example, the default installation places MySQL in `C:\mysql' and the data directory in `C:\mysql\data'. If you want to use a data directory of `E:\mydata', you must copy `C:\mysql\data' there. You will also need to use a --datadir option to specify the location of the new data directory.

Normally you can use the WinMySQLAdmin tool to edit the option file `my.ini'. In this case you don't have to worry about the following discussion.

There are two option files with the same function: `C:\my.cnf', and the `my.ini' file in the Windows directory. (This directory typically is named something like `C:\WINDOWS' or `C:\WinNT'. You can determine its exact location from the value of the WINDIR environment variable.) MySQL looks first for the `my.ini' file, then for the `my.cnf' file. However, to avoid confusion, it's best if you use only one of these files. Both files are plain text.

If your PC uses a boot loader where the C: drive isn't the boot drive, your only option is to use the `my.ini' file. Also note that if you use the WinMySQLAdmin tool, it uses only the `my.ini' file. The `\mysql\bin' directory contains a help file with instructions for using this tool.

Using the notepad program, create the option file and edit the [mysqld] section to specify values for the basedir and datadir parameters:

[mysqld]
# set basedir to your installation path, for example, C:/mysql
basedir=the_install_path
# set datadir to the location of your data directory,
# for example, C:/mysql/data or D:/mydata/data
datadir=the_data_path

Note that Windows pathnames should be specified in option files using forward slashes rather than backslashes. If you do use backslashes, you must double them.

Now you are ready to test starting the server.

2.1.1.3 Starting the Server for the First Time

Testing is best done from a command prompt in a console window (a ``DOS window''). This way you can have the server display status messages in the window where they are easy to see. If something is wrong with your configuration, these messages will make it easier for you to identify and fix any problems.

Make sure you are in the directory where the server is located, then enter this command:

shell> mysqld --console

For servers that include InnoDB support, you should see the following messages as the server starts up:

InnoDB: The first specified datafile c:\ibdata\ibdata1 did not exist:
InnoDB: a new database to be created!
InnoDB: Setting file c:\ibdata\ibdata1 size to 209715200
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
InnoDB: Log file c:\iblogs\ib_logfile0 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file c:\iblogs\ib_logfile0 size to 31457280
InnoDB: Log file c:\iblogs\ib_logfile1 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file c:\iblogs\ib_logfile1 size to 31457280
InnoDB: Log file c:\iblogs\ib_logfile2 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file c:\iblogs\ib_logfile2 size to 31457280
InnoDB: Doublewrite buffer not found: creating new
InnoDB: Doublewrite buffer created
InnoDB: creating foreign key constraint system tables
InnoDB: foreign key constraint system tables created
011024 10:58:25  InnoDB: Started

When the server finishes its startup sequence, you should see something like this, which indicates that the server is ready to service client connections::

mysqld: ready for connections
Version: '4.0.14-log'  socket: ''  port: 3306

The server will continue to write to the console any further diagnostic output it produces. You can open a new console window in which to run client programs.

If you omit the --console option, the server writes diagnostic output to the error log in the data directory. The error log is the file with the `.err' extension.

For further information about running MySQL on Windows, see section 2.6.1 Windows Notes.

2.1.2 Installing MySQL on Linux

The recommended way to install MySQL on Linux is by using the RPM packages. The MySQL RPMs are currently built on a SuSE Linux 7.3 system but should work on most versions of Linux that support rpm and use glibc.

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 2.6.2.1 Linux Notes for Binary Distributions.

In most cases, you only need to install the MySQL-server and MySQL-client packages to get a functional MySQL installation. The other packages are not required for a standard installation. If you want to run a MySQL Max server that has additional capabilities, you should install the MySQL-Max RPM after installing the MySQL-server RPM. See section 4.7.5 mysqld-max, An Extended mysqld Server.

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

Many 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.

The following RPM packages are available:

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

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

To perform a standard minimal installation, run:

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

To install just the client package, run:

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

The server RPM places data under the `/var/lib/mysql' directory. The RPM also 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 you don't lose it when you install a newer RPM.) See section 2.4.3 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 initialisation scripts in `/etc/init.d' (directly or via a symlink), you should create a symbolic link that points to the location where your initialisation 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 ; ln -s rc.d/init.d .

However, all current major Linux distributions should already 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 daemon should be up and running after installation. You should now be able to start using MySQL. See section 2.4 Post-installation Setup and Testing.

If something goes wrong, you can find more information in the binary installation chapter. See section 2.2.11 Installing a MySQL Binary Distribution.

2.1.3 Installing MySQL on Mac OS X

Beginning with MySQL 4.0.11, you can install MySQL on Mac OS X 10.2 (``Jaguar'') using a Mac OS X PKG binary package instead of the binary tarball distribution. Please note that older versions of Mac OS X (for example, 10.1.x) are not supported by this package.

The package is located inside a disk image (.dmg) file, that you first need to mount by double-clicking its icon in the Finder. It should then mount the image and display its contents.

NOTE: Before proceeding with the installation, be sure to shut down all running MySQL server instances by either using the MySQL Manager Application (on Mac OS X Server) or via mysqladmin shutdown on the command line.

To actually install the MySQL PKG, double click on the package icon. This launches the Mac OS Package Installer, which will guide you through the installation of MySQL.

The Mac OS X PKG of MySQL will install itself into `/usr/local/mysql-<version>' and will also install a symbolic link `/usr/local/mysql', pointing to the new location. If a directory named `/usr/local/mysql' already exists, it will be renamed to `/usr/local/mysql.bak' first. Additionally, it will install the grant tables in the mysql database by executing mysql_install_db after the installation.

The installation layout is similar to the one of the binary distribution; all MySQL binaries are located in the directory `/usr/local/mysql/bin'. The MySQL socket file is created as `/tmp/mysql.sock' by default. See section 2.2.7 Installation Layouts.

MySQL installation requires a Mac OS X user account named mysql (a user account with this name should exist by default on Mac OS X 10.2 and up).

If you are running Mac OS X Server, you already have a version of MySQL installed:

This manual section covers the installation of the official MySQL Mac OS X PKG only. Make sure to read Apple's help about installing MySQL (Run the ``Help View'' application, select ``Mac OS X Server'' help, and do a search for ``MySQL'' and read the item entitled ``Installing MySQL'').

Especially note that the pre-installed version of MySQL on Mac OS X Server is started with the command safe_mysqld instead of mysqld_safe.

If you previously used Marc Liyanage's MySQL packages for Mac OS X from http://www.entropy.ch, you can simply follow the update instructions for packages using the binary installation layout as given on his pages.

If you are upgrading from Marc's 3.23.xx versions or from the Mac OS X Server version of MySQL to the official MySQL PKG, you also need to convert the existing MySQL privilege tables using the mysql_fix_privilege_tables script, since some new security privileges have been added. See section 2.5.2 Upgrading From Version 3.23 to 4.0.

If you would like to automatically start up MySQL during system bootup, you also need to install the MySQL Startup Item. Starting with MySQL 4.0.15, it is part of the Mac OS X installation disk images as a separate installation package. Simply double-click the MySQLStartupItem.pkg icon and follow the instructions to install it.

Note that this only has to be done once! There is no need to install the Startup Item every time you upgrade the MySQL package.

The Startup Item will be installed into `/Library/StartupItems/MySQL'. It adds a variable MYSQLCOM=-YES- to the system configuration file `/etc/hostconfig'. If you would like to disable the automatic startup of MySQL, simply change this variable to MYSQLCOM=-NO-.

On Mac OS X Server, the Startup Item installation script will automatically disable the startup of the default MySQL installation by changing the variable MYSQL in `/etc/hostconfig' to MYSQL=-NO-. This is to avoid conflicts on bootup. However, it does not shut down an already running MySQL server.

After the installation, you can start up MySQL by running the following commands in a terminal window. Please note that you need to have administrator privileges to perform this task.

If you have installed the Startup Item:

shell> sudo /Library/StartupItems/MySQL/MySQL start
(Enter your password, if necessary)
(Press Control-D or enter "exit" to exit the shell)

If you don't use the Startup Item, enter the following command sequence:

shell> cd /usr/local/mysql
shell> sudo ./bin/mysqld_safe
(Enter your password, if necessary)
(Press Control-Z)
shell> bg
(Press Control-D or enter "exit" to exit the shell)

You should now be able to connect to the MySQL server, for example, by running `/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql'.

If you installed MySQL for the first time, please remember to set a password for the MySQL root user!

This is done with the following two commands:

/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root password <password>
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin -u root -h `hostname` password <password>

Please make sure that the hostname command in the second line is enclosed by backticks (`), so the shell can replace it with the output of this command (the host name of this system)!

You might want to also add aliases to your shell's resource file to access mysql and mysqladmin from the command line:

alias mysql '/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql'
alias mysqladmin '/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqladmin'

Alternatively, you could simply add /usr/local/mysql/bin to your PATH environment variable, for example, by adding the following to `$HOME/.tcshrc':

setenv PATH ${PATH}:/usr/local/mysql/bin

Please note that installing a new MySQL PKG does not remove the directory of an older installation. Unfortunately, the Mac OS X Installer does not yet offer the functionality required to properly upgrade previously installed packages.

After you have copied over the MySQL database files from the previous version and have successfully started the new version, you should consider removing the old installation files to save disk space. Additionally, you should also remove older versions of the Package Receipt directories located in `/Library/Receipts/mysql-<version>.pkg'.

2.1.4 Installing MySQL on NetWare

As of version 4.0.11, the MySQL server is available for Novell NetWare in binary package form. In order to host MySQL, the NetWare server must meet these requirements:

The binary package for NetWare can be obtained at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/.

If you are running MySQL on NetWare 6.0, we strongly suggest that you use the --skip-external-locking option on the command line. It will also be neccesary to use CHECK TABLE and REPAIR TABLE instead of myisamchk, because myisamchk makes use of external locking. External locking is known to have problems on NetWare 6.0; the problem has been eliminated in NetWare 6.5.

2.1.4.1 Installing the MySQL for NetWare Binaries

  1. If you are upgrading from a prior installation, stop the MySQL server. This is done from the server console, using:
    SERVER:  mysqladmin -u root shutdown
    
  2. Log on to the target server from a client machine with access to the location where you will install MySQL.
  3. Extract the binary package zip file onto the server. Be sure to allow the paths in the zip file to be used. It is safe to simply extract the file to `SYS:\'. If you are upgrading from a prior installation, you may need to copy the data directory (for example, `SYS:MYSQL\DATA') now, as well as `my.cnf' if you have customised it. You can then delete the old copy of MySQL.
  4. You may wish to rename the directory to something more consistent and easy to use. We recommend using `SYS:MYSQL'; examples in the manual will use this to refer to the installation directory in general.
  5. At the server console, add a search path for the directory containing the MySQL NLMs. For example:
    SERVER:  SEARCH ADD SYS:MYSQL\BIN
    
  6. Install the initial database, if needed, by executing mysql_install_db at the server console.
  7. Start the MySQL server using mysqld_safe at the server console.
  8. To finish the installation, you should also add the following commands to autoexec.ncf. For example, if your MySQL installation is in `SYS:MYSQL' and you want MySQL to start automatically, you could add these lines:
    #Starts the MySQL 4.0.x database server
    SEARCH ADD SYS:MYSQL\BIN
    MYSQLD_SAFE
    
    If you are using NetWare 6.0, you should add the --skip-external-locking flag:
    #Starts the MySQL 4.0.x database server
    SEARCH ADD SYS:MYSQL\BIN
    MYSQLD_SAFE --skip-external-locking
    

If there was an existing installation of MySQL on the server, be sure to check for existing MySQL startup commands in autoexec.ncf, and edit or delete them as necessary.

2.2 General Installation Issues

2.2.1 How to Get MySQL

Check the MySQL homepage (http://www.mysql.com/) for information about the current version and for downloading instructions.

Our main mirror is located at http://mirrors.sunsite.dk/mysql/.

For a complete up-to-date list of MySQL web/download mirrors, see http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mirrors.html. There you will also find information about becoming a MySQL mirror site and how to report a bad or out-of-date mirror.

2.2.2 Verifying Package Integrity Using MD5 Checksums or GnuPG

After you have downloaded the MySQL package that suits your needs and before you attempt to install it, you should make sure it is intact and has not been tampered with.

MySQL AB offers two means of integrity checking: MD5 checksums and cryptographic signatures using GnuPG, the GNU Privacy Guard.

2.2.3 Verifying the MD5 Checksum

After you have downloaded the package, you should check, if the MD5 checksum matches the one provided on the MySQL download pages. Each package has an individual checksum, that you can verify with the following command:

shell> md5sum <package>

Note, that not all operating systems support the md5sum command - on some it is simply called md5, others do not ship it at all. On Linux, it is part of the GNU Text Utilities package, which is available for a wide range of platforms. You can download the source code from http://www.gnu.org/software/textutils/ as well. If you have OpenSSL installed, you can also use the command openssl md5 <package> instead. A DOS/Windows implementation of the md5 command is available from http://www.fourmilab.ch/md5/.

Example:

shell> md5sum mysql-standard-4.0.10-gamma-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz
155836a7ed8c93aee6728a827a6aa153
                mysql-standard-4.0.10-gamma-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz

You should check, if the resulting checksum matches the one printed on the download page right below the respective package.

Most mirror sites also offer a file named `MD5SUMS', which also includes the MD5 checksums for all files included in the `Downloads' directory. Please note however that it's very easy to modify this file and it's not a very reliable method. If in doubt, you should consult different mirror sites and compare the results.

2.2.4 Signature Checking Using GnuPG

A more reliable method of verifying the integrity of a package is using cryptographic signatures. MySQL AB uses the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG), an Open Source alternative to the very well-known Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) by Phil Zimmermann. See http://www.gnupg.org/ and http://www.openpgp.org/ for more information about OpenPGP/GnuPG and how to obtain and install GnuPG on your system. Most Linux distributions already ship with GnuPG installed by default.

Beginning with MySQL 4.0.10 (February 2003), MySQL AB has started signing their downloadable packages with GnuPG. Cryptographic signatures are a much more reliable method of verifying the integrity and authenticity of a file.

To verify the signature for a specific package, you first need to obtain a copy of MySQL AB's public GPG build key build@mysql.com. You can either cut and paste it directly from here, or obtain it from http://www.keyserver.net/.

Key ID:
pub  1024D/5072E1F5 2003-02-03
     MySQL Package signing key (www.mysql.com) <build@mysql.com>
Fingerprint: A4A9 4068 76FC BD3C 4567  70C8 8C71 8D3B 5072 E1F5

Public Key (ASCII-armored):

-----BEGIN PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----
Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org
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=YJkx
-----END PGP PUBLIC KEY BLOCK-----

You can import this key into your public GPG keyring by using gpg --import. See the GPG documentation for more info on how to work with public keys.

After you have downloaded and imported the public build key, now download your desired MySQL package and the corresponding signature, which is also available from the download page. The signature has the file name extension `.asc'. For example, the signature for `mysql-standard-4.0.10-gamma-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz' would be `mysql-standard-4.0.10-gamma-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz.asc'. Make sure that both files are stored in the same directory and then run the following command to verify the signature for this file:

shell> gpg --verify <package>.asc

Example:

shell> gpg --verify mysql-standard-4.0.10-gamma-pc-linux-i686.tar.gz.asc
gpg: Warning: using insecure memory!
gpg: Signature made Mon 03 Feb 2003 08:50:39 PM MET using DSA key ID 5072E1F5
gpg: Good signature from
     "MySQL Package signing key (www.mysql.com) <build@mysql.com>"

The "Good signature" message indicates that everything is all right.

For RPM packages, there is no separate signature - RPM packages actually have a built-in GPG signature and MD5 checksum. You can verify them by running the following command:

shell> rpm --checksig <package>.rpm

Example:

shell> rpm --checksig MySQL-server-4.0.10-0.i386.rpm
MySQL-server-4.0.10-0.i386.rpm: md5 gpg OK

Note: If you are using RPM 4.1 and it complains about (GPG) NOT OK (MISSING KEYS: GPG#5072e1f5) (even though you have imported it into your GPG public keyring), you need to import the key into the RPM keyring first. RPM 4.1 no longer uses your GPG keyring (and GPG itself), but rather maintains its own keyring (because it's a system wide application and the GPG public keyring is user-specific file). To import the MySQL public key into the RPM keyring, please use the following command:

shell> rpm --import <pubkey>

Example:

shell> rpm --import mysql_pubkey.asc

In case you notice that the MD5 checksum or GPG signatures do not match, first try to download the respective package one more time, maybe from another mirror site. If you repeatedly can not successfully verify the integrity of the package, please notify us about such incidents including the full package name and the download site you have been using at webmaster@mysql.com or build@mysql.com.

2.2.5 Operating Systems Supported by MySQL

We use GNU Autoconf, so it is possible to port MySQL to all modern systems with working Posix threads and a C++ compiler. (To compile only the client code, a C++ compiler is required but not threads.) We use and develop the software ourselves primarily on Linux (SuSE and Red Hat), FreeBSD and Sun Solaris (Versions 8 and 9).

Note that for many operating systems, the native thread support works only in the latest versions. MySQL has been reported to compile successfully on the following operating system/thread package combinations:

Note that not all platforms are suited equally well for running MySQL. How well a certain platform is suited for a high-load mission-critical MySQL server is determined by the following factors:

Based on the preceding criteria, the best platforms for running MySQL at this point are x86 with SuSE Linux 8.2, 2.4 kernel, and ReiserFS (or any similar Linux distribution) and SPARC with Solaris (2.7-9). FreeBSD comes third, but we really hope it will join the top club once the thread library is improved. We also hope that at some point we will be able to include all other platforms on which MySQL compiles, runs okay, but not quite with the same level of stability and performance, into the top category. This will require some effort on our part in cooperation with the developers of the OS/library components MySQL depends upon. If you are interested in making one of those components better, are in a position to influence their development, and need more detailed instructions on what MySQL needs to run better, send an e-mail to the MySQL internals mailing list. See section 1.6.1.1 The MySQL Mailing Lists.

Please note that the preceding comparison is not to say that one OS is better or worse than the other in general. We are talking about choosing a particular OS for a dedicated purpose--running MySQL, and compare platforms in that regard only. With this in mind, the result of this comparison would be different if we included more issues into it. And in some cases, the reason one OS is better than the other could simply be that we have put forth more effort into testing on and optimising for that particular platform. We are just stating our observations to help you decide on which platform to use MySQL on in your setup.

2.2.6 Which MySQL Version to Use

The first decision to make is whether you want to use the latest development release or the last production (stable) release:

The second decision to make is whether you want to use a source distribution or a binary distribution. In most cases you should probably use a binary distribution, if one exists for your platform, as this generally will be easier to install than a source distribution.

In the following cases you probably will be better off with a source installation:

The MySQL naming scheme uses release numbers that consist of three numbers and a suffix. For example, a release name like mysql-4.1.0-alpha is interpreted like this:

In the MySQL development process, multiple versions co-exist and are at a different stage. Naturally, relevant bugfixes from an earlier series also propagate upward.

All versions of MySQL are run through our standard tests and benchmarks to ensure that they are relatively safe to use. Because the standard tests are extended over time to check for all previously found bugs, the test suite keeps getting better.

Note that all releases have been tested at least with:

An internal test suite
This is part of a production system for a customer. It has many tables with hundreds of megabytes of data.
The MySQL benchmark suite
This runs a range of common queries. It is also a test to see whether the latest batch of optimisations actually made the code faster. See section 5.1.4 The MySQL Benchmark Suite.
The crash-me test
This tries to determine what features the database supports and what its capabilities and limitations are. See section 5.1.4 The MySQL Benchmark Suite.

Another test is that we use the newest MySQL version in our internal production environment, on at least one machine. We have more than 100 gigabytes of data to work with.

2.2.7 Installation Layouts

This section describes the default layout of the directories created by installing binary and source distributions.

A binary distribution is installed by unpacking it at the installation location you choose (typically `/usr/local/mysql') and creates the following directories in that location:

Directory Contents of directory
`bin' Client programs and the mysqld server
`data' Log files, databases
`docs' Documentation, ChangeLog
`include' Include (header) files
`lib' Libraries
`scripts' mysql_install_db
`share/mysql' Error message files
`sql-bench' Benchmarks

A source distribution is installed after you configure and compile it. By default, the installation step installs files under `/usr/local', in the following subdirectories:

Directory Contents of directory
`bin' Client programs and scripts
`include/mysql' Include (header) files
`info' Documentation in Info format
`lib/mysql' Libraries
`libexec' The mysqld server
`share/mysql' Error message files
`sql-bench' Benchmarks and crash-me test
`var' Databases and log files

Within an installation directory, the layout of a source installation differs from that of a binary installation in the following ways:

You can create your own binary installation from a compiled source distribution by executing the script `scripts/make_binary_distribution'.

2.2.8 How and When Updates Are Released

MySQL is evolving quite rapidly here at MySQL AB and we want to share this with other MySQL users. We try to make a release when we have very useful features that others seem to have a need for.

We also try to help out users who request features that are easy to implement. We take note of what our licensed users want to have, and we especially take note of what our extended e-mail supported customers want and try to help them out.

No one has to download a new release. The News section will tell you if the new release has something you really want. See section D MySQL Change History.

We use the following policy when updating MySQL:

The current production release is Version 4.0; we have already moved active development to Version 4.1 and 5.0. Bugs will still be fixed in the 4.0 version, and critical bugs also in the 3.23 series. We don't believe in a complete freeze, as this also leaves out bug fixes and things that ``must be done.'' ``Somewhat frozen'' means that we may add small things that ``almost surely will not affect anything that's already working.''

MySQL uses a slightly different naming scheme from most other products. In general it's relatively safe to use any version that has been out for a couple of weeks without being replaced with a new version. See section 2.2.6 Which MySQL Version to Use.

2.2.9 Release Philosophy - No Known Bugs in Releases

We put a lot of time and effort into making our releases bug free. To our knowledge, we have not released a single MySQL version with any known 'fatal' repeatable bugs.

A fatal bug is something that crashes MySQL under normal usage, gives wrong answers for normal queries, or has a security problem.

We have documented all open problems, bugs and things that are dependent on design decisions. See section 1.7.6 Known Errors and Design Deficiencies in MySQL.

Our aim is to fix everything that is fixable, but without risking making a stable MySQL version less stable. In certain cases, this means we can fix an issue in the development version(s), but not in the stable (production) version. Naturally, we document such issues so that users are aware.

Here is a description of how our build process works:

2.2.10 MySQL Binaries Compiled by MySQL AB

As a service, we at MySQL AB provide a set of binary distributions of MySQL that are compiled at our site or at sites where customers kindly have given us access to their machines.

In addition to the binaries provided in platform-specific package formats (see section 2.1 Quick Standard Installation of MySQL), we do offer binary distributions for a number of platforms by means of compressed tar archives (.tar.gz).

These distributions are generated using the script Build-tools/Do-compile which compiles the source code and creates the binary tar.gz archive using scripts/make_binary_distribution These binaries are configured and built with the following compilers and options.

Binaries built on MySQL AB development systems:

Linux 2.4.xx x86 with gcc 2.95.3
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=pentiumpro" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=pentiumpro -felide-constructors" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --disable-shared --with-client-ldflags=-all-static --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static
Linux 2.4.xx Intel Itanium 2 with ecc (Intel C++ Itanium Compiler 7.0)
CC=ecc CFLAGS="-O2 -tpp2 -ip -nolib_inline" CXX=ecc CXXFLAGS="-O2 -tpp2 -ip -nolib_inline" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile
Linux 2.4.xx Intel Itanium with ecc (Intel C++ Itanium Compiler 7.0)
CC=ecc CFLAGS=-tpp1 CXX=ecc CXXFLAGS=-tpp1 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile
Linux 2.4.xx alpha with ccc (Compaq C V6.2-505 / Compaq C++ V6.3-006)
CC=ccc CFLAGS="-fast -arch generic" CXX=cxx CXXFLAGS="-fast -arch generic -noexceptions -nortti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-mysqld-ldflags=-non_shared --with-client-ldflags=-non_shared --disable-shared
Linux 2.4.xx s390 with gcc 2.95.3
CFLAGS="-O2" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O2 -felide-constructors" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared --with-client-ldflags=-all-static --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static
Linux 2.4.xx x86_64 (AMD64) with gcc 3.2.1
CXX=gcc ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared
Sun Solaris 8 x86 with gcc 3.2.3
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data --libexecdir=/usr/local/mysql/bin --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared --with-innodb
Sun Solaris 8 sparc with gcc 3.2
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --with-named-z-libs=no --with-named-curses-libs=-lcurses --disable-shared
Sun Solaris 8 sparc 64bit with gcc 3.2
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -m64 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -m64 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --with-named-z-libs=no --with-named-curses-libs=-lcurses --disable-shared
Sun Solaris 9 sparc with gcc 2.95.3
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --with-named-curses-libs=-lcurses --disable-shared
Sun Solaris 9 sparc with cc-5.0 (Sun Forte 5.0)
CC=cc-5.0 CXX=CC ASFLAGS="-xarch=v9" CFLAGS="-Xa -xstrconst -mt -D_FORTEC_ -xarch=v9" CXXFLAGS="-noex -mt -D_FORTEC_ -xarch=v9" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --with-named-z-libs=no --enable-thread-safe-client --disable-shared
IBM AIX 4.3.2 ppc with gcc 3.2.3
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=powerpc -Wa,-many " CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=powerpc -Wa,-many -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-named-z-libs=no --disable-shared
IBM AIX 4.3.3 ppc with xlC_r (IBM Visual Age C/C++ 6.0)
CC=xlc_r CFLAGS="-ma -O2 -qstrict -qoptimize=2 -qmaxmem=8192" CXX=xlC_r CXXFLAGS ="-ma -O2 -qstrict -qoptimize=2 -qmaxmem=8192" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data --libexecdir=/usr/local/mysql/bin --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-named-z-libs=no --disable-shared --with-innodb
IBM AIX 5.1.0 ppc with gcc 3.3
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=powerpc -Wa,-many" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=powerpc -Wa,-many -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --with-server-suffix="-pro" --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-named-z-libs=no --disable-shared
HP-UX 10.20 pa-risc1.1 with gcc 3.1
CFLAGS="-DHPUX -I/opt/dce/include -O3 -fPIC" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-DHPUX -I/opt/dce /include -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -O3 -fPIC" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-pthread --with-named-thread-libs=-ldce --with-lib-ccflags=-fPIC --disable-shared
HP-UX 11.11 pa-risc2.0 64bit with aCC (HP ANSI C++ B3910B A.03.33)
CC=cc CXX=aCC CFLAGS=+DD64 CXXFLAGS=+DD64 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared
HP-UX 11.11 pa-risc2.0 32bit with aCC (HP ANSI C++ B3910B A.03.33)
CC=cc CXX=aCC CFLAGS="+DAportable" CXXFLAGS="+DAportable" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data --libexecdir=/usr/local/mysql/bin --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared --with-innodb
Apple Mac OS X 10.2 powerpc with gcc 3.1
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared
FreeBSD 4.7 i386 with gcc 2.95.4
CFLAGS=-DHAVE_BROKEN_REALPATH ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --with-named-z-libs=not-used --disable-shared
QNX Neutrino 6.2.1 i386 with gcc 2.95.3qnx-nto 20010315
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared

The following binaries are built on third-party systems kindly provided to MySQL AB by other users. Please note that these are only provided as a courtesy. Since MySQL AB does not have full control over these systems, we can only provide limited support for the binaries built on these systems.

SCO Unix 3.2v5.0.6 i386 with gcc 2.95.3
CFLAGS="-O3 -mpentium" LDFLAGS=-static CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mpentium -felide-constructors" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-named-z-libs=no --enable-thread-safe-client --disable-shared
SCO OpenUnix 8.0.0 i386 with CC 3.2
CC=cc CFLAGS="-O" CXX=CC ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-named-z-libs=no --enable-thread-safe-client --disable-shared
Compaq Tru64 OSF/1 V5.1 732 alpha with cc/cxx (Compaq C V6.3-029i / DIGITAL C++ V6.1-027)
CC="cc -pthread" CFLAGS="-O4 -ansi_alias -ansi_args -fast -inline speed -speculate all" CXX="cxx -pthread" CXXFLAGS="-O4 -ansi_alias -fast -inline speed -speculate all -noexceptions -nortti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --with-prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-named-thread-libs="-lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc" --disable-shared --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static
SGI Irix 6.5 IP32 with gcc 3.0.1
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared
FreeBSD 5.0 sparc64 with gcc 3.2.1
CFLAGS=-DHAVE_BROKEN_REALPATH ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data --libexecdir=/usr/local/mysql/bin --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --disable-shared --with-innodb

The following compile options have been used for binary packages MySQL AB used to provide in the past. These binaries are no longer being updated, but the compile options are kept here for reference purposes.

Linux 2.2.xx sparc with egcs 1.1.2
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-assembler --disable-shared
Linux 2.2.x with x686 with gcc 2.95.2
CFLAGS="-O3 -mpentiumpro" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mpentiumpro -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-assembler --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static --disable-shared --with-extra-charsets=complex
SunOS 4.1.4 2 sun4c with gcc 2.7.2.1
CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -felide-constructors" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --disable-shared --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-assembler
SunOS 5.5.1 (and above) sun4u with egcs 1.0.3a or 2.90.27 or gcc 2.95.2 and newer
CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-low-memory --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-assembler
SunOS 5.6 i86pc with gcc 2.8.1
CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-low-memory --with-extra-charsets=complex
BSDI BSD/OS 3.1 i386 with gcc 2.7.2.1
CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex
BSDI BSD/OS 2.1 i386 with gcc 2.7.2
CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex
AIX 2 4 with gcc 2.7.2.2
CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex

Anyone who has more optimal options for any of the preceding configurations listed can always mail them to the MySQL internals s mailing list. See section 1.6.1.1 The MySQL Mailing Lists.

RPM distributions prior to MySQL Version 3.22 are user-contributed. Beginning with Version 3.22, the RPMs are generated by us at MySQL AB.

If you want to compile a debug version of MySQL, you should add --with-debug or --with-debug=full to the preceding configure lines and remove any -fomit-frame-pointer options.

For the Windows distribution, please see section 2.1.1 Installing MySQL on Windows.

2.2.11 Installing a MySQL Binary Distribution

This chapter covers the installation of MySQL binary distributions (.tar.gz Archives) for various platforms (see section 2.2.10 MySQL Binaries Compiled by MySQL AB for a detailed list).

In addition to these generic packages, we also offer binaries in platform-specific package formats for selected platforms. See section 2.1 Quick Standard Installation of MySQL for more information on how to install these.

The generic MySQL binary distributions are packaged as gzip-compressed GNU tar archives (.tar.gz). You need the following tools to install a MySQL binary distribution:

If you run into problems, please always use mysqlbug when posting questions to a MySQL mailing list. Even if the problem isn't a bug, mysqlbug gathers system information that will help others solve your problem. By not using mysqlbug, you lessen the likelihood of getting a solution to your problem. You will find mysqlbug in the `bin' directory after you unpack the distribution. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.

The basic commands you must execute to install and use a MySQL binary distribution are:

shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -g mysql mysql
shell> cd /usr/local
shell> gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
shell> ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql
shell> cd mysql
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> chown -R root  .
shell> chown -R mysql data
shell> chgrp -R mysql .
shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
or
shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
if you are running MySQL 4.x

You can add new users using the bin/mysql_setpermission script if you install the DBI and DBD-mysql Perl modules.

A more detailed description follows.

To install a binary distribution, follow these steps, then proceed to section 2.4 Post-installation Setup and Testing, for post-installation setup and testing:

  1. Pick the directory under which you want to unpack the distribution, and move into it. In the following example, we unpack the distribution under `/usr/local' and create a directory `/usr/local/mysql' into which MySQL is installed. (The following instructions, therefore, assume you have permission to create files in `/usr/local'. If that directory is protected, you will need to perform the installation as root.)
  2. Obtain a distribution file from one of the sites listed in section 2.2.1 How to Get MySQL. MySQL binary distributions are provided as compressed tar archives and have names like `mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz', where VERSION is a number (for example, 3.21.15), and OS indicates the type of operating system for which the distribution is intended (for example, pc-linux-gnu-i586). Note that all binaries are built from the same MySQL source distribution.
  3. Add a user and group for mysqld to run as:
    shell> groupadd mysql
    shell> useradd -g mysql mysql
    
    These commands add the mysql group and the mysql user. The syntax for useradd and groupadd may differ slightly on different versions of Unix. They may also be called adduser and addgroup. You may wish to call the user and group something else instead of mysql.
  4. Change into the intended installation directory:
    shell> cd /usr/local
    
  5. Unpack the distribution and create the installation directory:
    shell> gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
    shell> ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql
    
    Using GNU tar, you can also replace the first line with the following alternative command to decompress and extract the distribution in one go:
    shell> tar zxvf /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz
    
    The first command creates a directory named `mysql-VERSION-OS'. The second command makes a symbolic link to that directory. This lets you refer more easily to the installation directory as `/usr/local/mysql'.
  6. Change into the installation directory:
    shell> cd mysql
    
    You will find several files and subdirectories in the mysql directory. The most important for installation purposes are the `bin' and `scripts' subdirectories.
    `bin'
    This directory contains client programs and the server You should add the full pathname of this directory to your PATH environment variable so that your shell finds the MySQL programs properly. See section F Environment Variables.
    `scripts'
    This directory contains the mysql_install_db script used to initialise the mysql database containing the grant tables that store the server access permissions.
  7. If you would like to use mysqlaccess and have the MySQL distribution in some non-standard place, you must change the location where mysqlaccess expects to find the mysql client. Edit the `bin/mysqlaccess' script at approximately line 18. Search for a line that looks like this:
    $MYSQL     = '/usr/local/bin/mysql';    # path to mysql executable
    
    Change the path to reflect the location where mysql actually is stored on your system. If you do not do this, you will get a Broken pipe error when you run mysqlaccess.
  8. Create the MySQL grant tables (necessary only if you haven't installed MySQL before):
    shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
    
    Note that MySQL versions older than Version 3.22.10 started the MySQL server when you run mysql_install_db. This is no longer true.
  9. Change ownership of binaries to root and ownership of the data directory to the user that you will run mysqld as:
    shell> chown -R root  /usr/local/mysql/.
    shell> chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/data
    shell> chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/.
    
    The first command changes the owner attribute of the files to the root user, the second one changes the owner attribute of the data directory to the mysql user, and the third one changes the group attribute to the mysql group.
  10. If you want to install support for the Perl DBI/DBD interface, see section 2.7 Perl Installation Comments.
  11. If you would like MySQL to start automatically when you boot your machine, you can copy support-files/mysql.server to the location where your system has its startup files. More information can be found in the support-files/mysql.server script itself and in section 2.4.3 Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically.

After everything has been unpacked and installed, you should initialise and test your distribution.

You can start the MySQL server with the following command:

shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

Now proceed to section 4.7.2 mysqld_safe, The Wrapper Around mysqld, and See section 2.4 Post-installation Setup and Testing.

2.3 Installing a MySQL Source Distribution

Before you proceed with the source installation, check first to see if our binary is available for your platform and if it will work for you. We put a lot of effort into making sure that our binaries are built with the best possible options.

You need the following tools to build and install MySQL from source:

If you are using a recent version of gcc, recent enough to understand the -fno-exceptions option, it is very important that you use it. Otherwise, you may compile a binary that crashes randomly. We also recommend that you use -felide-constructors and -fno-rtti along with -fno-exceptions. When in doubt, do the following:


CFLAGS="-O3" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions \
       -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-assembler \
       --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static

On most systems this will give you a fast and stable binary.

If you run into problems, please always use mysqlbug when posting questions to a MySQL mailing list. Even if the problem isn't a bug, mysqlbug gathers system information that will help others solve your problem. By not using mysqlbug, you lessen the likelihood of getting a solution to your problem. You will find mysqlbug in the `scripts' directory after you unpack the distribution. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.

2.3.1 Quick Installation Overview

The basic commands you must execute to install a MySQL source distribution are:

shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -g mysql mysql
shell> gunzip < mysql-VERSION.tar.gz | tar -xvf -
shell> cd mysql-VERSION
shell> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql
shell> make
shell> make install
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> chown -R root  /usr/local/mysql
shell> chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/var
shell> chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
shell> cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf
shell> /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

If your version of MySQL is older than 4.0, use safe_mysqld rather than mysqld_safe.

If you want to have support for InnoDB tables, you should edit the /etc/my.cnf file and remove the # character before the parameter that starts with innodb_.... See section 4.1.2 `my.cnf' Option Files, and section 7.5.3 InnoDB Startup Options.

If you start from a source RPM, do the following:

shell> rpm --rebuild --clean MySQL-VERSION.src.rpm

This will make a binary RPM that you can install.

You can add new users using the bin/mysql_setpermission script if you install the DBI and DBD-mysql Perl modules.

A more detailed description follows.

To install a source distribution, follow these steps, then proceed to section 2.4 Post-installation Setup and Testing, for post-installation initialisation and testing:

  1. Pick the directory under which you want to unpack the distribution, and move into it.
  2. Obtain a distribution file from one of the sites listed in section 2.2.1 How to Get MySQL.
  3. If you are interested in using Berkeley DB tables with MySQL, you will need to obtain a patched version of the Berkeley DB source code. Please read the chapter on Berkeley DB tables before proceeding. See section 7.6 BDB or BerkeleyDB Tables. MySQL source distributions are provided as compressed tar archives and have names like `mysql-VERSION.tar.gz', where VERSION is a number like 3.23.58.
  4. Add a user and group for mysqld to run as:
    shell> groupadd mysql
    shell> useradd -g mysql mysql
    
    These commands add the mysql group and the mysql user. The syntax for useradd and groupadd may differ slightly on different versions of Unix. They may also be called adduser and addgroup. You may wish to call the user and group something else instead of mysql.
  5. Unpack the distribution into the current directory:
    shell> gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION.tar.gz | tar xvf -
    
    This command creates a directory named `mysql-VERSION'.
  6. Change into the top-level directory of the unpacked distribution:
    shell> cd mysql-VERSION
    
    Note that currently you must configure and build MySQL from this top-level directory. You cannot build it in a different directory.
  7. Configure the release and compile everything:
    shell> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql
    shell> make
    
    When you run configure, you might want to specify some options. Run ./configure --help for a list of options. section 2.3.3 Typical configure Options, discusses some of the more useful options. If configure fails, and you are going to send mail to a MySQL mailing list to ask for assistance, please include any lines from `config.log' that you think can help solve the problem. Also include the last couple of lines of output from configure if configure aborts. Post the bug report using the mysqlbug script. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems. If the compile fails, see section 2.3.5 Problems Compiling MySQL?, for help with a number of common problems.
  8. Install everything:
    shell> make install
    
    You might need to run this command as root.
  9. Create the MySQL grant tables (necessary only if you haven't installed MySQL before):
    shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
    
    Note that MySQL versions older than Version 3.22.10 started the MySQL server when you run mysql_install_db. This is no longer true.
  10. Change ownership of binaries to root and ownership of the data directory to the user that you will run mysqld as:
    shell> chown -R root  /usr/local/mysql
    shell> chown -R mysql /usr/local/mysql/var
    shell> chgrp -R mysql /usr/local/mysql
    
    The first command changes the owner attribute of the files to the root user, the second one changes the owner attribute of the data directory to the mysql user, and the third one changes the group attribute to the mysql group.
  11. If you want to install support for the Perl DBI/DBD interface, see section 2.7 Perl Installation Comments.
  12. If you would like MySQL to start automatically when you boot your machine, you can copy support-files/mysql.server to the location where your system has its startup files. More information can be found in the support-files/mysql.server script itself and in section 2.4.3 Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically.

After everything has been installed, you should initialise and test your distribution:

shell> /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

If that command fails immediately with mysqld daemon ended, you can find some information in the file `mysql-data-directory/'hostname'.err'. The likely reason is that you already have another mysqld server running. See section 4.1.3 Running Multiple MySQL Servers on the Same Machine.

Now proceed to section 2.4 Post-installation Setup and Testing.

2.3.2 Applying Patches

Sometimes patches appear on the mailing list or are placed in the patches area of the MySQL web site (http://www.mysql.com/downloads/patches.html).

To apply a patch from the mailing list, save the message in which the patch appears in a file, change into the top-level directory of your MySQL source tree, and run these commands:

shell> patch -p1 < patch-file-name
shell> rm config.cache
shell> make clean

Patches from the FTP site are distributed as plain text files or as files compressed with gzip. Apply a plain patch as shown previously for mailing list patches. To apply a compressed patch, change into the top-level directory of your MySQL source tree and run these commands:

shell> gunzip < patch-file-name.gz | patch -p1
shell> rm config.cache
shell> make clean

After applying a patch, follow the instructions for a normal source install, beginning with the ./configure step. After running the make install step, restart your MySQL server.

You may need to bring down any currently running server before you run make install. (Use mysqladmin shutdown to do this.) Some systems do not allow you to install a new version of a program if it replaces the version that is currently executing.

2.3.3 Typical configure Options

The configure script gives you a great deal of control over how you configure your MySQL distribution. Typically you do this using options on the configure command-line. You can also affect configure using certain environment variables. See section F Environment Variables. For a list of options supported by configure, run this command:

shell> ./configure --help

Some of the more commonly-used configure options are described here:

2.3.4 Installing from the Development Source Tree

Caution: You should read this section only if you are interested in helping us test our new code. If you just want to get MySQL up and running on your system, you should use a standard release distribution (either a source or binary distribution will do).

To obtain our most recent development source tree, use these instructions:

  1. Download BitKeeper from http://www.bitmover.com/cgi-bin/download.cgi. You will need Bitkeeper 3.0 or newer to access our repository.
  2. Follow the instructions to install it.
  3. After BitKeeper is installed, first go to the directory you want to work from, and then use one of the following commands to clone the MySQL version branch of your choice: To clone the 3.23 (old) branch, use this command:
    shell> bk clone bk://mysql.bkbits.net/mysql-3.23 mysql-3.23
    
    To clone the 4.0 (stable/production) branch, use this command:
    shell> bk clone bk://mysql.bkbits.net/mysql-4.0 mysql-4.0
    
    To clone the 4.1 alpha branch, use this command:
    shell> bk clone bk://mysql.bkbits.net/mysql-4.1 mysql-4.1
    
    To clone the 5.0 development branch, use this command:
    shell> bk clone bk://mysql.bkbits.net/mysql-5.0 mysql-5.0
    
    In the preceding examples the source tree will be set up in the `mysql-3.23/', `mysql-4.0/', `mysql-4.1/', or `mysql-5.0/' subdirectory of your current directory. If you are behind a firewall and can only initiate HTTP connections, you can also use BitKeeper via HTTP. If you are required to use a proxy server, simply set the environment variable http_proxy to point to your proxy:
    shell> export http_proxy="http://your.proxy.server:8080/"
    
    Now, simply replace the bk:// with http:// when doing a clone. Example:
    shell> bk clone http://mysql.bkbits.net/mysql-4.1 mysql-4.1
    
    The initial download of the source tree may take a while, depending on the speed of your connection - please be patient.
  4. You will need GNU make, autoconf 2.53 (or newer), automake 1.5, libtool 1.4, and m4 to run the next set of commands. Even though many operating system already come with their own implementation of make, chances are high that the compilation fails with strange error messages. Therefore it is highly recommended to use GNU make (sometimes also named gmake) by all means. Fortunately, a large number of operating systems already ship with the GNU toolchain preinstalled or supply installable packages of these. In any case, they can also be downloaded from the following locations: If you are trying to configure MySQL 4.1, you will also need GNU bison 1.75. Older versions of bison may report this error: sql_yacc.yy:#####: fatal error: maximum table size (32767) exceeded. Note: the maximum table size is not actually exceeded, the error is caused by bugs in these earlier bison versions. Versions of MySQL before version 4.1 may also compile with other yacc implementations (e.g. BSD yacc 91.7.30). For later versions, GNU bison is a requirement. The typical command to do in a shell is:
    cd mysql-4.0
    bk -r edit
    aclocal; autoheader; autoconf; automake
    (cd innobase ; aclocal; autoheader; autoconf; automake) # for InnoDB
    (cd bdb/dist ; sh s_all ) # for Berkeley DB
    ./configure  # Add your favorite options here
    make
    
    If you get some strange error during this stage, check that you really have libtool installed. A collection of our standard configure scripts is located in the `BUILD/' subdirectory. If you are lazy, you can use `BUILD/compile-pentium-debug'. To compile on a different architecture, modify the script by removing flags that are Pentium-specific.
  5. When the build is done, run make install. Be careful with this on a production machine; the command may overwrite your live release installation. If you have another installation of MySQL, we recommend that you run ./configure with different values for the prefix, with-tcp-port, and unix-socket-path options than those used for your production server.
  6. Play hard with your new installation and try to make the new features crash. Start by running make test. See section 12.1.2 MySQL Test Suite.
  7. If you have gotten to the make stage and the distribution does not compile, please report it in our bugs database at http://bugs.mysql.com/. If you have installed the latest versions of the required GNU tools, and they crash trying to process our configuration files, please report that also. However, if you execute aclocal and get a command not found error or a similar problem, do not report it. Instead, make sure all the necessary tools are installed and that your PATH variable is set correctly so that your shell can find them.
  8. After the initial bk clone operation to get the source tree, you should run bk pull periodically to get the updates.
  9. You can examine the change history for the tree with all the diffs by using bk sccstool. If you see some funny diffs or code that you have a question about, do not hesitate to send e-mail to the MySQL internals mailing list. See section 1.6.1.1 The MySQL Mailing Lists. Also, if you think you have a better idea on how to do something, send an e-mail to the same address with a patch. bk diffs will produce a patch for you after you have made changes to the source. If you do not have the time to code your idea, just send a description.
  10. BitKeeper has a nice help utility that you can access via bk helptool.
  11. Please note that any commits (bk ci or bk citool) will trigger the posting of a message with the changeset to our internals mailing list, as well as the usual openlogging.org submission with just the changeset comments. Generally, you wouldn't need to use commit (since the public tree will not allow bk push), but rather use the bk diffs method described previously.

You can also browse changesets, comments and sourcecode online by browsing to for example, http://mysql.bkbits.net:8080/mysql-4.1 For MySQL 4.1.

The manual is in a separate tree which can be cloned with:

shell> bk clone bk://mysql.bkbits.net/mysqldoc mysqldoc

There are also public BitKeeper trees for MySQL Control Center and Connector/ODBC. They can be cloned respectively as follows.

To clone MySQL Control center, use this command:

shell> bk clone http://mysql.bkbits.net/mysqlcc mysqlcc

To clone Connector/ODBC, use this command:

shell> bk clone http://mysql.bkbits.net/myodbc3 myodbc3

2.3.5 Problems Compiling MySQL?

All MySQL programs compile cleanly for us with no warnings on Solaris or Linux using gcc. On other systems, warnings may occur due to differences in system include files. See section 2.3.6 MIT-pthreads Notes for warnings that may occur when using MIT-pthreads. For other problems, check the following list.

The solution to many problems involves reconfiguring. If you do need to reconfigure, take note of the following:

To prevent old configuration information or object files from being used, run these commands before rerunning configure:

shell> rm config.cache
shell> make clean

Alternatively, you can run make distclean.

The following list describes some of the problems when compiling MySQL that have been found to occur most often:

2.3.6 MIT-pthreads Notes

This section describes some of the issues involved in using MIT-pthreads.

Note that on Linux you should not use MIT-pthreads but use the installed LinuxThreads implementation instead. See section 2.6.2 Linux Notes (All Linux Versions).

If your system does not provide native thread support, you will need to build MySQL using the MIT-pthreads package. This includes older FreeBSD systems, SunOS 4.x, Solaris 2.4 and earlier, and some others. See section 2.2.5 Operating Systems Supported by MySQL.

Note, that beginning with MySQL 4.0.2 MIT-pthreads are no longer part of the source distribution. If you require this package, you need to download it separately from http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Contrib/pthreads-1_60_beta6-mysql.tar.gz

After downloading, extract this source archive into the top level of the MySQL source directory. It will create a new subdirectory mit-pthreads.

2.3.7 Windows Source Distribution

You will need the following:

Building MySQL:

  1. Create a work directory (for example, `workdir').
  2. Unpack the source distribution in the aforementioned directory.
  3. Start the VC++ 6.0 compiler.
  4. In the File menu, select Open Workspace.
  5. Open the `mysql.dsw' workspace you find on the work directory.
  6. From the Build menu, select the Set Active Configuration menu.
  7. Click over the screen selecting mysqld - Win32 Debug and click OK.
  8. Press F7 to begin the build of the debug server, libraries, and some client applications.
  9. When the compilation finishes, copy the libraries and the executables to a separate directory.
  10. Compile the release versions that you want, in the same way.
  11. Create the directory into which to install the MySQL stuff (for example, `c:\mysql').
  12. From the `workdir' directory copy into the c:\mysql directory the following directories:
  13. Create the directory `c:\mysql\bin' and copy into it all the servers and clients that you just compiled.
  14. If you want, also create the `c:\mysql\lib' directory and copy the libraries that you just compiled.
  15. Do a clean using Visual Studio.

Set up and start the server in the same way as for the binary Windows distribution. See section 2.1.1.2 Preparing the Windows MySQL Environment.

2.4 Post-installation Setup and Testing

Once you've installed MySQL (from either a binary or source distribution), you need to initialise the grant tables, start the server, and make sure that the server works okay. You may also wish to arrange for the server to be started and stopped automatically when your system starts up and shuts down.

Normally you install the grant tables and start the server like this for installation from a source distribution:

shell> ./scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> cd mysql_installation_directory
shell> ./bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

For a binary distribution (not RPM or pkg packages), do this:

shell> cd mysql_installation_directory
shell> ./scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> ./bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

The mysql_install_db script creates the mysql database which will hold all database privileges, the test database which you can use to test MySQL, and also privilege entries for the user that runs mysql_install_db and a root user. The entries are created without passwords. The mysqld_safe script starts the mysqld server. (If your version of MySQL is older than 4.0, use safe_mysqld rather than mysqld_safe.)

mysql_install_db will not overwrite any old privilege tables, so it should be safe to run in any circumstances. If you don't want to have the test database you can remove it with mysqladmin -u root drop test after starting the server.

Testing is most easily done from the top-level directory of the MySQL distribution. For a binary distribution, this is your installation directory (typically something like `/usr/local/mysql'). For a source distribution, this is the main directory of your MySQL source tree.

In the commands shown in this section and in the following subsections, BINDIR is the path to the location in which programs like mysqladmin and mysqld_safe are installed. For a binary distribution, this is the `bin' directory within the distribution. For a source distribution, BINDIR is probably `/usr/local/bin', unless you specified an installation directory other than `/usr/local' when you ran configure. EXECDIR is the location in which the mysqld server is installed. For a binary distribution, this is the same as BINDIR. For a source distribution, EXECDIR is probably `/usr/local/libexec'.

Testing is described in detail:

  1. If necessary, start the mysqld server and set up the initial MySQL grant tables containing the privileges that determine how users are allowed to connect to the server. This is normally done with the mysql_install_db script:
    shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
    
    Typically, mysql_install_db needs to be run only the first time you install MySQL. Therefore, if you are upgrading an existing installation, you can skip this step. (However, mysql_install_db is quite safe to use and will not update any tables that already exist, so if you are unsure of what to do, you can always run mysql_install_db.) mysql_install_db creates six tables (user, db, host, tables_priv, columns_priv, and func) in the mysql database. A description of the initial privileges is given in section 4.3.4 Setting Up the Initial MySQL Privileges. Briefly, these privileges allow the MySQL root user to do anything, and allow anybody to create or use databases with a name of test or starting with test_. If you don't set up the grant tables, the following error will appear in the log file when you start the server:
    mysqld: Can't find file: 'host.frm'
    
    This may also happen with a binary MySQL distribution if you don't start MySQL by executing exactly ./bin/mysqld_safe. See section 4.7.2 mysqld_safe, The Wrapper Around mysqld. You might need to run mysql_install_db as root. However, if you prefer, you can run the MySQL server as an unprivileged (non-root) user, provided that the user can read and write files in the database directory. Instructions for running MySQL as an unprivileged user are given in section A.3.2 How to Run MySQL As a Normal User. If you have problems with mysql_install_db, see section 2.4.1 Problems Running mysql_install_db. There are some alternatives to running the mysql_install_db script as it is provided in the MySQL distribution: For more information about these alternatives, see section 4.3.4 Setting Up the Initial MySQL Privileges.
  2. Start the MySQL server like this:
    shell> cd mysql_installation_directory
    shell> bin/mysqld_safe &
    
    If you have problems starting the server, see section 2.4.2 Problems Starting the MySQL Server.
  3. Use mysqladmin to verify that the server is running. The following commands provide a simple test to check that the server is up and responding to connections:
    shell> BINDIR/mysqladmin version
    shell> BINDIR/mysqladmin variables
    
    The output from mysqladmin version varies slightly depending on your platform and version of MySQL, but should be similar to that shown here:
    shell> BINDIR/mysqladmin version
    mysqladmin  Ver 8.14 Distrib 3.23.32, for linux on i586
    Copyright (C) 2000 MySQL AB & MySQL Finland AB & TCX DataKonsult AB
    This software comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY. This is free software,
    and you are welcome to modify and redistribute it under the GPL license.
    
    Server version          3.23.32-debug
    Protocol version        10
    Connection              Localhost via Unix socket
    TCP port                3306
    UNIX socket             /tmp/mysql.sock
    Uptime:                 16 sec
    
    Threads: 1  Questions: 9  Slow queries: 0
    Opens: 7  Flush tables: 2  Open tables: 0
    Queries per second avg: 0.000
    Memory in use: 132K  Max memory used: 16773K
    
    To get a feeling for what else you can do with BINDIR/mysqladmin, invoke it with the --help option.
  4. Verify that you can shut down the server:
    shell> BINDIR/mysqladmin -u root shutdown
    
  5. Verify that you can restart the server. Do this using mysqld_safe or by invoking mysqld directly. For example:
    shell> BINDIR/mysqld_safe --log &
    
    If mysqld_safe fails, try running it from the MySQL installation directory (if you are not already there). If that doesn't work, see section 2.4.2 Problems Starting the MySQL Server.
  6. Run some simple tests to verify that the server is working. The output should be similar to what is shown here:
    shell> BINDIR/mysqlshow
    +-----------+
    | Databases |
    +-----------+
    | mysql     |
    +-----------+
    
    shell> BINDIR/mysqlshow mysql
    Database: mysql
    +--------------+
    |    Tables    |
    +--------------+
    | columns_priv |
    | db           |
    | func         |
    | host         |
    | tables_priv  |
    | user         |
    +--------------+
    
    shell> BINDIR/mysql -e "SELECT host,db,user FROM db" mysql
    +------+--------+------+
    | host | db     | user |
    +------+--------+------+
    | %    | test   |      |
    | %    | test_% |      |
    +------+--------+------+
    
    There is also a benchmark suite in the `sql-bench' directory (under the MySQL installation directory) that you can use to compare how MySQL performs on different platforms. The benchmark suite is written in Perl, using the Perl DBI module to provide a database-independent interface to the various databases. The following additional Perl modules are required to run the benchmark suite:
    DBI
    DBD-mysql
    Data-Dumper
    Data-ShowTable
    
    These modules can be obtained from CPAN http://www.cpan.org/. See section 2.7.1 Installing Perl on Unix. The `sql-bench/Results' directory contains the results from many runs against different databases and platforms. To run all tests, execute these commands:
    shell> cd sql-bench
    shell> run-all-tests
    
    If you don't have the `sql-bench' directory, you are probably using an RPM for a binary distribution. (Source distribution RPMs include the benchmark directory.) In this case, you must first install the benchmark suite before you can use it. Beginning with MySQL Version 3.22, there are benchmark RPM files named `mysql-bench-VERSION-i386.rpm' that contain benchmark code and data. If you have a source distribution, you can also run the tests in the `tests' subdirectory. For example, to run `auto_increment.tst', do this:
    shell> BINDIR/mysql -vvf test < ./tests/auto_increment.tst
    
    The expected results are shown in the `./tests/auto_increment.res' file.

2.4.1 Problems Running mysql_install_db

The purpose of the mysql_install_db script is to generate new MySQL privilege tables. It will not affect any other data. It will also not do anything if you already have MySQL privilege tables installed.

If you want to re-create your privilege tables, you should take down the mysqld server, if it's running, and then do something like:

mv mysql-data-directory/mysql mysql-data-directory/mysql-old
mysql_install_db

This section lists problems you might encounter when you run mysql_install_db:

mysql_install_db doesn't install the grant tables
You may find that mysql_install_db fails to install the grant tables and terminates after displaying the following messages:
starting mysqld daemon with databases from XXXXXX
mysql daemon ended
In this case, you should examine the log file very carefully. The log should be located in the directory `XXXXXX' named by the error message, and should indicate why mysqld didn't start. If you don't understand what happened, include the log when you post a bug report using mysqlbug. See section 1.6.1.3 How to Report Bugs or Problems.
There is already a mysqld daemon running
In this case, you probably don't have to run mysql_install_db at all. You have to run mysql_install_db only once, when you install MySQL the first time.
Installing a second mysqld daemon doesn't work when one daemon is running
This can happen when you already have an existing MySQL installation, but want to put a new installation in a different place (for example, for testing, or perhaps you simply want to run two installations at the same time). Generally the problem that occurs when you try to run the second server is that it tries to use the same socket and port as the old one. In this case you will get the error message: Can't start server: Bind on TCP/IP port: Address already in use or Can't start server: Bind on unix socket.... See section 4.1.3 Running Multiple MySQL Servers on the Same Machine.
You don't have write access to `/tmp'
If you don't have write access to create a socket file at the default place (in `/tmp') or permission to create temporary files in `/tmp,' you will get an error when running mysql_install_db or when starting or using mysqld. You can specify a different socket and temporary directory as follows:
shell> TMPDIR=/some_tmp_dir/
shell> MYSQL_UNIX_PORT=/some_tmp_dir/mysqld.sock
shell> export TMPDIR MYSQL_UNIX_PORT
See section A.4.5 How to Protect or Change the MySQL Socket File `/tmp/mysql.sock'. `some_tmp_dir' should be the path to some directory for which you have write permission. See section F Environment Variables. After this you should be able to run mysql_install_db and start the server with these commands:
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> BINDIR/mysqld_safe &
mysqld crashes immediately
If you are running Red Hat Version 5.0 with a version of glibc older than 2.0.7-5, you should make sure you have installed all glibc patches. There is a lot of information about this in the MySQL mail archives. Links to the mail archives are available online at http://lists.mysql.com/. Also, see section 2.6.2 Linux Notes (All Linux Versions). You can also start mysqld manually using the --skip-grant-tables option and add the privilege information yourself using mysql:
shell> BINDIR/mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
shell> BINDIR/mysql -u root mysql
From mysql, manually execute the SQL commands in mysql_install_db. Make sure you run mysqladmin flush-privileges or mysqladmin reload afterward to tell the server to reload the grant tables.

2.4.2 Problems Starting the MySQL Server

If you are going to use tables that support transactions (InnoDB, BDB), you should first create a `my.cnf' file and set startup options for the table types you plan to use. See section 7 MySQL Table Types.

Generally, you start the mysqld server in one of these ways:

When the mysqld daemon starts up, it changes the directory to the data directory. This is where it expects to write log files and the pid (process ID) file, and where it expects to find databases.

The data directory location is hardwired in when the distribution is compiled. However, if mysqld expects to find the data directory somewhere other than where it really is on your system, it will not work properly. If you have problems with incorrect paths, you can find out what options mysqld allows and what the default path settings are by invoking mysqld with the --help option. You can override the defaults by specifying the correct pathnames as command-line arguments to mysqld. (These options can be used with mysqld_safe as well.)

Normally you should need to tell mysqld only the base directory under which MySQL is installed. You can do this with the --basedir option. You can also use --help to check the effect of changing path options (note that --help must be the final option of the mysqld command). For example:

shell> EXECDIR/mysqld --basedir=/usr/local --help

Once you determine the path settings you want, start the server without the --help option.

Whichever method you use to start the server, if it fails to start up correctly, check the log file to see if you can find out why. Log files are located in the data directory (typically `/usr/local/mysql/data' for a binary distribution, `/usr/local/var' for a source distribution, and `\mysql\data\mysql.err' on Windows). Look in the data directory for files with names of the form `host_name.err' and `host_name.log' where host_name is the name of your server host. Then check the last few lines of these files:

shell> tail host_name.err
shell> tail host_name.log

Look for something like the following in the log file:

000729 14:50:10  bdb:  Recovery function for LSN 1 27595 failed
000729 14:50:10  bdb:  warning: ./test/t1.db: No such file or directory
000729 14:50:10  Can't init databases

This means that you didn't start mysqld with --bdb-no-recover and Berkeley DB found something wrong with its log files when it tried to recover your databases. To be able to continue, you should move away the old Berkeley DB log file from the database directory to some other place, where you can later examine it. The log files are named `log.0000000001', where the number will increase over time.

If you are running mysqld with BDB table support and mysqld core dumps at start this could be because of some problems with the BDB recover log. In this case you can try starting mysqld with --bdb-no-recover. If this helps, then you should remove all `log.*' files from the data directory and try starting mysqld again.

If you get the following error, it means that some other program (or another mysqld server) is already using the TCP/IP port or socket mysqld is trying to use:

Can't start server: Bind on TCP/IP port: Address already in use
  or
Can't start server : Bind on unix socket...

Use ps to make sure that you don't have another mysqld server running. If you can't find another server running, you can try to execute the command telnet your-host-name tcp-ip-port-number and press Enter a couple of times. If you don't get an error message like telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused, something is using the TCP/IP port mysqld is trying to use. See section 2.4.1 Problems Running mysql_install_db and section 4.1.3 Running Multiple MySQL Servers on the Same Machine.

If mysqld is currently running, you can find out what path settings it is using by executing this command:

shell> mysqladmin variables

or

shell> mysqladmin -h 'your-host-name' variables

If you get Errcode 13, which means Permission denied, when starting mysqld this means that you didn't have the right to read/create files in the MySQL database or log directory. In this case you should either start mysqld as the root user or change the permissions for the involved files and directories so that you have the right to use them.

If mysqld_safe starts the server but you can't connect to it, you should make sure you have an entry in `/etc/hosts' that looks like this:

127.0.0.1       localhost

This problem occurs only on systems that don't have a working thread library and for which MySQL must be configured to use MIT-pthreads.

If you can't get mysqld to start you can try to make a trace file to find the problem. See section E.1.2 Creating Trace Files.

If you are using InnoDB tables, refer to the InnoDB-specific startup options. See section 7.5.3 InnoDB Startup Options.

If you are using BDB (Berkeley DB) tables, you should familiarise yourself with the different BDB-specific startup options. See section 7.6.3 BDB startup options.

2.4.3 Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically

The mysql.server and mysqld_safe scripts can be used to start the server automatically at system startup time. mysql.server can also be used to stop the server.

The mysql.server script can be used to start or stop the server by invoking it with start or stop arguments:

shell> mysql.server start
shell> mysql.server stop

mysql.server can be found in the `share/mysql' directory under the MySQL installation directory or in the `support-files' directory of the MySQL source tree.

Note that if you use the Linux RPM package (MySQL-server-VERSION.rpm), the mysql.server script has already been installed as `/etc/init.d/mysql' - you don't have to install it manually. See section 2.1.2 Installing MySQL on Linux for more information on the Linux RPM packages.

On Mac OS X, you can install a separate MySQL Startup Item package to enable the automatic startup of MySQL on system bootup. See section 2.1.3 Installing MySQL on Mac OS X for details.

Before mysql.server starts the server, it changes the directory to the MySQL installation directory, then invokes mysqld_safe. You might need to edit mysql.server if you have a binary distribution that you've installed in a non-standard location. Modify it to cd into the proper directory before it runs mysqld_safe. If you want the server to run as some specific user, add an appropriate user line to the `/etc/my.cnf' file, as shown later in this section.

mysql.server stop brings down the server by sending a signal to it. You can also take down the server manually by executing mysqladmin shutdown.

You need to add these start and stop commands to the appropriate places in your `/etc/rc*' files when you want to start up MySQL automatically on your server.

On most current Linux distributions, it is sufficient to copy the file mysql.server into the `/etc/init.d' directory (or `/etc/rc.d/init.d' on older Red Hat systems). Afterwards, run the following command to enable the startup of MySQL on system bootup:

shell> chkconfig --add mysql.server

On FreeBSD startup scripts generally should go in `/usr/local/etc/rc.d/'. The rc(8) manual page also states that scripts in this directory are only executed, if their basename matches the shell globbing pattern *.sh. Any other files or directories present within the directory are silently ignored. In other words, on FreeBSD you should install the file `mysql.server' as `/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql.server.sh' to enable automatic startup.

As an alternative to the above, some operating systems also use `/etc/rc.local' or `/etc/init.d/boot.local' to start additional services on bootup. To start up MySQL using this method, you could append something like the following to it:

/bin/sh -c 'cd /usr/local/mysql ; ./bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &'

You can also add options for mysql.server in a global `/etc/my.cnf' file. A typical `/etc/my.cnf' file might look like this:

[mysqld]
datadir=/usr/local/mysql/var
socket=/var/tmp/mysql.sock
port=3306
user=mysql

[mysql.server]
basedir=/usr/local/mysql

The mysql.server script understands the following options: datadir, basedir, and pid-file.

The following table shows which option groups each startup script reads from option files:

Script Option groups
mysqld [mysqld] and [server]
mysql.server [mysql.server], [mysqld], and [server]
mysqld_safe [mysqld], [server], and [mysqld_safe]

For backward compatibility, mysql.server also reads the [mysql_server] group and mysqld_safe also reads the [safe_mysqld] group. However, you should update your option files to use the [mysql.server] and [mysqld_safe] groups instead.

See section 4.1.2 `my.cnf' Option Files.

2.5 Upgrading/Downgrading MySQL

Before you do an upgrade, you should back up your old databases.

You can always move the MySQL form files and datafiles between different versions on the same architecture as long as you have the same base version of MySQL. The current base version is 4. If you change the character set when running MySQL, you must run myisamchk -r -q --set-character-set=charset on all tables. Otherwise, your indexes may not be ordered correctly, because changing the character set may also change the sort order.

If you are afraid of new versions, you can always rename your old mysqld to something like mysqld-old-version-number. If your new mysqld then does something unexpected, you can simply shut it down and restart with your old mysqld.

If, after an upgrade, you experience problems with recompiled client programs, such as Commands out of sync or unexpected core dumps, you probably have used an old header or library file when compiling your programs. In this case you should check the date for your `mysql.h' file and `libmysqlclient.a' library to verify that they are from the new MySQL distribution. If not, please recompile your programs.

If problems occur, such as that the new mysqld server doesn't want to start or that you can't connect without a password, check that you don't have some old `my.cnf' file from your old installation. You can check this with: program-name --print-defaults. If this outputs anything other than the program name, you have an active `my.cnf' file that will affect things.

It is a good idea to rebuild and reinstall the Perl DBD-mysql module whenever you install a new release of MySQL. The same applies to other MySQL interfaces as well, such as the Python MySQLdb module.

2.5.1 Upgrading From Version 4.0 to 4.1

2.5.1.1 Preparing to Upgrade From Version 4.0 to 4.1

Some visible things have changed between MySQL 4.0 and MySQL 4.1 to fix some critical bugs and make MySQL more compatible with the ANSI SQL standard.

Instead of adding options (and a lot of code) to try to make 4.1 behave like 4.0 we have taken another approach:

We have added to the later MySQL 4.0 releases (from 4.0.12 on) the --new startup option for mysqld, which gives you the 4.1 behaviour for the most critical changes. You can also set this behaviour for a given client connection with the SET @@new=1 command.

If you believe that some of the following changes will affect you when you upgrade to 4.1, we recommend that before upgrading to 4.1, you download the latest MySQL 4.0 version and make sure that your applications work in the --new mode. This way you will have a smooth painless upgrade to 4.1 later.

In MySQL 4.1 we have done some things that may affect applications. The following is a list of things that you have to watch out for when upgrading to version 4.1:

Note: The table definition format used in `.frm' files has changed slightly in 4.1. MySQL 4.0 versions from 4.0.11 on can read the new `.frm' format directly, but older versions cannot. If you need to move tables from 4.1 to an earlier MySQL version, you should use mysqldump. See section 4.8.6 mysqldump, Dumping Table Structure and Data.

If you are running MySQL Server on Windows, please also see section 2.5.7 Upgrading MySQL under Windows.

2.5.1.2 What to do when upgrading from 4.0 to 4.1

In general, upgrading to 4.1 from an earlier MySQL version involves the following steps:

The password hashing mechanism has changed in 4.1 to provide better security, but this may cause compatibility problems if you still have clients that use the client library from 4.0 or earlier. (It is very likely that you will have 4.0 clients in situations where clients connect from remote hosts that have not yet upgraded to 4.1). The following list indicates some possible upgrade strategies. They represent various tradeoffs between the goal of compatibility with old clients and the goal of security.

Further background on password hashing with respect to client authentication and password-changing operations may be found in section 4.2.11 Password Hashing in MySQL 4.1.

2.5.2 Upgrading From Version 3.23 to 4.0

In general, you should do the following when upgrading to 4.0 from an earlier MySQL version:

MySQL 4.0 will work even if you don't do the above, but you will not be able to use the new security privileges that MySQL 4.0 and you may run into problems when upgrading later to MySQL 4.1 or newer. The ISAM file format still works in MySQL 4.0 but it's deprecated and will be disabled in MySQL 5.0.

Old clients should work with a Version 4.0 server without any problems.

Even if you do the above, you can still downgrade to MySQL 3.23.52 or newer if you run into problems with the MySQL 4.0 series. In this case, you must use mysqldump to dump any tables that use full-text indexes and reload the dump file into the 3.23 server. This is necessary because 4.0 uses a new format for full-text indexing.

The following is a more complete list that tells what you must watch out for when upgrading to version 4.0:

If you are running MySQL Server on Windows, please also see section 2.5.7 Upgrading MySQL under Windows. If you are using replication, please also see section 4.10.2 Replication Implementation Overview.

2.5.3 Upgrading From Version 3.22 to 3.23

MySQL Version 3.23 supports tables of the new MyISAM type and the old ISAM type. You don't have to convert your old tables to use these with Version 3.23. By default, all new tables will be created with type MyISAM (unless you start mysqld with the --default-table-type=isam option). You can convert an ISAM table to MyISAM format with ALTER TABLE table_name TYPE=MyISAM or the Perl script mysql_convert_table_format.

Version 3.22 and 3.21 clients will work without any problems with a Version 3.23 server.

The following list tells what you have to watch out for when upgrading to Version 3.23:

2.5.4 Upgrading from Version 3.21 to 3.22

Nothing that affects compatibility has changed between versions 3.21 and 3.22. The only pitfall is that new tables that are created with DATE type columns will use the new way to store the date. You can't access these new columns from an old version of mysqld.

After installing MySQL Version 3.22, you should start the new server and then run the mysql_fix_privilege_tables script. This will add the new privileges that you need to use the GRANT command. If you forget this, you will get Access denied when you try to use ALTER TABLE, CREATE INDEX, or DROP INDEX. If your MySQL root user requires a password, you should give this as an argument to mysql_fix_privilege_tables.

The C API interface to mysql_real_connect() has changed. If you have an old client program that calls this function, you must place a 0 for the new db argument (or recode the client to send the db element for faster connections). You must also call mysql_init() before calling mysql_real_connect(). This change was done to allow the new mysql_options() function to save options in the MYSQL handler structure.

The mysqld variable key_buffer has been renamed to key_buffer_size, but you can still use the old name in your startup files.

2.5.5 Upgrading from Version 3.20 to 3.21

If you are running a version older than Version 3.20.28 and want to switch to Version 3.21, you need to do the following:

You can start the mysqld Version 3.21 server with the --old-protocol option to use it with clients from a Version 3.20 distribution. In this case, the new client function mysql_errno() will not return any server error, only CR_UNKNOWN_ERROR (but it works for client errors), and the server uses the old pre-3.21 password() checking rather than the new method.

If you are not using the --old-protocol option to mysqld, you will need to make the following changes:

MySQL Version 3.20.28 and above can handle the new user table format without affecting clients. If you have a MySQL version earlier than Version 3.20.28, passwords will no longer work with it if you convert the user table. So to be safe, you should first upgrade to at least Version 3.20.28 and then upgrade to Version 3.21.

The new client code works with a 3.20.x mysqld server, so if you experience problems with 3.21.x, you can use the old 3.20.x server without having to recompile the clients again.

If you are not using the --old-protocol option to mysqld, old clients will be unable to connect and will issue the following error message:

ERROR: Protocol mismatch. Server Version = 10 Client Version = 9

The new Perl DBI/DBD interface also supports the old mysqlperl interface. The only change you have to make if you use mysqlperl is to change the arguments to the connect() function. The new arguments are: host, database, user, and password (note that the user and password arguments have changed places). See section 9.5.2 The DBI Interface.

The following changes may affect queries in old applications:

2.5.6 Upgrading to Another Architecture

If you are using MySQL Version 3.23, you can copy the `.frm', `.MYI', and `.MYD' files for MyISAM tables between different architectures that support the same floating-point format. (MySQL takes care of any byte-swapping issues.) See section 7.1 MyISAM Tables.

The MySQL ISAM data and index files (`.ISD' and `*.ISM', respectively) are architecture-dependent and in some cases OS-dependent. If you want to move your applications to another machine that has a different architecture or OS than your current machine, you should not try to move a database by simply copying the files to the other machine. Use mysqldump instead.

By default, mysqldump will create a file containing SQL statements. You can then transfer the file to the other machine and feed it as input to the mysql client.

Try mysqldump --help to see what options are available. If you are moving the data to a newer version of MySQL, you should use mysqldump --opt with the newer version to get a fast, compact dump.

The easiest (although not the fastest) way to move a database between two machines is to run the following commands on the machine on which the database is located:

shell> mysqladmin -h 'other hostname' create db_name
shell> mysqldump --opt db_name \
        | mysql -h 'other hostname' db_name

If you want to copy a database from a remote machine over a slow network, you can use:

shell> mysqladmin create db_name
shell> mysqldump -h 'other hostname' --opt --compress db_name \
        | mysql db_name

You can also store the result in a file, then transfer the file to the target machine and load the file into the database there. For example, you can dump a database to a file on the source machine like this:

shell> mysqldump --quick db_name | gzip > db_name.contents.gz

(The file created in this example is compressed.) Transfer the file containing the database contents to the target machine and run these commands there:

shell> mysqladmin create db_name
shell> gunzip < db_name.contents.gz | mysql db_name

You can also use mysqldump and mysqlimport to transfer the database. For big tables, this is much faster than simply using mysqldump. In the following commands, DUMPDIR represents the full pathname of the directory you use to store the output from mysqldump.

First, create the directory for the output files and dump the database:

shell> mkdir DUMPDIR
shell> mysqldump --tab=DUMPDIR db_name

Then transfer the files in the DUMPDIR directory to some corresponding directory on the target machine and load the files into MySQL there:

shell> mysqladmin create db_name           # create database
shell> cat DUMPDIR/*.sql | mysql db_name   # create tables in database
shell> mysqlimport db_name DUMPDIR/*.txt   # load data into tables

Also, don't forget to copy the mysql database because that's where the grant tables (user, db, host) are stored. You may have to run commands as the MySQL root user on the new machine until you have the mysql database in place.

After you import the mysql database on the new machine, execute mysqladmin flush-privileges so that the server reloads the grant table information.

2.5.7 Upgrading MySQL under Windows

When upgrading MySQL under Windows, please follow these steps:

  1. Download the latest Windows distribution of MySQL.
  2. Choose a time of day with low usage, where a maintenance break is acceptable.
  3. Alert the users that still are active about the maintenance break.
  4. Stop the running MySQL Server (for example, with NET STOP mysql if you are running MySQL as a service, or with mysqladmin shutdown otherwise).
  5. Exit the WinMySQLadmin program if it is running.
  6. Run the installation script of the Windows distribution, by clicking the "Install" button in WinZip and following the installation steps of the script.
  7. You may either overwrite your old MySQL installation (usually located at `C:\mysql'), or install it into a different directory, such as C:\mysql4. Overwriting the old installation is recommended.
  8. The version of MySQL that is started as a service is determined by the basedir parameter in the `my.ini' file of your Windows directory (for example, C:\WINNT).
  9. Restart the server (for example, with NET START mysql if you run MYSQL as a service, or by invoking mysqld directly otherwise).

Possible error situations:

A system error has occurred.
System error 1067 has occurred.
The process terminated unexpectedly.

This cryptic error means that your `my.cnf' file (by default `C:\my.cnf') contains an option that cannot be recognised by MySQL. You can verify that this is the case by trying to restart MySQL with the `my.cnf' file renamed, for example, to `my.cnf.old' to prevent the server from using it. Once you have verified it, you need to identify which option is the culprit. Create a new `my.cnf' file and move parts of the old file to it (restarting the server after you move each part) until you determine which part causes server startup to fail.

2.6 Operating System Specific Notes

2.6.1 Windows Notes

This section describes using MySQL on Windows. This information is also provided in the `README' file that comes with the MySQL Windows distribution. See section 2.1.1 Installing MySQL on Windows.

On Windows 95, 98, or Me, MySQL clients always connect to the server using TCP/IP. On NT-based systems such as Windows NT, 2000, or XP, clients have two options. They can use TCP/IP, or they can use a named pipe if the server supports named pipe connections.

For information about which server binary to run, see section 2.1.1.2 Preparing the Windows MySQL Environment.

The examples in this section assume that MySQL is installed under the default location of `C:\mysql'. Adjust the pathnames shown in the examples if you have MySQL installed in a different location.

2.6.1.1 Starting MySQL on Windows 95, 98, or Me

On these versions of Windows, MySQL uses TCP/IP to connect a client to a server. (This will allow any machine on your network to connect to your MySQL server.) Because of this, you must make sure that TCP/IP support is installed on your machine before starting MySQL. You can find TCP/IP on your Windows CD-ROM.

Note that if you are using an old Windows 95 release (for example, OSR2), it's likely that you have an old Winsock package; MySQL requires Winsock 2! You can get the newest Winsock from http://www.microsoft.com/. Windows 98 has the new Winsock 2 library, so it is unnecessary to update the library.

To start the mysqld server, you should start a console window (a ``DOS'' window) and enter this command:

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqld

This will start mysqld in the background. That is, after the server starts up, you should see another command prompt. (Note that if you start the server this way on Windows NT, 2000, or XP, the server will run in the foreground and the next command prompt will not appear until the server exits. To run client programs while the server is running, you should open another console window.)

You can stop the MySQL server by executing this command:

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin -u root shutdown

This invokes the MySQL administrative utility mysqladmin to connect to the server as root, which is the default administrative account in the MySQL grant system. Please note that users in the MySQL grant system are wholly independent from any login users under Windows.

If mysqld doesn't start, please check the error log to see if the server wrote any messages there to indicate the cause of the problem. The error log is located in the `C:\mysql\data' directory. It is the file with a suffix of `.err'. You can also try to start the server as mysqld --console; in this case, you may get some useful information on the screen that may help solve the problem.

The last option is to start mysqld with --standalone --debug. In this case mysqld will write a log file `C:\mysqld.trace' that should contain the reason why mysqld doesn't start. See section E.1.2 Creating Trace Files.

Use mysqld --help to display all the options that mysqld understands!

2.6.1.2 Starting MySQL on Windows NT, 2000, or XP

To get MySQL to work with TCP/IP on Windows NT 4, you must install service pack 3 (or newer)!

Normally you should install MySQL as a service on Windows NT/2000/XP. In case the server was already running, first stop it using the following command:

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin -u root shutdown

This invokes the MySQL administrative utility mysqladmin to connect to the server as root, which is the default administrative account in the MySQL grant system. Please note that users in the MySQL grant system are wholly independent from any login users under Windows.

Now install the server as a service:

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqld --install

The service is installed with the name MySql. Once installed, it can be immediately started from the Services utility, or by using the command NET START MySql.

Once running, mysqld can be stopped by using the Services utility, the command NET STOP MySql, or the command mysqladmin shutdown.

If any startup options are required, you can place them in the [mysqld] group of any of the standard option files. As of MySQL 4.0.3, you can place options in the [mysqld] group of any option file and use a --defaults-file option to tell the server the name of the file when you install the service. For example:

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqld --install MySql --defaults-file=C:\my-opts.cnf

You can also specify options as ``Start parameters'' in the Windows Services utility before you start the MySQL service.

The Services utility (Windows Service Control Manager) can be found in the Windows Control Panel (under Administrative Tools on Windows 2000). It is advisable to close the Services utility while performing the --install or --remove operations, this prevents some odd errors.

Please note that from MySQL version 3.23.44, you have the choice of setting up the service as Manual instead (if you don't wish the service to be started automatically during the boot process):

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqld --install-manual

When MySQL is running as a service, the operating system will automatically stop the server on computer shutdown. In MySQL versions older than 3.23.47, Windows waited only for a few seconds for the shutdown to complete, and killed the database server process if the time limit was exceeded. This had the potential to cause problems. (For example, at the next startup the InnoDB storage engine had to do crash recovery.) Starting from MySQL version 3.23.48, Windows waits longer for the MySQL server shutdown to complete. If you notice this still is not enough for your installation, it is safest not to run the MySQL server as a service. Instead, run it from the command-line prompt, and shut it down with mysqladmin shutdown.

There is a problem that Windows NT (but not Windows 2000/XP) by default only waits 20 seconds for a service to shut down, and after that kills the service process. You can increase this default by opening the Registry Editor `\winnt\system32\regedt32.exe' and editing the value of WaitToKillServiceTimeout at HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control in the Registry tree. Specify the new larger value in milliseconds (for example, 120000 to have Windows NT wait up to 120 seconds).

Please note that when run as a service, mysqld has no access to a console and so no messages can be seen. Errors can be checked in the error log, which is located in the `C:\mysql\data' directory. It is the file with a suffix of `.err'.

If you have problems installing mysqld as a service using just the server name, try installing it using its full pathname:

shell> C:\mysql\bin\mysqld --install

If that doesn't work, you can get mysqld to start properly by fixing the path in the registry!

If you don't want to start mysqld as a service, you can start it from the command line the same way as for Windows 95, 98, or Me. For instructions, see section 2.6.1.1 Starting MySQL on Windows 95, 98, or Me.

2.6.1.3 Running MySQL on Windows

MySQL supports TCP/IP on all Windows platforms. The mysqld-nt and mysql-max-nt servers support named pipes on NT, 2000, and XP. The default is to use TCP/IP regardless of the platform, because named pipes are actually slower than TCP/IP, and because some users have experienced problems shutting down the MySQL server when named pipes are used. Starting from 3.23.50, named pipes are only enabled for mysqld-nt and mysql-max-nt if they are started with the --enable-named-pipe option.

You can force a MySQL client to use named pipes by specifying the --pipe option or by specifying . as the host name. Use the --socket option to specify the name of the pipe. In MySQL 4.1, you should use the --protocol=PIPE option.

You can test whether the MySQL server is working by executing any of the following commands:

C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysqlshow
C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysqlshow -u root mysql
C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin version status proc
C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysql test

If mysqld is slow to answer to connections on Windows 9x/Me, there is probably a problem with your DNS. In this case, start mysqld with the --skip-name-resolve option and use only localhost and IP numbers in the Host column of the MySQL grant tables.

There are two versions of the MySQL command-line tool:
Binary Description
mysql Compiled on native Windows, offering limited text editing capabilities.
mysqlc Compiled with the Cygnus GNU compiler and libraries, which offers readline editing.

If you want to use mysqlc, you must have a copy of the `cygwinb19.dll' library installed somewhere that mysqlc can find it. If your distribution of MySQL doesn't have this library installed in the same directory as mysqlc (the `bin' directory under the base directory of your MySQL installation, look in the lib directory to find it and copy it to your Windows system directory (`\windows\system' or similar place).

The default privileges on Windows give all local users full privileges to all databases without specifying a password. To make MySQL more secure, you should set a password for all users and remove the row in the mysql.user table that has Host='localhost' and User=''.

You should also add a password for the root user. The following example starts by removing the anonymous user that has all privileges, then sets a root user password:

C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysql mysql
mysql> DELETE FROM user WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='';
mysql> QUIT
C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin reload
C:\> C:\mysql\bin\mysqladmin -u root password your_password

After you've set the password, if you want to shut down the mysqld server, you can do so using this command:

C:\> mysqladmin --user=root --password=your_password shutdown

If you are using the old shareware version of MySQL Version 3.21 under Windows, the above command will fail with an error: parse error near 'SET password'. The solution to this problem is to upgrade to a newer version of MySQL.

With the current MySQL versions you can easily add new users and change privileges with GRANT and REVOKE commands. See section 4.3.1 GRANT and REVOKE Syntax.

2.6.1.4 Connecting to MySQL Remotely from Windows with SSH

Here is a note about how to connect to get a secure connection to remote MySQL server with SSH (by David Carlson dcarlson@mplcomm.com):

  1. Install an SSH client on your Windows machine. As a user, the best non-free one I've found is from SecureCRT from http://www.vandyke.com/. Another option is f-secure from http://www.f-secure.com/. You can also find some free ones on Google at http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Security/Products_and_Tools/Cryptography/SSH/Clients/Windows/.
  2. Start your Windows SSH client. Set Host_Name = yourmysqlserver_URL_or_IP. Set userid=your_userid to log in to your server (probably not the same as your MySQL login/password.
  3. Set up port forwarding. Either do a remote forward (Set local_port: 3306, remote_host: yourmysqlservername_or_ip, remote_port: 3306 ) or a local forward (Set port: 3306, host: localhost, remote port: 3306).
  4. Save everything, otherwise you'll have to redo it the next time.
  5. Log in to your server with SSH session you just created.
  6. On your Windows machine, start some ODBC application (such as Access).
  7. Create a new file in Windows and link to MySQL using the ODBC driver the same way you normally do, except type in localhost for the MySQL host server--not yourmysqlservername.

You should now have an ODBC connection to MySQL, encrypted using SSH.

2.6.1.5 Distributing Data Across Different Disks on Windows

Beginning with MySQL Version 3.23.16, the mysqld-max and mysql-max-nt servers in the MySQL distribution are compiled with the -DUSE_SYMDIR option. This allows you to put a database on a different disk by setting up a symbolic link to it (in a manner similar to the way that symbolic links work on Unix).

On Windows, you make a symbolic link to a database by creating a file that contains the path to the destination directory and saving this in the data directory using the filename `db_name.sym', where db_name is the database name. Note that the symbolic link will not be used if a directory with the database name exists.

For example, if the MySQL data directory is `C:\mysql\data' and you want to have database foo located at `D:\data\foo', you should create the file `C:\mysql\data\foo.sym' that contains the text D:\data\foo\. After that, all tables created in the database foo will be created in `D:\data\foo'.

Note that because of the speed penalty you get when opening every table, we have not enabled this by default even if you have compiled MySQL with support for this. To enable symlinks you should put in your `my.cnf' or `my.ini' file the following entry:

[mysqld]
symbolic-links

In MySQL 4.0, symbolic links are enabled by default. If you don't need them, you can disable them with the skip-symbolic-links option.

2.6.1.6 Compiling MySQL Clients on Windows

In your source files, you should include `my_global.h' before `mysql.h':

#include <my_global.h>
#include <mysql.h>

`my_global.h' includes any other files needed for Windows compatibility (such as `windows.h') if you compile your program on Windows.

You can either link your code with the dynamic `libmysql.lib' library, which is just a wrapper to load in `libmysql.dll' on demand, or link with the static `mysqlclient.lib' library.

Note that because the MySQL client libraries are compiled as threaded libraries, you should also compile your code to be multi-threaded!

2.6.1.7 MySQL for Windows Compared to Unix MySQL

MySQL for Windows has by now proven itself to be very stable. The Windows version of MySQL has the same features as the corresponding Unix version, with the following exceptions:

Windows 95 and threads
Windows 95 leaks about 200 bytes of main memory for each thread creation. Each connection in MySQL creates a new thread, so you shouldn't run mysqld for an extended time on Windows 95 if your server handles many connections! Other versions of Windows don't suffer from this bug.
Concurrent reads
MySQL depends on the pread() and pwrite() calls to be able to mix INSERT and SELECT. Currently we use mutexes to emulate pread()/pwrite(). We will, in the long run, replace the file level interface with a virtual interface so that we can use the readfile()/writefile() interface on NT/2000/XP to get more speed. The current implementation limits the number of open files MySQL can use to 1024, which means that you will not be able to run as many concurrent threads on NT/2000/XP as on Unix.
Blocking read
MySQL uses a blocking read for each connection, which has the following implications: We plan to fix this problem when our Windows developers have figured out a nice workaround.
DROP DATABASE
You can't drop a database that is in use by some thread.
Killing MySQL from the task manager
You can't kill MySQL from the task manager or with the shutdown utility in Windows 95. You must take it down with mysqladmin shutdown.
Case-insensitive names
Filenames are case-insensitive on Windows, so database and table names are also case-insensitive in MySQL for Windows. The only restriction is that database and table names must be specified using the same case throughout a given statement. See section 6.1.3 Case Sensitivity in Names.
The `\' directory character
Pathname components in Windows 95 are separated by the `\' character, which is also the escape character in MySQL. If you are using LOAD DATA INFILE or SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE, you must double the `\' character:
mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE "C:\\tmp\\skr.txt" INTO TABLE skr;
mysql> SELECT * INTO OUTFILE 'C:\\tmp\\skr.txt' FROM skr;
Alternatively, use Unix style filenames with `/' characters:
mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE "C:/tmp/skr.txt" INTO TABLE skr;
mysql> SELECT * INTO OUTFILE 'C:/tmp/skr.txt' FROM skr;
Problems with pipes.
Pipes doesn't work reliably in the Windows command-line prompt. If the pipe includes the character ^Z / CHAR(24), Windows will think it has encountered end-of-file and abort the program. This is mainly a problem when you try to apply a binary log as follows:
mysqlbinlog binary-log-name | mysql --user=root
If you get a problem applying the log and suspect it's because of an ^Z / CHAR(24) character you can use the following workaround:
mysqlbinlog binary-log-file --result-file=/tmp/bin.sql
mysql --user=root --execute "source /tmp/bin.sql"
The latter command also can be used to reliably read in any SQL file that may contain binary data.
Can't open named pipe error
If you use a MySQL 3.22 version on NT with the newest mysql-clients you will get the following error:
error 2017: can't open named pipe to host: . pipe...
This is because the release version of MySQL uses named pipes on NT by default. You can avoid this error by using the --host=localhost option to the new MySQL clients or create an option file `C:\my.cnf' that contains the following information:
[client]
host = localhost
Starting from 3.23.50, named pipes are enabled only if mysqld-nt or mysqld-max-nt is started with --enable-named-pipe.
Access denied for user error
If you get the error Access denied for user: 'some-user@unknown' to database 'mysql' when accessing a MySQL server on the same machine, this means that MySQL can't resolve your host name properly. To fix this, you should create a file `\windows\hosts' with the following information:
127.0.0.1       localhost
ALTER TABLE
While you are executing an ALTER TABLE statement, the table is locked from usage by other threads. This has to do with the fact that on Windows, you can't delete a file that is in use by another threads. (In the future, we may find some way to work around this problem.)
DROP TABLE
DROP TABLE on a table that is in use by a MERGE table will not work on Windows because the MERGE handler does the table mapping hidden from the upper layer of MySQL. Because Windows doesn't allow you to drop files that are open, you first must flush all MERGE tables (with FLUSH TABLES) or drop the MERGE table before dropping the table. We will fix this at the same time we introduce VIEWs.
DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY
The DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY options for CREATE TABLE are ignored on Windows, because Windows doesn't support symbolic links.

Here are some open issues for anyone who might want to help us with the Windows release:

Other Windows-specific issues are described in the `README' file that comes with the Windows distribution of MySQL.

2.6.2 Linux Notes (All Linux Versions)

The following notes regarding glibc apply only to the situation when you build MySQL yourself. If you are running Linux on an x86 machine, in most cases it is much better for you to just use our binary. We link our binaries against the best patched version of glibc we can come up with and with the best compiler options, in an attempt to make it suitable for a high-load server. So if you read the following text, and are in doubt about what you should do, try our binary first to see if it meets your needs, and worry about your own build only after you have discovered that our binary is not good enough. In that case, we would appreciate a note about it, so we can build a better binary next time. For a typical user, even for setups with a lot of concurrent connections and/or tables exceeding the 2G limit, our binary in most cases is the best choice.

MySQL uses LinuxThreads on Linux. If you are using an old Linux version that doesn't have glibc2, you must install LinuxThreads before trying to compile MySQL. You can get LinuxThreads at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/os-linux.html.

Note: we have seen some strange problems with Linux 2.2.14 and MySQL on SMP systems. If you have a SMP system, we recommend you upgrade to Linux 2.4 as soon as possible. Your system will be faster and more stable by doing this.

Note that glibc versions before and including Version 2.1.1 have a fatal bug in pthread_mutex_timedwait handling, which is used when you do INSERT DELAYED. We recommend that you not use INSERT DELAYED before upgrading glibc.

If you plan to have 1000+ concurrent connections, you will need to make some changes to LinuxThreads, recompile it, and relink MySQL against the new `libpthread.a'. Increase PTHREAD_THREADS_MAX in `sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/bits/local_lim.h' to 4096 and decrease STACK_SIZE in `linuxthreads/internals.h' to 256 KB. The paths are relative to the root of glibc Note that MySQL will not be stable with around 600-1000 connections if STACK_SIZE is the default of 2 MB.

If MySQL can't open enough files, or connections, it may be that you haven't configured Linux to handle enough files.

In Linux 2.2 and onward, you can check the number of allocated file handles by doing:

cat /proc/sys/fs/file-max
cat /proc/sys/fs/dquot-max
cat /proc/sys/fs/super-max

If you have more than 16 MB of memory, you should add something like the following to your init scripts (for example, `/etc/init.d/boot.local' on SuSE Linux):

echo 65536 > /proc/sys/fs/file-max
echo 8192 > /proc/sys/fs/dquot-max
echo 1024 > /proc/sys/fs/super-max

You can also run the preceding commands from the command-line as root, but these settings will be lost the next time your computer reboots.

Alternatively, you can set these parameters on bootup by using the sysctl tool, which is used by many Linux distributions (SuSE has added it as well, beginning with SuSE Linux 8.0). Just put the following values into a file named `/etc/sysctl.conf':

# Increase some values for MySQL
fs.file-max = 65536
fs.dquot-max = 8192
fs.super-max = 1024

You should also add the following to `/etc/my.cnf':

[mysqld_safe]
open-files-limit=8192

This should allow MySQL to create up to 8192 connections + files.

The STACK_SIZE constant in LinuxThreads controls the spacing of thread stacks in the address space. It needs to be large enough so that there will be plenty of room for the stack of each individual thread, but small enough to keep the stack of some threads from running into the global mysqld data. Unfortunately, the Linux implementation of mmap(), as we have experimentally discovered, will successfully unmap an already mapped region if you ask it to map out an address already in use, zeroing out the data on the entire page, instead of returning an error. So, the safety of mysqld or any other threaded application depends on the "gentleman" behaviour of the code that creates threads. The user must take measures to make sure the number of running threads at any time is sufficiently low for thread stacks to stay away from the global heap. With mysqld, you should enforce this "gentleman" behaviour by setting a reasonable value for the max_connections variable.

If you build MySQL yourself and do not want to mess with patching LinuxThreads, you should set max_connections to a value no higher than 500. It should be even less if you have a large key buffer, large heap tables, or some other things that make mysqld allocate a lot of memory, or if you are running a 2.2 kernel with a 2G patch. If you are using our binary or RPM version 3.23.25 or later, you can safely set max_connections at 1500, assuming no large key buffer or heap tables with lots of data. The more you reduce STACK_SIZE in LinuxThreads the more threads you can safely create. We recommend the values between 128K and 256K.

If you use a lot of concurrent connections, you may suffer from a "feature" in the 2.2 kernel that penalises a process for forking or cloning a child in an attempt to prevent a fork bomb attack. This will cause MySQL not to scale well as you increase the number of concurrent clients. On single-CPU systems, we have seen this manifested in a very slow thread creation, which means it may take a long time to connect to MySQL (as long as 1 minute), and it may take just as long to shut it down. On multiple-CPU systems, we have observed a gradual drop in query speed as the number of clients increases. In the process of trying to find a solution, we have received a kernel patch from one of our users, who claimed it made a lot of difference for his site. The patch is available at http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Patches/linux-fork.patch. We have now done rather extensive testing of this patch on both development and production systems. It has significantly improved MySQL performance without causing any problems and we now recommend it to our users who are still running high-load servers on 2.2 kernels. This issue has been fixed in the 2.4 kernel, so if you are not satisfied with the current performance of your system, rather than patching your 2.2 kernel, it might be easier to just upgrade to 2.4, which will also give you a nice SMP boost in addition to fixing this fairness bug.

We have tested MySQL on the 2.4 kernel on a 2-CPU machine and found MySQL scales much better--there was virtually no slowdown on queries throughput all the way up to 1000 clients, and the MySQL scaling factor (computed as the ratio of maximum throughput to the throughput with one client) was 180%. We have observed similar results on a 4-CPU system--virtually no slowdown as the number of clients was increased up to 1000, and 300% scaling factor. So for a high-load SMP server we would definitely recommend the 2.4 kernel at this point. We have discovered that it is essential to run mysqld process with the highest possible priority on the 2.4 kernel to achieve maximum performance. This can be done by adding renice -20 $$ command to mysqld_safe. In our testing on a 4-CPU machine, increasing the priority gave 60% increase in throughput with 400 clients.

We are currently also trying to collect more information on how well MySQL performs on 2.4 kernel on 4-way and 8-way systems. If you have access such a system and have done some benchmarks, please send a mail to docs@mysql.com with the results - we will include them in the manual.

There is another issue that greatly hurts MySQL performance, especially on SMP systems. The implementation of mutex in LinuxThreads in glibc-2.1 is very bad for programs with many threads that only hold the mutex for a short time. On an SMP system, ironic as it is, if you link MySQL against unmodified LinuxThreads, removing processors from the machine improves MySQL performance in many cases. We have made a patch available for glibc 2.1.3 to correct this behaviour (http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Linux/linuxthreads-2.1-patch).

With glibc-2.2.2 MySQL version 3.23.36 will use the adaptive mutex, which is much better than even the patched one in glibc-2.1.3. Be warned, however, that under some conditions, the current mutex code in glibc-2.2.2 overspins, which hurts MySQL performance. The chance of this condition can be reduced by renicing mysqld process to the highest priority. We have also been able to correct the overspin behaviour with a patch, available at http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Linux/linuxthreads-2.2.2.patch. It combines the correction of overspin, maximum number of threads, and stack spacing all in one. You will need to apply it in the linuxthreads directory with patch -p0 </tmp/linuxthreads-2.2.2.patch. We hope it will be included in some form in to the future releases of glibc-2.2. In any case, if you link against glibc-2.2.2 you still need to correct STACK_SIZE and PTHREAD_THREADS_MAX. We hope that the defaults will be corrected to some more acceptable values for high-load MySQL setup in the future, so that your own build can be reduced to ./configure; make; make install.

We recommend that you use the above patches to build a special static version of libpthread.a and use it only for statically linking against MySQL. We know that the patches are safe for MySQL and significantly improve its performance, but we cannot say anything about other applications. If you link other applications against the patched version of the library, or build a patched shared version and install it on your system, you are doing it at your own risk with regard to other applications that depend on LinuxThreads.

If you experience any strange problems during the installation of MySQL, or with some common utilities hanging, it is very likely that they are either library or compiler related. If this is the case, using our binary will resolve them.

One known problem with the binary distribution is that with older Linux systems that use libc (like Red Hat 4.x or Slackware), you will get some non-fatal problems with hostname resolution. See section 2.6.2.1 Linux Notes for Binary Distributions.

When using LinuxThreads you will see a minimum of three processes running. These are in fact threads. There will be one thread for the LinuxThreads manager, one thread to handle connections, and one thread to handle alarms and signals.

Note that the Linux kernel and the LinuxThread library can by default only have 1024 threads. This means that you can only have up to 1021 connections to MySQL on an unpatched system. The page http://www.volano.com/linuxnotes.html contains information how to go around this limit.

If you see a dead mysqld daemon process with ps, this usually means that you have found a bug in MySQL or you have a corrupted table. See section A.4.1 What To Do If MySQL Keeps Crashing.

To get a core dump on Linux if mysqld dies with a SIGSEGV signal, you can start mysqld with the --core-file option. Note that you also probably need to raise the core file size by adding ulimit -c 1000000 to mysqld_safe or starting mysqld_safe with --core-file-size=1000000. See section 4.7.2 mysqld_safe, The Wrapper Around mysqld.

If you are linking your own MySQL client and get the error:

ld.so.1: ./my: fatal: libmysqlclient.so.4:
open failed: No such file or directory

When executing them, the problem can be avoided by one of the following methods:

If you are using the Fujitsu compiler (fcc / FCC) you will have some problems compiling MySQL because the Linux header files are very gcc oriented.

The following configure line should work with fcc/FCC:

CC=fcc CFLAGS="-O -K fast -K lib -K omitfp -Kpreex -D_GNU_SOURCE \
-DCONST=const -DNO_STRTOLL_PROTO" CXX=FCC CXXFLAGS="-O -K fast -K lib \
-K omitfp -K preex --no_exceptions --no_rtti -D_GNU_SOURCE -DCONST=const \
-Dalloca=__builtin_alloca -DNO_STRTOLL_PROTO \
'-D_EXTERN_INLINE=static __inline'" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--enable-assembler --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static --disable-shared \
--with-low-memory

2.6.2.1 Linux Notes for Binary Distributions

MySQL needs at least Linux Version 2.0.

Warning: We have reports from some MySQL users that they have got serious stability problems with MySQL with Linux kernel 2.2.14. If you are using this kernel you should upgrade to 2.2.19 (or newer) or to a 2.4 kernel. If you have a multi-cpu box, then you should seriously consider using 2.4 as this will give you a significant speed boost.

The binary release is linked with -static, which means you do not normally need to worry about which version of the system libraries you have. You need not install LinuxThreads, either. A program linked with -static is slightly bigger than a dynamically linked program but also slightly faster (3-5%). One problem, however, is that you can't use user-definable functions (UDFs) with a statically linked program. If you are going to write or use UDFs (this is something for C or C++ programmers only), you must compile MySQL yourself, using dynamic linking.

If you are using a libc-based system (instead of a glibc2 system), you will probably get some problems with hostname resolving and getpwnam() with the binary release. (This is because glibc unfortunately depends on some external libraries to resolve hostnames and getpwent(), even when compiled with -static). In this case you probably get the following error message when you run mysql_install_db:

Sorry, the host 'xxxx' could not be looked up

or the following error when you try to run mysqld with the --user option:

getpwnam: No such file or directory

You can solve this problem in one of the following ways:

The Linux-Intel binary and RPM releases of MySQL are configured for the highest possible speed. We are always trying to use the fastest stable compiler available.

MySQL Perl support requires Version Perl 5.004_03 or newer.

On some Linux 2.2 versions, you may get the error Resource temporarily unavailable when you do a lot of new connections to a mysqld server over TCP/IP.

The problem is that Linux has a delay between when you close a TCP/IP socket and until this is actually freed by the system. As there is only room for a finite number of TCP/IP slots, you will get the above error if you try to do too many new TCP/IP connections during a small time, like when you run the MySQL `test-connect' benchmark over TCP/IP.

We have mailed about this problem a couple of times to different Linux mailing lists but have never been able to resolve this properly.

The only known 'fix' to this problem is to use persistent connections in your clients or use sockets, if you are running the database server and clients on the same machine. We hope that the Linux 2.4 kernel will fix this problem in the future.

2.6.2.2 Linux x86 Notes

MySQL requires libc Version 5.4.12 or newer. It's known to work with libc 5.4.46. glibc Version 2.0.6 and later should also work. There have been some problems with the glibc RPMs from Red Hat, so if you have problems, check whether there are any updates. The glibc 2.0.7-19 and 2.0.7-29 RPMs are known to work.

If you are using Red Hat 8.0 or a new glibc 2.2.x library, you should start mysqld with the option --thread-stack=192K. (Use -O thread_stack=192K before MySQL 4.) If you don't do this, mysqld will die in gethostbyaddr() because the new glibc library requires a stack size greater than 128K for this call. This stack size is now the default on MySQL 4.0.10 and above.

If you are using gcc 3.0 and above to compile MySQL, you must install the libstdc++v3 library before compiling MySQL; if you don't do this, you will get an error about a missing __cxa_pure_virtual symbol during linking.

On some older Linux distributions, configure may produce an error like this:

Syntax error in sched.h. Change _P to __P in the /usr/include/sched.h file.
See the Installation chapter in the Reference Manual.

Just do what the error message says and add an extra underscore to the _P macro that has only one underscore, then try again.

You may get some warnings when compiling; those shown here can be ignored:

mysqld.cc -o objs-thread/mysqld.o
mysqld.cc: In function `void init_signals()':
mysqld.cc:315: warning: assignment of negative value `-1' to
`long unsigned int'
mysqld.cc: In function `void * signal_hand(void *)':
mysqld.cc:346: warning: assignment of negative value `-1' to
`long unsigned int'

mysql.server can be found in the `share/mysql' directory under the MySQL installation directory or in the `support-files' directory of the MySQL source tree.

If mysqld always core dumps when it starts up, the problem may be that you have an old `/lib/libc.a'. Try renaming it, then remove `sql/mysqld' and do a new make install and try again. This problem has been reported on some Slackware installations.

If you get the following error when linking mysqld, it means that your `libg++.a' is not installed correctly:

/usr/lib/libc.a(putc.o): In function `_IO_putc':
putc.o(.text+0x0): multiple definition of `_IO_putc'

You can avoid using `libg++.a' by running configure like this:

shell> CXX=gcc ./configure

2.6.2.3 Linux SPARC Notes

In some implementations, readdir_r() is broken. The symptom is that SHOW DATABASES always returns an empty set. This can be fixed by removing HAVE_READDIR_R from `config.h' after configuring and before compiling.

Some problems will require patching your Linux installation. The patch can be found at http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/patches/Linux-sparc-2.0.30.diff. This patch is against the Linux distribution `sparclinux-2.0.30.tar.gz' that is available at vger.rutgers.edu (a version of Linux that was never merged with the official 2.0.30). You must also install LinuxThreads Version 0.6 or newer.

2.6.2.4 Linux Alpha Notes

MySQL Version 3.23.12 is the first MySQL version that is tested on Linux-Alpha. If you plan to use MySQL on Linux-Alpha, you should ensure that you have this version or newer.

We have tested MySQL on Alpha with our benchmarks and test suite, and it appears to work nicely.

We currently build the MySQL binary packages on SuSE Linux 7.0 for AXP, kernel 2.4.4-SMP, Compaq C compiler (V6.2-505) and Compaq C++ compiler (V6.3-006) on a Compaq DS20 machine with an Alpha EV6 processor.

You can find the above compilers at http://www.support.compaq.com/alpha-tools/. By using these compilers, instead of gcc, we get about 9-14% better performance with MySQL.

Note that until MySQL version 3.23.52 and 4.0.2 we optimised the binary for the current CPU only (by using the -fast compile option); this meant that you could only use our binaries if you had an Alpha EV6 processor.

Starting with all following releases we added the -arch generic flag to our compile options, which makes sure the binary runs on all Alpha processors. We also compile statically to avoid library problems.

CC=ccc CFLAGS="-fast -arch generic" CXX=cxx \
CXXFLAGS="-fast -arch generic -noexceptions -nortti" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --disable-shared \
--with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client \
--with-mysqld-ldflags=-non_shared --with-client-ldflags=-non_shared

If you want to use egcs the following configure line worked for us:

CFLAGS="-O3 -fomit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors \
-fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--disable-shared

Some known problems when running MySQL on Linux-Alpha:

2.6.2.5 Linux PowerPC Notes

MySQL should work on MkLinux with the newest glibc package (tested with glibc 2.0.7).

2.6.2.6 Linux MIPS Notes

To get MySQL to work on Qube2, (Linux Mips), you need the newest glibc libraries (glibc-2.0.7-29C2 is known to work). You must also use the egcs C++ compiler (egcs-1.0.2-9, gcc 2.95.2 or newer).

2.6.2.7 Linux IA-64 Notes

To get MySQL to compile on Linux IA-64, we use the following compile line: Using gcc-2.96:

CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors \
-fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
"--with-comment=Official MySQL binary" --with-extra-charsets=complex

On IA-64, the MySQL client binaries use shared libraries. This means that if you install our binary distribution in some other place than `/usr/local/mysql' you need to add the path of the directory where you have `libmysqlclient.so' installed either to the `/etc/ld.so.conf' file or to the value of your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable.

See section A.3.1 Problems When Linking with the MySQL Client Library.

2.6.3 Solaris Notes

On Solaris, you may run into trouble even before you get the MySQL distribution unpacked! Solaris tar can't handle long file names, so you may see an error like this when you unpack MySQL:

x mysql-3.22.12-beta/bench/Results/ATIS-mysql_odbc-NT_4.0-cmp-db2,\
informix,ms-sql,mysql,oracle,solid,sybase, 0 bytes, 0 tape blocks
tar: directory checksum error

In this case, you must use GNU tar (gtar) to unpack the distribution. You can find a precompiled copy for Solaris at http://www.mysql.com/downloads/os-solaris.html.

Sun native threads only work on Solaris 2.5 and higher. For Version 2.4 and earlier, MySQL will automatically use MIT-pthreads. See section 2.3.6 MIT-pthreads Notes.

If you get the following error from configure:

checking for restartable system calls... configure: error can not run test
programs while cross compiling

This means that you have something wrong with your compiler installation! In this case you should upgrade your compiler to a newer version. You may also be able to solve this problem by inserting the following row into the `config.cache' file:

ac_cv_sys_restartable_syscalls=${ac_cv_sys_restartable_syscalls='no'}

If you are using Solaris on a SPARC, the recommended compiler is gcc 2.95.2 or 3.2. You can find this at http://gcc.gnu.org/. Note that egcs 1.1.1 and gcc 2.8.1 don't work reliably on SPARC!

The recommended configure line when using gcc 2.95.2 is:

CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3" \
CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-low-memory --enable-assembler

If you have an UltraSPARC, you can get 4% more performance by adding "-mcpu=v8 -Wa,-xarch=v8plusa" to CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS.

If you have Sun's Forte 5.0 (or newer) compiler, you can run configure like this:

CC=cc CFLAGS="-Xa -fast -native -xstrconst -mt" \
CXX=CC CXXFLAGS="-noex -mt" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-assembler

You can create a 64 bit binary using Sun's Forte compiler with the following compile flags:

CC=cc CFLAGS="-Xa -fast -native -xstrconst -mt -xarch=v9" \
CXX=CC CXXFLAGS="-noex -mt -xarch=v9" ASFLAGS="-xarch=v9" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-assembler

To create a 64bit Solaris binary using gcc, add -m64 to CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS. Note that this only works with MySQL 4.0 and up - MySQL 3.23 does not include the required modifications to support this.

In the MySQL benchmarks, we got a 4% speedup on an UltraSPARC when using Forte 5.0 in 32 bit mode compared to using gcc 3.2 with -mcpu flags.

If you create a 64 bit binary, it's 4 % slower than the 32 bit binary, but mysqld can instead handle more treads and memory.

If you get a problem with fdatasync or sched_yield, you can fix this by adding LIBS=-lrt to the configure line

The following paragraph is only relevant for older compilers than WorkShop 5.3:

You may also have to edit the configure script to change this line:

#if !defined(__STDC__) || __STDC__ != 1

to this:

#if !defined(__STDC__)

If you turn on __STDC__ with the -Xc option, the Sun compiler can't compile with the Solaris `pthread.h' header file. This is a Sun bug (broken compiler or broken include file).

If mysqld issues the error message shown here when you run it, you have tried to compile MySQL with the Sun compiler without enabling the multi-thread option (-mt):

libc internal error: _rmutex_unlock: rmutex not held

Add -mt to CFLAGS and CXXFLAGS and try again.

If you are using the SFW version of gcc (which comes with Solaris 8), you must add `/opt/sfw/lib' to the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH before running configure.

If you are using the gcc available from sunfreeware.com, you may have many problems. You should recompile gcc and GNU binutils on the machine you will be running them from to avoid any problems.

If you get the following error when compiling MySQL with gcc, it means that your gcc is not configured for your version of Solaris:

shell> gcc -O3 -g -O2 -DDBUG_OFF  -o thr_alarm ...
./thr_alarm.c: In function `signal_hand':
./thr_alarm.c:556: too many arguments to function `sigwait'

The proper thing to do in this case is to get the newest version of gcc and compile it with your current gcc compiler! At least for Solaris 2.5, almost all binary versions of gcc have old, unusable include files that will break all programs that use threads (and possibly other programs)!

Solaris doesn't provide static versions of all system libraries (libpthreads and libdl), so you can't compile MySQL with --static. If you try to do so, you will get the error:

ld: fatal: library -ldl: not found

or

undefined reference to `dlopen'

or

cannot find -lrt

If too many processes try to connect very rapidly to mysqld, you will see this error in the MySQL log:

Error in accept: Protocol error

You might try starting the server with the --set-variable back_log=50 option as a workaround for this. Please note that --set-variable is deprecated since MySQL 4.0, just use --back_log=50 on its own. See section 4.1.1 mysqld Command-line Options.

If you are linking your own MySQL client, you might get the following error when you try to execute it:

ld.so.1: ./my: fatal: libmysqlclient.so.#:
open failed: No such file or directory

The problem can be avoided by one of the following methods:

If you have problems with configure trying to link with -lz and you don't have zlib installed, you have two options:

If you are using gcc and have problems with loading user defined functions (UDFs) into MySQL, try adding -lgcc to the link line for the UDF.

If you would like MySQL to start automatically, you can copy `support-files/mysql.server' to `/etc/init.d' and create a symbolic link to it named `/etc/rc3.d/S99mysql.server'.

As Solaris doesn't support core files for setuid() applications, you can't get a core file from mysqld if you are using the --user option.

2.6.3.1 Solaris 2.7/2.8 Notes

You can normally use a Solaris 2.6 binary on Solaris 2.7 and 2.8. Most of the Solaris 2.6 issues also apply for Solaris 2.7 and 2.8.

Note that MySQL Version 3.23.4 and above should be able to autodetect new versions of Solaris and enable workarounds for the following problems!

Solaris 2.7 / 2.8 has some bugs in the include files. You may see the following error when you use gcc:

/usr/include/widec.h:42: warning: `getwc' redefined
/usr/include/wchar.h:326: warning: this is the location of the previous
definition

If this occurs, you can do the following to fix the problem:

Copy /usr/include/widec.h to .../lib/gcc-lib/os/gcc-version/include and change line 41 from:

#if     !defined(lint) && !defined(__lint)

to

#if     !defined(lint) && !defined(__lint) && !defined(getwc)

Alternatively, you can edit `/usr/include/widec.h' directly. Either way, after you make the fix, you should remove `config.cache' and run configure again!

If you get errors like this when you run make, it's because configure didn't detect the `curses.h' file (probably because of the error in `/usr/include/widec.h'):

In file included from mysql.cc:50:
/usr/include/term.h:1060: syntax error before `,'
/usr/include/term.h:1081: syntax error before `;'

The solution to this is to do one of the following:

If you get a problem that your linker can't find -lz when linking your client program, the problem is probably that your `libz.so' file is installed in `/usr/local/lib'. You can fix this by one of the following methods:

2.6.3.2 Solaris x86 Notes

On Solaris 8 on x86, mysqld will dump core if you remove the debug symbols using strip.

If you are using gcc or egcs on Solaris x86 and you experience problems with core dumps under load, you should use the following configure command:

CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -DHAVE_CURSES_H" \
CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fomit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions \
-fno-rtti -DHAVE_CURSES_H" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql

This will avoid problems with the libstdc++ library and with C++ exceptions.

If this doesn't help, you should compile a debug version and run it with a trace file or under gdb. See section E.1.3 Debugging mysqld under gdb.

2.6.4 BSD Notes

This section provides information for the various BSD flavours, as well as specific versions within those.

2.6.4.1 FreeBSD Notes

FreeBSD 4.x or newer is recommended for running MySQL since the thread package is much more integrated.

The easiest and therefore the preferred way to install is to use the mysql-server and mysql-client ports available on http://www.freebsd.org/.

Using these gives you:

It is recommended you use MIT-pthreads on FreeBSD 2.x and native threads on Versions 3 and up. It is possible to run with native threads on some late 2.2.x versions but you may encounter problems shutting down mysqld.

Unfortunately, certain function calls on FreeBSD are not yet fully thread-safe, most notably the gethostbyname() function, which is used by MySQL to convert host names into IP addresses. Under certain circumstances, the mysqld process will suddenly cause 100% CPU load and will be unresponsive. If you encounter this, try to start up MySQL using the --skip-name-resolve option.

Alternatively, you can link MySQL on FreeBSD 4.x against the LinuxThreads library, which avoids a few of the problems that the native FreeBSD thread implementation has. For a very good comparison of LinuxThreads vs. native threads have a look at Jeremy Zawodny's article "FreeBSD or Linux for your MySQL Server?" at http://jeremy.zawodny.com/blog/archives/000697.html

The known problems when using LinuxThreads on FreeBSD are:

The MySQL `Makefile's require GNU make (gmake) to work. If you want to compile MySQL you need to install GNU make first.

Be sure to have your name resolver setup correct. Otherwise, you may experience resolver delays or failures when connecting to mysqld.

Make sure that the localhost entry in the `/etc/hosts' file is correct (otherwise, you will have problems connecting to the database). The `/etc/hosts' file should start with a line:

127.0.0.1       localhost localhost.your.domain

The recommended way to compile and install MySQL on FreeBSD with gcc (2.95.2 and up) is:

CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O2 -fno-strength-reduce" \
CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O2 -fno-rtti -fno-exceptions -felide-constructors \
-fno-strength-reduce" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-assembler
gmake
gmake install
./scripts/mysql_install_db
cd /usr/local/mysql
./bin/mysqld_safe &

If you notice that configure will use MIT-pthreads, you should read the MIT-pthreads notes. See section 2.3.6 MIT-pthreads Notes.

If you get an error from make install that it can't find `/usr/include/pthreads', configure didn't detect that you need MIT-pthreads. This is fixed by executing these commands:

shell> rm config.cache
shell> ./configure --with-mit-threads

FreeBSD is also known to have a very low default file handle limit. See section A.2.17 File Not Found. Uncomment the ulimit -n section in mysqld_safe or raise the limits for the mysqld user in /etc/login.conf (and rebuild it with cap_mkdb /etc/login.conf). Also be sure you set the appropriate class for this user in the password file if you are not using the default (use: chpass mysqld-user-name). See section 4.7.2 mysqld_safe, The Wrapper Around mysqld.

If you have a lot of memory you should consider rebuilding the kernel to allow MySQL to take more than 512M of RAM. Take a look at option MAXDSIZ in the LINT config file for more info.

If you get problems with the current date in MySQL, setting the TZ variable will probably help. See section F Environment Variables.

To get a secure and stable system you should only use FreeBSD kernels that are marked -RELEASE.

2.6.4.2 NetBSD Notes

To compile on NetBSD you need GNU make. Otherwise, the compile will crash when make tries to run lint on C++ files.

2.6.4.3 OpenBSD 2.5 Notes

On OpenBSD Version 2.5, you can compile MySQL with native threads with the following options:

CFLAGS=-pthread CXXFLAGS=-pthread ./configure --with-mit-threads=no

2.6.4.4 OpenBSD 2.8 Notes

Our users have reported that OpenBSD 2.8 has a threading bug which causes problems with MySQL. The OpenBSD Developers have fixed the problem, but as of January 25th, 2001, it's only available in the ``-current'' branch. The symptoms of this threading bug are: slow response, high load, high CPU usage, and crashes.

If you get an error like Error in accept:: Bad file descriptor or error 9 when trying to open tables or directories, the problem is probably that you haven't allocated enough file descriptors for MySQL.

In this case, try starting mysqld_safe as root with the following options:

shell> mysqld_safe --user=mysql --open-files-limit=2048 &

2.6.4.5 BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes

If you get the following error when compiling MySQL, your ulimit value for virtual memory is too low:

item_func.h: In method `Item_func_ge::Item_func_ge(const Item_func_ge &)':
item_func.h:28: virtual memory exhausted
make[2]: *** [item_func.o] Error 1

Try using ulimit -v 80000 and run make again. If this doesn't work and you are using bash, try switching to csh or sh; some BSDI users have reported problems with bash and ulimit.

If you are using gcc, you may also use have to use the --with-low-memory flag for configure to be able to compile `sql_yacc.cc'.

If you get problems with the current date in MySQL, setting the TZ variable will probably help. See section F Environment Variables.

2.6.4.6 BSD/OS Version 3.x Notes

Upgrade to BSD/OS Version 3.1. If that is not possible, install BSDIpatch M300-038.

Use the following command when configuring MySQL:

shell> env CXX=shlicc++ CC=shlicc2 \
       ./configure \
           --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
           --localstatedir=/var/mysql \
           --without-perl \
           --with-unix-socket-path=/var/mysql/mysql.sock

The following is also known to work:

shell> env CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 \
       ./configure \
           --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
           --with-unix-socket-path=/var/mysql/mysql.sock

You can change the directory locations if you wish, or just use the defaults by not specifying any locations.

If you have problems with performance under heavy load, try using the --skip-thread-priority option to mysqld! This will run all threads with the same priority; on BSDI Version 3.1, this gives better performance (at least until BSDI fixes their thread scheduler).

If you get the error virtual memory exhausted while compiling, you should try using ulimit -v 80000 and run make again. If this doesn't work and you are using bash, try switching to csh or sh; some BSDI users have reported problems with bash and ulimit.

2.6.4.7 BSD/OS Version 4.x Notes

BSDI Version 4.x has some thread-related bugs. If you want to use MySQL on this, you should install all thread-related patches. At least M400-023 should be installed.

On some BSDI Version 4.x systems, you may get problems with shared libraries. The symptom is that you can't execute any client programs, for example, mysqladmin. In this case you need to reconfigure not to use shared libraries with the --disable-shared option to configure.

Some customers have had problems on BSDI 4.0.1 that the mysqld binary after a while can't open tables. This is because some library/system related bug causes mysqld to change current directory without asking for this!

The fix is to either upgrade to 3.23.34 or after running configure remove the line #define HAVE_REALPATH from config.h before running make.

Note that the above means that you can't symbolic link a database directories to another database directory or symbolic link a table to another database on BSDI! (Making a symbolic link to another disk is okay).

2.6.5 Mac OS X Notes

2.6.5.1 Mac OS X 10.x

MySQL should work without any problems on Mac OS X 10.x (Darwin). You don't need the pthread patches for this OS!

This also applies to Mac OS X 10.x Server. Compiling for the Server platform is the same as for the client version of Mac OS X. However please note that MySQL comes preinstalled on the Server!

Our binary for Mac OS X is compiled on Darwin 6.3 with the following configure line:

CC=gcc CFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors \
-fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client \
--enable-local-infile --disable-shared

See section 2.1.3 Installing MySQL on Mac OS X.

2.6.5.2 Mac OS X Server 1.2 (Rhapsody)

Before trying to configure MySQL on Mac OS X Server 1.2 (aka Rhapsody) you must first install the pthread package from http://www.prnet.de/RegEx/mysql.html.

See section 2.1.3 Installing MySQL on Mac OS X.

2.6.6 Other Unix Notes

2.6.6.1 HP-UX Notes for Binary Distributions

Some of the binary distributions of MySQL for HP-UX are distributed as an HP depot file and as a tar file. To use the depot file you must be running at least HP-UX 10.x to have access to HP's software depot tools.

The HP version of MySQL was compiled on an HP 9000/8xx server under HP-UX 10.20, and uses MIT-pthreads. It is known to work well under this configuration. MySQL Version 3.22.26 and newer can also be built with HP's native thread package.

Other configurations that may work:

The following configurations almost definitely won't work:

To install the distribution, use one of the commands here, where /path/to/depot is the full pathname of the depot file:

The depot places binaries and libraries in `/opt/mysql' and data in `/var/opt/mysql'. The depot also creates the appropriate entries in `/etc/init.d' and `/etc/rc2.d' to start the server automatically at boot time. Obviously, this entails being root to install.

To install the HP-UX tar.gz distribution, you must have a copy of GNU tar.

2.6.6.2 HP-UX Version 10.20 Notes

There are a couple of small problems when compiling MySQL on HP-UX. We recommend that you use gcc instead of the HP-UX native compiler, because gcc produces better code!

We recommend using gcc 2.95 on HP-UX. Don't use high optimisation flags (like -O6) as this may not be safe on HP-UX.

The following configure line should work with gcc 2.95:

CFLAGS="-I/opt/dce/include -fpic" \
CXXFLAGS="-I/opt/dce/include -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions \
-fno-rtti" CXX=gcc ./configure --with-pthread \
--with-named-thread-libs='-ldce' --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --disable-shared

The following configure line should work with gcc 3.1:

CFLAGS="-DHPUX -I/opt/dce/include -O3 -fPIC" CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-DHPUX -I/opt/dce/include -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions \
-fno-rtti -O3 -fPIC" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client \
--enable-local-infile  --with-pthread \
--with-named-thread-libs=-ldce --with-lib-ccflags=-fPIC
--disable-shared

2.6.6.3 HP-UX Version 11.x Notes

For HP-UX Version 11.x, we recommend MySQL Version 3.23.15 or later.

Because of some critical bugs in the standard HP-UX libraries, you should install the following patches before trying to run MySQL on HP-UX 11.0:

PHKL_22840 Streams cumulative
PHNE_22397 ARPA cumulative

This will solve the problem of getting EWOULDBLOCK from recv() and EBADF from accept() in threaded applications.

If you are using gcc 2.95.1 on an unpatched HP-UX 11.x system, you will get the error:

In file included from /usr/include/unistd.h:11,
                 from ../include/global.h:125,
                 from mysql_priv.h:15,
                 from item.cc:19:
/usr/include/sys/unistd.h:184: declaration of C function ...
/usr/include/sys/pthread.h:440: previous declaration ...
In file included from item.h:306,
                 from mysql_priv.h:158,
                 from item.cc:19:

The problem is that HP-UX doesn't define pthreads_atfork() consistently. It has conflicting prototypes in `/usr/include/sys/unistd.h':184 and `/usr/include/sys/pthread.h':440 (details below).

One solution is to copy `/usr/include/sys/unistd.h' into `mysql/include' and edit `unistd.h' and change it to match the definition in `pthread.h'. Here's the diff:

183,184c183,184
<      extern int pthread_atfork(void (*prepare)(), void (*parent)(),
<                                                void (*child)());
---
>      extern int pthread_atfork(void (*prepare)(void), void (*parent)(void),
>                                                void (*child)(void));

After this, the following configure line should work:

CFLAGS="-fomit-frame-pointer -O3 -fpic" CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti -O3" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --disable-shared

If you are using MySQL 4.0.5 with the HP-UX compiler you can use: (tested with cc B.11.11.04):

CC=cc CXX=aCC CFLAGS=+DD64 CXXFLAGS=+DD64 ./configure --with-extra-character-set=complex

You can ignore any errors of the following type:

aCC: warning 901: unknown option: `-3': use +help for online documentation

If you get the following error from configure

checking for cc option to accept ANSI C... no
configure: error: MySQL requires a ANSI C compiler (and a C++ compiler).
Try gcc. See the Installation chapter in the Reference Manual.

Check that you don't have the path to the K&R compiler before the path to the HP-UX C and C++ compiler.

Another reason for not beeing able to compile is that you didn't define the +DD64 flags above.

Another possibility for HP-UX 11 is to use MySQL binaries for HP-UX 10.20. We have received reports from some users that these binaries work fine on HP-UX 11.00. If you encounter problems, be sure to check your HP-UX patch level.

2.6.6.4 IBM-AIX notes

Automatic detection of xlC is missing from Autoconf, so a configure command something like this is needed when compiling MySQL (This example uses the IBM compiler):

export CC="xlc_r -ma -O3 -qstrict -qoptimize=3 -qmaxmem=8192 "
export CXX="xlC_r -ma -O3 -qstrict -qoptimize=3 -qmaxmem=8192"
export CFLAGS="-I /usr/local/include"
export LDFLAGS="-L /usr/local/lib"
export CPPFLAGS=$CFLAGS
export CXXFLAGS=$CFLAGS

./configure --prefix=/usr/local \
                --localstatedir=/var/mysql \
                --sysconfdir=/etc/mysql \
                --sbindir='/usr/local/bin' \
                --libexecdir='/usr/local/bin' \
                --enable-thread-safe-client \
                --enable-large-files

Above are the options used to compile the MySQL distribution that can be found at http://www-frec.bull.com/.

If you change the -O3 to -O2 in the above configure line, you must also remove the -qstrict option (this is a limitation in the IBM C compiler).

If you are using gcc or egcs to compile MySQL, you must use the -fno-exceptions flag, as the exception handling in gcc/egcs is not thread-safe! (This is tested with egcs 1.1.) There are also some known problems with IBM's assembler, which may cause it to generate bad code when used with gcc.

We recommend the following configure line with egcs and gcc 2.95 on AIX:

CC="gcc -pipe -mcpu=power -Wa,-many" \
CXX="gcc -pipe -mcpu=power -Wa,-many" \
CXXFLAGS="-felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-low-memory

The -Wa,-many is necessary for the compile to be successful. IBM is aware of this problem but is in to hurry to fix it because of the workaround available. We don't know if the -fno-exceptions is required with gcc 2.95, but as MySQL doesn't use exceptions and the above option generates faster code, we recommend that you should always use this option with egcs / gcc.

If you get a problem with assembler code try changing the -mcpu=xxx to match your CPU. Typically power2, power, or powerpc may need to be used, alternatively you might need to use 604 or 604e. I'm not positive but I would think using "power" would likely be safe most of the time, even on a power2 machine.

If you don't know what your CPU is then do a "uname -m", this will give you back a string that looks like "000514676700", with a format of xxyyyyyymmss where xx and ss are always 0's, yyyyyy is a unique system id and mm is the id of the CPU Planar. A chart of these values can be found at http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/doc_link/en_US/a_doc_lib/cmds/aixcmds5/uname.htm. This will give you a machine type and a machine model you can use to determine what type of CPU you have.

If you have problems with signals (MySQL dies unexpectedly under high load) you may have found an OS bug with threads and signals. In this case you can tell MySQL not to use signals by configuring with:

shell> CFLAGS=-DDONT_USE_THR_ALARM CXX=gcc \
       CXXFLAGS="-felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti \
       -DDONT_USE_THR_ALARM" \
       ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-debug --with-low-memory

This doesn't affect the performance of MySQL, but has the side effect that you can't kill clients that are ``sleeping'' on a connection with mysqladmin kill or mysqladmin shutdown. Instead, the client will die when it issues its next command.

On some versions of AIX, linking with libbind.a makes getservbyname core dump. This is an AIX bug and should be reported to IBM.

For AIX 4.2.1 and gcc you have to do the following changes.

After configuring, edit `config.h' and `include/my_config.h' and change the line that says

#define HAVE_SNPRINTF 1

to

#undef HAVE_SNPRINTF

And finally, in `mysqld.cc' you need to add a prototype for initgoups.

#ifdef _AIX41
extern "C" int initgroups(const char *,int);
#endif

If you need to allocate a lot of memory to the mysqld process, it's not enough to just set 'ulimit -d unlimited'. You may also have to set in mysqld_safe something like:

export LDR_CNTRL='MAXDATA=0x80000000'

You can find more about using a lot of memory at: http://publib16.boulder.ibm.com/pseries/en_US/aixprggd/genprogc/lrg_prg_support.htm.

2.6.6.5 SunOS 4 Notes

On SunOS 4, MIT-pthreads is needed to compile MySQL, which in turn means you will need GNU make.

Some SunOS 4 systems have problems with dynamic libraries and libtool. You can use the following configure line to avoid this problem:

shell> ./configure --disable-shared --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static

When compiling readline, you may get warnings about duplicate defines. These may be ignored.

When compiling mysqld, there will be some implicit declaration of function warnings. These may be ignored.

2.6.6.6 Alpha-DEC-UNIX Notes (Tru64)

If you are using egcs 1.1.2 on Digital Unix, you should upgrade to gcc 2.95.2, as egcs on DEC has some serious bugs!

When compiling threaded programs under Digital Unix, the documentation recommends using the -pthread option for cc and cxx and the libraries -lmach -lexc (in addition to -lpthread). You should run configure something like this:

CC="cc -pthread" CXX="cxx -pthread -O" \
./configure --with-named-thread-libs="-lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc"

When compiling mysqld, you may see a couple of warnings like this:

mysqld.cc: In function void handle_connections()':
mysqld.cc:626: passing long unsigned int *' as argument 3 of
accept(int,sockadddr *, int *)'

You can safely ignore these warnings. They occur because configure can detect only errors, not warnings.

If you start the server directly from the command-line, you may have problems with it dying when you log out. (When you log out, your outstanding processes receive a SIGHUP signal.) If so, try starting the server like this:

shell> nohup mysqld [options] &

nohup causes the command following it to ignore any SIGHUP signal sent from the terminal. Alternatively, start the server by running mysqld_safe, which invokes mysqld using nohup for you. See section 4.7.2 mysqld_safe, The Wrapper Around mysqld.

If you get a problem when compiling mysys/get_opt.c, just remove the line #define _NO_PROTO from the start of that file!

If you are using Compaq's CC compiler, the following configure line should work:

CC="cc -pthread"
CFLAGS="-O4 -ansi_alias -ansi_args -fast -inline speed all -arch host"
CXX="cxx -pthread"
CXXFLAGS="-O4 -ansi_alias -ansi_args -fast -inline speed all -arch host \
-noexceptions -nortti"
export CC CFLAGS CXX CXXFLAGS
./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
--with-low-memory \
--enable-large-files \
--enable-shared=yes \
--with-named-thread-libs="-lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc"
gnumake

If you get a problem with libtool, when compiling with shared libraries as above, when linking mysql, you should be able to get around this by issuing:

cd mysql
/bin/sh ../libtool --mode=link cxx -pthread  -O3 -DDBUG_OFF \
-O4 -ansi_alias -ansi_args -fast -inline speed \
-speculate all \ -arch host  -DUNDEF_HAVE_GETHOSTBYNAME_R \
-o mysql  mysql.o readline.o sql_string.o completion_hash.o \
../readline/libreadline.a -lcurses \
../libmysql/.libs/libmysqlclient.so  -lm
cd ..
gnumake
gnumake install
scripts/mysql_install_db

2.6.6.7 Alpha-DEC-OSF/1 Notes

If you have problems compiling and have DEC CC and gcc installed, try running configure like this:

CC=cc CFLAGS=-O CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql

If you get problems with the `c_asm.h' file, you can create and use a 'dummy' `c_asm.h' file with:

touch include/c_asm.h
CC=gcc CFLAGS=-I./include \
CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql

Note that the following problems with the ld program can be fixed by downloading the latest DEC (Compaq) patch kit from: http://ftp.support.compaq.com/public/unix/.

On OSF/1 V4.0D and compiler "DEC C V5.6-071 on Digital Unix V4.0 (Rev. 878)" the compiler had some strange behaviour (undefined asm symbols). /bin/ld also appears to be broken (problems with _exit undefined errors occurring while linking mysqld). On this system, we have managed to compile MySQL with the following configure line, after replacing /bin/ld with the version from OSF 4.0C:

CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql

With the Digital compiler "C++ V6.1-029", the following should work:

CC=cc -pthread
CFLAGS=-O4 -ansi_alias -ansi_args -fast -inline speed -speculate all \
       -arch host
CXX=cxx -pthread
CXXFLAGS=-O4 -ansi_alias -ansi_args -fast -inline speed -speculate all \
          -arch host -noexceptions -nortti
export CC CFLAGS CXX CXXFLAGS
./configure --prefix=/usr/mysql/mysql --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static \
            --disable-shared --with-named-thread-libs="-lmach -lexc -lc"

In some versions of OSF/1, the alloca() function is broken. Fix this by removing the line in `config.h' that defines 'HAVE_ALLOCA'.

The alloca() function also may have an incorrect prototype in /usr/include/alloca.h. This warning resulting from this can be ignored.

configure will use the following thread libraries automatically: --with-named-thread-libs="-lpthread -lmach -lexc -lc".

When using gcc, you can also try running configure like this:

shell> CFLAGS=-D_PTHREAD_USE_D4 CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 ./configure ...

If you have problems with signals (MySQL dies unexpectedly under high load), you may have found an OS bug with threads and signals. In this case you can tell MySQL not to use signals by configuring with:

shell> CFLAGS=-DDONT_USE_THR_ALARM \
       CXXFLAGS=-DDONT_USE_THR_ALARM \
       ./configure ...

This doesn't affect the performance of MySQL, but has the side effect that you can't kill clients that are ``sleeping'' on a connection with mysqladmin kill or mysqladmin shutdown. Instead, the client will die when it issues its next command.

With gcc 2.95.2, you will probably run into the following compile error:

sql_acl.cc:1456: Internal compiler error in `scan_region', at except.c:2566
Please submit a full bug report.

To fix this you should change to the sql directory and do a ``cut and paste'' of the last gcc line, but change -O3 to -O0 (or add -O0 immediately after gcc if you don't have any -O option on your compile line). After this is done you can just change back to the top-level directly and run make again.

2.6.6.8 SGI Irix Notes

If you are using Irix Version 6.5.3 or newer mysqld will only be able to create threads if you run it as a user with CAP_SCHED_MGT privileges (like root) or give the mysqld server this privilege with the following shell command:

shell> chcap "CAP_SCHED_MGT+epi" /opt/mysql/libexec/mysqld

You may have to undefine some things in `config.h' after running configure and before compiling.

In some Irix implementations, the alloca() function is broken. If the mysqld server dies on some SELECT statements, remove the lines from `config.h' that define HAVE_ALLOC and HAVE_ALLOCA_H. If mysqladmin create doesn't work, remove the line from `config.h' that defines HAVE_READDIR_R. You may have to remove the HAVE_TERM_H line as well.

SGI recommends that you install all of the patches on this page as a set: http://support.sgi.com/surfzone/patches/patchset/6.2_indigo.rps.html

At the very minimum, you should install the latest kernel rollup, the latest rld rollup, and the latest libc rollup.

You definitely need all the POSIX patches on this page, for pthreads support:

http://support.sgi.com/surfzone/patches/patchset/6.2_posix.rps.html

If you get the something like the following error when compiling `mysql.cc':

"/usr/include/curses.h", line 82: error(1084): invalid combination of type

Type the following in the top-level directory of your MySQL source tree:

shell> extra/replace bool curses_bool < /usr/include/curses.h \
> include/curses.h
shell> make

There have also been reports of scheduling problems. If only one thread is running, things go slow. Avoid this by starting another client. This may lead to a 2-to-10-fold increase in execution speed thereafter for the other thread. This is a poorly understood problem with Irix threads; you may have to improvise to find solutions until this can be fixed.

If you are compiling with gcc, you can use the following configure command:

CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS=-O3 \
./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-thread-safe-client \
--with-named-thread-libs=-lpthread

On Irix 6.5.11 with native Irix C and C++ compilers ver. 7.3.1.2, the following is reported to work

CC=cc CXX=CC CFLAGS='-O3 -n32 -TARG:platform=IP22 -I/usr/local/include \
-L/usr/local/lib' CXXFLAGS='-O3 -n32 -TARG:platform=IP22 \
-I/usr/local/include -L/usr/local/lib' ./configure \
--prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-innodb --with-berkeley-db \
--with-libwrap=/usr/local \
--with-named-curses-libs=/usr/local/lib/libncurses.a

2.6.6.9 SCO Notes

The current port is tested only on ``sco3.2v5.0.5'', ``sco3.2v5.0.6'' and ``sco3.2v5.0.7'' systems. There has also been a lot of progress on a port to ``sco 3.2v4.2''.

For the moment the recommended compiler on OpenServer is gcc 2.95.2. With this you should be able to compile MySQL with just:

CC=gcc CXX=gcc ./configure ... (options)
  1. For OpenServer 5.0.x you need to use gcc-2.95.2p1 or newer from the Skunkware. http://www.sco.com/skunkware/ and choose browser OpenServer packages or by ftp to ftp2.caldera.com in the pub/skunkware/osr5/devtools/gcc directory.
  2. You need the port of GCC 2.5.x for this product and the Development system. They are required on this version of SCO Unix. You cannot just use the GCC Dev system.
  3. You should get the FSU Pthreads package and install it first. This can be found at http://moss.csc.ncsu.edu/~mueller/ftp/pub/PART/pthreads.tar.gz. You can also get a precompiled package from http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/SCO/FSU-threads-3.5c.tar.gz.
  4. FSU Pthreads can be compiled with SCO Unix 4.2 with tcpip. Or OpenServer 3.0 or Open Desktop 3.0 (OS 3.0 ODT 3.0), with the SCO Development System installed using a good port of GCC 2.5.x ODT or OS 3.0 you will need a good port of GCC 2.5.x There are a lot of problems without a good port. The port for this product requires the SCO Unix Development system. Without it, you are missing the libraries and the linker that is needed.
  5. To build FSU Pthreads on your system, do the following:
    1. Run ./configure in the `threads/src' directory and select the SCO OpenServer option. This command copies `Makefile.SCO5' to `Makefile'.
    2. Run make.
    3. To install in the default `/usr/include' directory, login as root, then cd to the `thread/src' directory, and run make install.
  6. Remember to use GNU make when making MySQL.
  7. If you don't start mysqld_safe as root, you probably will get only the default 110 open files per process. mysqld will write a note about this in the log file.
  8. With SCO 3.2V5.0.5, you should use FSU Pthreads version 3.5c or newer. You should also use gcc 2.95.2 or newer! The following configure command should work:
    shell> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --disable-shared
    
  9. With SCO 3.2V4.2, you should use FSU Pthreads version 3.5c or newer. The following configure command should work:
    shell> CFLAGS="-D_XOPEN_XPG4" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-D_XOPEN_XPG4" \
           ./configure \
               --prefix=/usr/local/mysql \
               --with-named-thread-libs="-lgthreads -lsocket -lgen -lgthreads" \
               --with-named-curses-libs="-lcurses"
    
    You may get some problems with some include files. In this case, you can find new SCO-specific include files at http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/SCO/SCO-3.2v4.2-includes.tar.gz. You should unpack this file in the `include' directory of your MySQL source tree.

SCO development notes:

If you want to install DBI on SCO, you have to edit the `Makefile' in DBI-xxx and each subdirectory.

Note that the following assumes gcc 2.95.2 or newer:

OLD:                                  NEW:
CC = cc                               CC = gcc
CCCDLFLAGS = -KPIC -W1,-Bexport       CCCDLFLAGS = -fpic
CCDLFLAGS = -wl,-Bexport              CCDLFLAGS =

LD = ld                               LD = gcc -G -fpic
LDDLFLAGS = -G -L/usr/local/lib       LDDLFLAGS = -L/usr/local/lib
LDFLAGS = -belf -L/usr/local/lib      LDFLAGS = -L/usr/local/lib

LD = ld                               LD = gcc -G -fpic
OPTIMISE = -Od                        OPTIMISE = -O1

OLD:
CCCFLAGS = -belf -dy -w0 -U M_XENIX -DPERL_SCO5 -I/usr/local/include

NEW:
CCFLAGS = -U M_XENIX -DPERL_SCO5 -I/usr/local/include

This is because the Perl dynaloader will not load the DBI modules if they were compiled with icc or cc.

Perl works best when compiled with cc.

2.6.6.10 SCO UnixWare Version 7.1.x Notes

You must use a version of MySQL at least as recent as Version 3.22.13 and of UnixWare 7.1.0 because these version fixes some portability and OS problems under UnixWare.

We have been able to compile MySQL with the following configure command on UnixWare Version 7.1.x:

CC=cc CXX=CC ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql

If you want to use gcc, you must use gcc 2.95.2 or newer.

CC=gcc CXX=g++ ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql

  1. SCO provides Operating Systems Patches at ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/unixware7 for UnixWare 7.1.1 and 7.1.3 ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/openunix8 for OpenUNIX 8.0.0
  2. SCO provides information about Security Fixes at ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/security/OpenUNIX for OpenUNIX ftp://ftp.sco.com/pub/security/UnixWare for UnixWare

2.6.7 OS/2 Notes

MySQL uses quite a few open files. Because of this, you should add something like the following to your `CONFIG.SYS' file:

SET EMXOPT=-c -n -h1024

If you don't do this, you will probably run into the following error:

File 'xxxx' not found (Errcode: 24)

When using MySQL with OS/2 Warp 3, FixPack 29 or above is required. With OS/2 Warp 4, FixPack 4 or above is required. This is a requirement of the Pthreads library. MySQL must be installed in a partition that supports long filenames such as HPFS, FAT32, etc.

The `INSTALL.CMD' script must be run from OS/2's own `CMD.EXE' and may not work with replacement shells such as `4OS2.EXE'.

The `scripts/mysql-install-db' script has been renamed. It is now called `install.cmd' and is a REXX script, which will set up the default MySQL security settings and create the WorkPlace Shell icons for MySQL.

Dynamic module support is compiled in but not fully tested. Dynamic modules should be compiled using the Pthreads run-time library.

gcc -Zdll -Zmt -Zcrtdll=pthrdrtl -I../include -I../regex -I.. \
    -o example udf_example.cc -L../lib -lmysqlclient udf_example.def
mv example.dll example.udf

Note: Due to limitations in OS/2, UDF module name stems must not exceed 8 characters. Modules are stored in the `/mysql2/udf' directory; the safe-mysqld.cmd script will put this directory in the BEGINLIBPATH environment variable. When using UDF modules, specified extensions are ignored--it is assumed to be `.udf'. For example, in Unix, the shared module might be named `example.so' and you would load a function from it like this:

mysql> CREATE FUNCTION metaphon RETURNS STRING SONAME "example.so";

In OS/2, the module would be named `example.udf', but you would not specify the module extension:

mysql> CREATE FUNCTION metaphon RETURNS STRING SONAME "example";

2.6.8 Novell NetWare Notes

Porting MySQL to NetWare was an effort spearheaded by Novell. Novell customers will be pleased to note that NetWare 6.5 will ship with bundled MySQL binaries, complete with an automatic commercial use license for all servers running that version of NetWare.

See section 2.1.4 Installing MySQL on NetWare.

MySQL for NetWare is compiled using a combination of Metrowerks Codewarrior for NetWare and special cross-compilation versions of the GNU autotools. Check back here in the future for more information on building and optimising MySQL for NetWare.

2.6.9 BeOS Notes

We have in the past talked with some BeOS developers that have said that MySQL is 80% ported to BeOS, but we haven't heard from them in a while.

2.7 Perl Installation Comments

2.7.1 Installing Perl on Unix

Perl support for MySQL is provided by means of the DBI/DBD client interface. See section 9.5 MySQL Perl API. The Perl DBD/DBI client code requires Perl Version 5.004 or later. The interface will not work if you have an older version of Perl.

MySQL Perl support also requires that you've installed MySQL client programming support. If you installed MySQL from RPM files, client programs are in the client RPM, but client programming support is in the developer RPM. Make sure you've installed the latter RPM.

As of Version 3.22.8, Perl support is distributed separately from the main MySQL distribution. If you want to install Perl support, the files you will need can be obtained from http://www.mysql.com/downloads/api-dbi.html.

The Perl distributions are provided as compressed tar archives and have names like `MODULE-VERSION.tar.gz', where MODULE is the module name and VERSION is the version number. You should get the Data-Dumper, DBI, and DBD-mysql distributions and install them in that order. The installation procedure is shown here. The example shown is for the Data-Dumper module, but the procedure is the same for all three distributions:

  1. Unpack the distribution into the current directory:
    shell> gunzip < Data-Dumper-VERSION.tar.gz | tar xvf -
    
    This command creates a directory named `Data-Dumper-VERSION'.
  2. Change into the top-level directory of the unpacked distribution:
    shell> cd Data-Dumper-VERSION
    
  3. Build the distribution and compile everything:
    shell> perl Makefile.PL
    shell> make
    shell> make test
    shell> make install
    

The make test command is important because it verifies that the module is working. Note that when you run that command during the DBD-mysql installation to exercise the interface code, the MySQL server must be running or the test will fail.

It is a good idea to rebuild and reinstall the DBD-mysql distribution whenever you install a new release of MySQL, particularly if you notice symptoms such as all your DBI scripts dumping core after you upgrade MySQL.

If you don't have the right to install Perl modules in the system directory or if you to install local Perl modules, the following reference may help you:

http://www.iserver.com/support/contrib/perl5/modules.html

Look under the heading Installing New Modules that Require Locally Installed Modules.

2.7.2 Installing ActiveState Perl on Windows

To install the MySQL DBD module with ActiveState Perl on Windows, you should do the following:

The above should work at least with ActiveState Perl Version 5.6.

If you can't get the above to work, you should instead install the MyODBC driver and connect to MySQL server through ODBC:

use DBI;
$dbh= DBI->connect("DBI:ODBC:$dsn","$user","$password") ||
  die "Got error $DBI::errstr when connecting to $dsn\n";

2.7.3 Problems Using the Perl DBI/DBD Interface

If Perl reports that it can't find the `../mysql/mysql.so' module, then the problem is probably that Perl can't locate the shared library `libmysqlclient.so'.

You can fix this by any of the following methods:

If you get the following errors from DBD-mysql, you are probably using gcc (or using an old binary compiled with gcc):

/usr/bin/perl: can't resolve symbol '__moddi3'
/usr/bin/perl: can't resolve symbol '__divdi3'

Add -L/usr/lib/gcc-lib/... -lgcc to the link command when the `mysql.so' library gets built (check the output from make for `mysql.so' when you compile the Perl client). The -L option should specify the pathname of the directory where `libgcc.a' is located on your system.

Another cause of this problem may be that Perl and MySQL aren't both compiled with gcc. In this case, you can solve the mismatch by compiling both with gcc.

If you get the following error from DBD-mysql when you run the tests:

t/00base............install_driver(mysql) failed:
Can't load '../blib/arch/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.so' for module DBD::mysql:
../blib/arch/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.so: undefined symbol:
uncompress at /usr/lib/perl5/5.00503/i586-linux/DynaLoader.pm line 169.

it means that you need to include the compression library, -lz, to the link line. This can be doing the following change in the file `lib/DBD/mysql/Install.pm':

$sysliblist .= " -lm";

to

$sysliblist .= " -lm -lz";

After this, you must run 'make realclean' and then proceed with the installation from the beginning.

If you want to use the Perl module on a system that doesn't support dynamic linking (like SCO) you can generate a static version of Perl that includes DBI and DBD-mysql. The way this works is that you generate a version of Perl with the DBI code linked in and install it on top of your current Perl. Then you use that to build a version of Perl that additionally has the DBD code linked in, and install that.

On SCO, you must have the following environment variables set:

shell> LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/progressive/lib
or
shell> LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/ccs/lib:\
/usr/progressive/lib:/usr/skunk/lib
shell> LIBPATH=/usr/lib:/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/ccs/lib:\
/usr/progressive/lib:/usr/skunk/lib
shell> MANPATH=scohelp:/usr/man:/usr/local1/man:/usr/local/man:\
/usr/skunk/man:

First, create a Perl that includes a statically linked DBI by running these commands in the directory where your DBI distribution is located:

shell> perl Makefile.PL -static -config
shell> make
shell> make install
shell> make perl

Then you must install the new Perl. The output of make perl will indicate the exact make command you will need to execute to perform the installation. On SCO, this is make -f Makefile.aperl inst_perl MAP_TARGET=perl.

Next, use the just-created Perl to create another Perl that also includes a statically-linked DBD::mysql by running these commands in the directory where your DBD-mysql distribution is located:

shell> perl Makefile.PL -static -config
shell> make
shell> make install
shell> make perl

Finally, you should install this new Perl. Again, the output of make perl indicates the command to use.

3 MySQL Tutorial

This chapter provides a tutorial introduction to MySQL by showing how to use the mysql client program to create and use a simple database. mysql (sometimes referred to as the ``terminal monitor'' or just ``monitor'') is an interactive program that allows you to connect to a MySQL server, run queries, and view the results. mysql may also be used in batch mode: you place your queries in a file beforehand, then tell mysql to execute the contents of the file. Both ways of using mysql are covered here.

To see a list of options provided by mysql, invoke it with the --help option:

shell> mysql --help

This chapter assumes that mysql is installed on your machine and that a MySQL server is available to which you can connect. If this is not true, contact your MySQL administrator. (If you are the administrator, you will need to consult other sections of this manual.)

This chapter describes the entire process of setting up and using a database. If you are interested only in accessing an already-existing database, you may want to skip over the sections that describe how to create the database and the tables it contains.

Because this chapter is tutorial in nature, many details are necessarily omitted. Consult the relevant sections of the manual for more information on the topics covered here.

3.1 Connecting to and Disconnecting from the Server

To connect to the server, you'll usually need to provide a MySQL user name when you invoke mysql and, most likely, a password. If the server runs on a machine other than the one where you log in, you'll also need to specify a hostname. Contact your administrator to find out what connection parameters you should use to connect (that is, what host, user name, and password to use). Once you know the proper parameters, you should be able to connect like this:

shell> mysql -h host -u user -p
Enter password: ********

The ******** represents your password; enter it when mysql displays the Enter password: prompt.

If that works, you should see some introductory information followed by a mysql> prompt:

shell> mysql -h host -u user -p
Enter password: ********
Welcome to the MySQL monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MySQL connection id is 25338 to server version: 4.0.14-log

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer.

mysql>

The prompt tells you that mysql is ready for you to enter commands.

Some MySQL installations allow users to connect as the anonymous (unnamed) user to the server running on the local host. If this is the case on your machine, you should be able to connect to that server by invoking mysql without any options:

shell> mysql

After you have connected successfully, you can disconnect any time by typing QUIT (or \q) at the mysql> prompt:

mysql> QUIT
Bye

On Unix, you can also disconnect by pressing Control-D.

Most examples in the following sections assume you are connected to the server. They indicate this by the mysql> prompt.

3.2 Entering Queries

Make sure you are connected to the server, as discussed in the previous section. Doing so will not in itself select any database to work with, but that's okay. At this point, it's more important to find out a little about how to issue queries than to jump right in creating tables, loading data into them, and retrieving data from them. This section describes the basic principles of entering commands, using several queries you can try out to familiarise yourself with how mysql works.

Here's a simple command that asks the server to tell you its version number and the current date. Type it in as shown here following the mysql> prompt and press Enter:

mysql> SELECT VERSION(), CURRENT_DATE;
+--------------+--------------+
| VERSION()    | CURRENT_DATE |
+--------------+--------------+
| 3.22.20a-log | 1999-03-19   |
+--------------+--------------+
1 row in set (0.01 sec)
mysql>

This query illustrates several things about mysql:

Keywords may be entered in any lettercase. The following queries are equivalent:

mysql> SELECT VERSION(), CURRENT_DATE;
mysql> select version(), current_date;
mysql> SeLeCt vErSiOn(), current_DATE;

Here's another query. It demonstrates that you can use mysql as a simple calculator:

mysql> SELECT SIN(PI()/4), (4+1)*5;
+-------------+---------+
| SIN(PI()/4) | (4+1)*5 |
+-------------+---------+
|    0.707107 |      25 |
+-------------+---------+

The queries shown thus far have been relatively short, single-line statements. You can even enter multiple statements on a single line. Just end each one with a semicolon:

mysql> SELECT VERSION(); SELECT NOW();
+--------------+
| VERSION()    |
+--------------+
| 3.22.20a-log |
+--------------+

+---------------------+
| NOW()               |
+---------------------+
| 1999-03-19 00:15:33 |
+---------------------+

A command need not be given all on a single line, so lengthy commands that require several lines are not a problem. mysql determines where your statement ends by looking for the terminating semicolon, not by looking for the end of the input line. (In other words, mysql accepts free-format input: it collects input lines but does not execute them until it sees the semicolon.)

Here's a simple multiple-line statement:

mysql> SELECT
    -> USER()
    -> ,
    -> CURRENT_DATE;
+--------------------+--------------+
| USER()             | CURRENT_DATE |
+--------------------+--------------+
| joesmith@localhost | 1999-03-18   |
+--------------------+--------------+

In this example, notice how the prompt changes from mysql> to -> after you enter the first line of a multiple-line query. This is how mysql indicates that it hasn't seen a complete statement and is waiting for the rest. The prompt is your friend, because it provides valuable feedback. If you use that feedback, you will always be aware of what mysql is waiting for.

If you decide you don't want to execute a command that you are in the process of entering, cancel it by typing \c:

mysql> SELECT
    -> USER()
    -> \c
mysql>

Here, too, notice the prompt. It switches back to mysql> after you type \c, providing feedback to indicate that mysql is ready for a new command.

The following table shows each of the prompts you may see and summarises what they mean about the state that mysql is in:

Prompt Meaning
mysql> Ready for new command.
-> Waiting for next line of multiple-line command.
'> Waiting for next line, collecting a string that begins with a single quote (`'').
"> Waiting for next line, collecting a string that begins with a double quote (`"').

Multiple-line statements commonly occur by accident when you intend to issue a command on a single line, but forget the terminating semicolon. In this case, mysql waits for more input:

mysql> SELECT USER()
    ->

If this happens to you (you think you've entered a statement but the only response is a -> prompt), most likely mysql is waiting for the semicolon. If you don't notice what the prompt is telling you, you might sit there for a while before realising what you need to do. Enter a semicolon to complete the statement, and mysql will execute it:

mysql> SELECT USER()
    -> ;
+--------------------+
| USER()             |
+--------------------+
| joesmith@localhost |
+--------------------+

The '> and "> prompts occur during string collection. In MySQL, you can write strings surrounded by either `'' or `"' characters (for example, 'hello' or "goodbye"), and mysql lets you enter strings that span multiple lines. When you see a '> or "> prompt, it means that you've entered a line containing a string that begins with a `'' or `"' quote character, but have not yet entered the matching quote that terminates the string. That's fine if you really are entering a multiple-line string, but how likely is that? Not very. More often, the '> and "> prompts indicate that you've inadvertantly left out a quote character. For example:

mysql> SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE name = "Smith AND age < 30;
    ">

If you enter this SELECT statement, then press Enter and wait for the result, nothing will happen. Instead of wondering why this query takes so long, notice the clue provided by the "> prompt. It tells you that mysql expects to see the rest of an unterminated string. (Do you see the error in the statement? The string "Smith is missing the second quote.)

At this point, what do you do? The simplest thing is to cancel the command. However, you cannot just type \c in this case, because mysql interprets it as part of the string that it is collecting! Instead, enter the closing quote character (so mysql knows you've finished the string), then type \c:

mysql> SELECT * FROM my_table WHERE name = "Smith AND age < 30;
    "> "\c
mysql>

The prompt changes back to mysql>, indicating that mysql is ready for a new command.

It's important to know what the '> and "> prompts signify, because if you mistakenly enter an unterminated string, any further lines you type will appear to be ignored by mysql---including a line containing QUIT! This can be quite confusing, especially if you don't know that you need to supply the terminating quote before you can cancel the current command.

3.3 Creating and Using a Database

Now that you know how to enter commands, it's time to access a database.

Suppose you have several pets in your home (your menagerie) and you'd like to keep track of various types of information about them. You can do so by creating tables to hold your data and loading them with the desired information. Then you can answer different sorts of questions about your animals by retrieving data from the tables. This section shows you how to:

The menagerie database will be simple (deliberately), but it is not difficult to think of real-world situations in which a similar type of database might be used. For example, a database like this could be used by a farmer to keep track of livestock, or by a veterinarian to keep track of patient records. A menagerie distribution containing some of the queries and sample data used in the following sections can be obtained from the MySQL web site. It's available in either compressed tar format (http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Contrib/Examples/menagerie.tar.gz) or Zip format (http://www.mysql.com/Downloads/Contrib/Examples/menagerie.zip).

Use the SHOW statement to find out what databases currently exist on the server:

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+----------+
| Database |
+----------+
| mysql    |
| test     |
| tmp      |
+----------+

The list of databases is probably different on your machine, but the mysql and test databases are likely to be among them. The mysql database is required because it describes user access privileges. The test database is often provided as a workspace for users to try things out.

Note that you may not see all databases if you don't have the SHOW DATABASES privilege. See section 4.3.1 GRANT and REVOKE Syntax.

If the test database exists, try to access it:

mysql> USE test
Database changed

Note that USE, like QUIT, does not require a semicolon. (You can terminate such statements with a semicolon if you like; it does no harm.) The USE statement is special in another way,