The recommended way to install MySQL on RPM-based Linux distributions is by using the RPM packages. The RPMs that we provide to the community should work on all versions of Linux that support RPM packages and use glibc 2.3. To obtain RPM packages, see How to Get MySQL.

For non-RPM Linux distributions, you can install MySQL using a .tar.gz package. See Chapter 1, Installing MySQL from tar.gz Packages on Other Unix-Like Systems.

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

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 3.2, “Linux Binary Distribution Notes”.

In most cases, you need to install only the MySQL-server and MySQL-client packages to get a functional MySQL installation. The other packages are not required for a standard installation.

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

For more information about installing MySQL Cluster from RPMs, see MySQL Cluster Multi-Computer Installation.

For upgrades, if your installation was originally produced by installing multiple RPM packages, it is best to upgrade all the packages, not just some. For example, if you previously installed the server and client RPMs, do not upgrade just the server RPM.

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

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

The RPM packages shown in the following list are available. The names shown here use a suffix of .glibc23.i386.rpm, but particular packages can have different suffixes, as described later.

The suffix of RPM package names (following the VERSION value) has the following syntax:

.PLATFORM.CPU.rpm

The PLATFORM and CPU values indicate the type of system for which the package is built. PLATFORM indicates the platform and CPU indicates the processor type or family.

All packages are dynamically linked against glibc 2.3. The PLATFORM value indicates whether the package is platform independent or intended for a specific platform, as shown in the following table.

In MySQL 5.4, only glibc23 packages are available currently.

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

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

shell> rpm -qpl MySQL-server-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

To perform a standard minimal installation, install the server and client RPMs:

shell> rpm -i MySQL-server-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm
shell> rpm -i MySQL-client-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

To install only the client programs, install just the client RPM:

shell> rpm -i MySQL-client-VERSION.glibc23.i386.rpm

RPM provides a feature to verify the integrity and authenticity of packages before installing them. If you would like to learn more about this feature, see Verifying Package Integrity Using MD5 Checksums or GnuPG.

The server RPM places data under the /var/lib/mysql directory. The RPM also creates a login account for a user named mysql (if one does not exist) to use for running the MySQL server, and creates the appropriate entries in /etc/init.d/ to start the server automatically at boot time. (This means that if you have performed a previous installation and have made changes to its startup script, you may want to make a copy of the script so that you don't lose it when you install a newer RPM.) See Section 8.2, “Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically”, for more information on how MySQL can be started automatically on system startup.

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

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

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

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

If something goes wrong, you can find more information in the binary installation section. See Chapter 1, Installing MySQL from tar.gz Packages on Other Unix-Like Systems.

During RPM installation, a user named mysql and a group named mysql are created on the system. This is done using the useradd, groupadd, and usermod commands. Those commands require appropriate administrative privileges, which is ensured for locally managed users and groups (as listed in the /etc/passwd and /etc/group files) by the RPM installation process being run by root.

For nonlocal user management (LDAP, NIS, and so forth), the administrative tools may require additional authentication (such as a password), and will fail if the installing user does not provide this authentication. Even if they fail, the RPM installation will not abort but succeed, and this is intentional. If they failed, some of the intended transfer of ownership may be missing, and it is recommended that the system administrator then manually ensures some appropriate user andgroup exists and manually transfers ownership following the actions in the RPM spec file.