MySQL distributions on Unix and Unix-like system include a script named mysql.server, which starts the MySQL server using mysqld_safe. It can be used on systems such as Linux and Solaris that use System V-style run directories to start and stop system services. It is also used by the macOS Startup Item for MySQL.
mysql.server is the script name as used within the MySQL source tree. The installed name might be different (for example, mysqld or mysql). In the following discussion, adjust the name mysql.server as appropriate for your system.
For some Linux platforms, MySQL installation from RPM or Debian packages includes systemd support for managing MySQL server startup and shutdown. On these platforms, mysql.server and mysqld_safe are not installed because they are unnecessary. For more information, see Section 2.5.9, “Managing MySQL Server with systemd”.
To start or stop the server manually using the
mysql.server script, invoke it from the
command line with start
or
stop
arguments:
shell> mysql.server start
shell> mysql.server stop
mysql.server changes location to the MySQL
installation directory, then invokes
mysqld_safe. To run the server as some
specific user, add an appropriate user
option
to the [mysqld]
group of the global
/etc/my.cnf
option file, as shown later in
this section. (It is possible that you must edit
mysql.server if you've installed a binary
distribution of MySQL in a nonstandard location. Modify it to
change location into the proper directory before it runs
mysqld_safe. If you do this, your modified
version of mysql.server may be overwritten if
you upgrade MySQL in the future; make a copy of your edited
version that you can reinstall.)
mysql.server stop stops the server by sending a signal to it. You can also stop the server manually by executing mysqladmin shutdown.
To start and stop MySQL automatically on your server, you must
add start and stop commands to the appropriate places in your
/etc/rc*
files:
If you use the Linux server RPM package (
MySQL-server-
), or a native Linux package installation, the mysql.server script may be installed in theVERSION
.rpm/etc/init.d
directory with the namemysqld
ormysql
. See Section 2.5.4, “Installing MySQL on Linux Using RPM Packages from Oracle”, for more information on the Linux RPM packages.If you install MySQL from a source distribution or using a binary distribution format that does not install mysql.server automatically, you can install the script manually. It can be found in the
support-files
directory under the MySQL installation directory or in a MySQL source tree. Copy the script to the/etc/init.d
directory with the name mysql and make it executable:shell> cp mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql shell> chmod +x /etc/init.d/mysql
After installing the script, the commands needed to activate it to run at system startup depend on your operating system. On Linux, you can use chkconfig:
shell> chkconfig --add mysql
On some Linux systems, the following command also seems to be necessary to fully enable the mysql script:
shell> chkconfig --level 345 mysql on
On FreeBSD, startup scripts generally should go in
/usr/local/etc/rc.d/
. Install themysql.server
script as/usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql.server.sh
to enable automatic startup. Therc(8)
manual page states that scripts in this directory are executed only if their base name matches the*.sh
shell file name pattern. Any other files or directories present within the directory are silently ignored.As an alternative to the preceding setup, some operating systems also use
/etc/rc.local
or/etc/init.d/boot.local
to start additional services on startup. To start up MySQL using this method, append a command like the one following to the appropriate startup file:/bin/sh -c 'cd /usr/local/mysql; ./bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &'
For other systems, consult your operating system documentation to see how to install startup scripts.
mysql.server reads options from the
[mysql.server]
and
[mysqld]
sections of option files. For
backward compatibility, it also reads
[mysql_server]
sections, but to be current
you should rename such sections to
[mysql.server]
.
You can add options for mysql.server in a
global /etc/my.cnf
file. A typical
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 supports the options
shown in the following table. If specified, they
must be placed in an option file, not on
the command line. mysql.server supports only
start
and stop
as
command-line arguments.
Table 4.6 mysql.server Option-File Options
Option Name | Description | Type |
---|---|---|
basedir |
Path to MySQL installation directory | Directory name |
datadir |
Path to MySQL data directory | Directory name |
pid-file |
File in which server should write its process ID | File name |
service-startup-timeout |
How long to wait for server startup | Integer |
The path to the MySQL installation directory.
The path to the MySQL data directory.
The path name of the file in which the server should write its process ID. The server creates the file in the data directory unless an absolute path name is given to specify a different directory.
If this option is not given, mysql.server uses a default value of
. The PID file value passed to mysqld_safe overrides any value specified in thehost_name
.pid[mysqld_safe]
option file group. Because mysql.server reads the[mysqld]
option file group but not the[mysqld_safe]
group, you can ensure that mysqld_safe gets the same value when invoked from mysql.server as when invoked manually by putting the samepid-file
setting in both the[mysqld_safe]
and[mysqld]
groups.service-startup-timeout=
seconds
How long in seconds to wait for confirmation of server startup. If the server does not start within this time, mysql.server exits with an error. The default value is 900. A value of 0 means not to wait at all for startup. Negative values mean to wait forever (no timeout).