Oracle provides a set of binary distributions of MySQL. These include generic binary distributions in the form of compressed tar files (files with a .tar.xz extension) for a number of platforms, and binaries in platform-specific package formats for selected platforms.

This section covers the installation of MySQL from a compressed tar file binary distribution on Unix/Linux platforms. For other platform-specific binary package formats, see the other platform-specific sections in this manual. For example, for Windows distributions, see Section 2.3, “Installing MySQL on Microsoft Windows”. See Section 2.1.2, “How to Get MySQL” on how to obtain MySQL in different distribution formats.

MySQL compressed tar file binary distributions have names of the form mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.xz, where VERSION is a number (for example, 8.0.18), and OS indicates the type of operating system for which the distribution is intended (for example, pc-linux-i686 or winx64).

There is also a “minimal install” version of the MySQL compressed tar file for the Linux generic binary distribution, which has a name of the form mysql-VERSION-OS-minimal.tar.xz. The minimal install distribution excludes debug binaries and is stripped of debug symbols, making it significantly smaller than the regular binary distribution. If you choose to install the minimal install distribution, remember to adjust for the difference in file name format in the instructions that follow.

To install a compressed tar file binary distribution, unpack it at the installation location you choose (typically /usr/local/mysql). This creates the directories shown in the following table.

Debug versions of the mysqld binary are available as mysqld-debug. To compile your own debug version of MySQL from a source distribution, use the appropriate configuration options to enable debugging support. See Section 2.9, “Installing MySQL from Source”.

To install and use a MySQL binary distribution, the command sequence looks like this:

shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -r -g mysql -s /bin/false mysql
shell> cd /usr/local
shell> tar xvf /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.xz
shell> ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql
shell> cd mysql
shell> mkdir mysql-files
shell> chown mysql:mysql mysql-files
shell> chmod 750 mysql-files
shell> bin/mysqld --initialize --user=mysql
shell> bin/mysql_ssl_rsa_setup
shell> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
# Next command is optional
shell> cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server

The mysql-files directory provides a convenient location to use as the value for the secure_file_priv system variable, which limits import and export operations to a specific directory. See Section 5.1.8, “Server System Variables”.

A more detailed version of the preceding description for installing a binary distribution follows.

Create a mysql User and Group

If your system does not already have a user and group to use for running mysqld, you may need to create them. The following commands add the mysql group and the mysql user. You might want to call the user and group something else instead of mysql. If so, substitute the appropriate name in the following instructions. The syntax for useradd and groupadd may differ slightly on different versions of Unix/Linux, or they may have different names such as adduser and addgroup.

shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -r -g mysql -s /bin/false mysql

Obtain and Unpack the Distribution

Pick the directory under which you want to unpack the distribution and change location into it. The example here unpacks the distribution under /usr/local. The instructions, therefore, assume that you have permission to create files and directories in /usr/local. If that directory is protected, you must perform the installation as root.

shell> cd /usr/local

Obtain a distribution file using the instructions in Section 2.1.2, “How to Get MySQL”. For a given release, binary distributions for all platforms are built from the same MySQL source distribution.

Unpack the distribution, which creates the installation directory. tar can uncompress and unpack the distribution if it has z option support:

shell> tar xvf /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.xz

The tar command creates a directory named mysql-VERSION-OS.

To install MySQL from a compressed tar file binary distribution, your system must have GNU XZ Utils to uncompress the distribution and a reasonable tar to unpack it.

GNU tar is known to work. The standard tar provided with some operating systems is not able to unpack the long file names in the MySQL distribution. You should download and install GNU tar, or if available, use a preinstalled version of GNU tar. Usually this is available as gnutar, gtar, or as tar within a GNU or Free Software directory, such as /usr/sfw/bin or /usr/local/bin. GNU tar is available from http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/.

If your tar does not support the xz format then use the xz command to unpack the distribution and tar to unpack it. Replace the preceding tar command with the following alternative command to uncompress and extract the distribution:

shell> xz -dc /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.xz | tar x

Next, create a symbolic link to the installation directory created by tar:

shell> ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql

The ln command makes a symbolic link to the installation directory. This enables you to refer more easily to it as /usr/local/mysql. To avoid having to type the path name of client programs always when you are working with MySQL, you can add the /usr/local/mysql/bin directory to your PATH variable:

shell> export PATH=$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin

Perform Postinstallation Setup

The remainder of the installation process involves setting distribution ownership and access permissions, initializing the data directory, starting the MySQL server, and setting up the configuration file. For instructions, see Section 2.10, “Postinstallation Setup and Testing”.