MySQL :: Building MySQL from Source :: 2 Typical configure Options

Building MySQL from Source :: 2 Typical configure Options

3 Installing from the Development Source Tree »

Section Navigation [Toggle]

Chapter 2. Typical configure Options

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

shell> ./configure --help

A list of the available configure options is provided in the table below.

Table 2.1. Build (configure) Reference

Formats	Description	Default	Introduced	Removed
--bindir=DIR	User executables	EPREFIX/bin
--build=BUILD	Configure for building on BUILD	guessed
--cache-file=FILE	Cache test results in FILE	disabled
-C	Alias for `--cache-file=config.cache'
--config-cache
--datadir=DIR	Read-only architecture-independent data	PREFIX/share
--disable-FEATURE	Do not include FEATURE
--disable-dependency-tracking	Disable dependency tracking
--disable-grant-options	Disable GRANT options
--disable-largefile	Omit support for large files
--disable-libtool-lock	Disable libtool lock
--disable-thread-safe-client	Compile the client without threads		5.1.7
--enable-FEATURE	Enable FEATURE
--enable-assembler	Use assembler versions of some string functions if available
--enable-debug-sync	Compile in Debug Sync facility		5.1.41
--enable-dependency-tracking	Do not reject slow dependency extractors
--enable-fast-install	Optimize for fast installation	yes
--enable-local-infile	Enable LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE	disabled
--enable-shared	Build shared libraries	yes
--enable-static	Build static libraries	yes
--enable-thread-safe-client	Compile the client with threads
--exec-prefix=EPREFIX	Install architecture-dependent files in EPREFIX
-h	Display this help and exit
--help
--help=short	Display options specific to this package
--help=recursive	Display the short help of all the included packages
--host=HOST	Cross-compile to build programs to run on HOST
--includedir=DIR	C header files	PREFIX/include
--infodir=DIR	Info documentation	PREFIX/info
--libdir=DIR	Object code libraries	EPREFIX/lib
--libexecdir=DIR	Program executables	EPREFIX/libexec
--localstatedir=DIR	Modifiable single-machine data	PREFIX/var
--mandir=DIR	man documentation	PREFIX/man
-n	Do not create output files
--no-create
--oldincludedir=DIR	C header files for non-gcc	/usr/include
--prefix=PREFIX	Install architecture-independent files in PREFIX
--program-prefix=PREFIX	Prepend PREFIX to installed program names
--program-suffix=SUFFIX	Append SUFFIX to installed program names
--program-transform-name=PROGRAM	run sed PROGRAM on installed program names
-q	Do not print `checking...' messages
--quiet
--sbindir=DIR	System admin executables	EPREFIX/sbin
--sharedstatedir=DIR	Modifiable architecture-independent data	PREFIX/com
--srcdir=DIR	Find the sources in DIR	configure directory or ..
--sysconfdir=DIR	Read-only single-machine data	PREFIX/etc
--target=TARGET	Configure for building compilers for TARGET
-V	Display version information and exit
--version
--with-PACKAGE	Use PACKAGE
--with-archive-storage-engine	Enable the Archive Storage Engine	no
--with-atomic-ops	Implement atomic operations using pthread rwlocks or atomic CPU instructions for multi-processor		5.1.12
--with-berkeley-db	Use BerkeleyDB located in DIR	no
--with-berkeley-db-includes	Find Berkeley DB headers in DIR
--with-berkeley-db-libs	Find Berkeley DB libraries in DIR
--with-big-tables	Support tables with more than 4 G rows even on 32 bit platforms
--with-blackhole-storage-engine	Enable the Blackhole Storage Engine	no
--with-charset	Default character set
--with-client-ldflags	Extra linking arguments for clients
--with-collation	Default collation
--with-comment	Comment about compilation environment
--with-csv-storage-engine	Enable the CSV Storage Engine	yes
--with-darwin-mwcc	Use Metrowerks CodeWarrior wrappers on OS X/Darwin
--with-debug	Add debug code		5.1.7
--with-debug=full	Add debug code (adds memory checker, very slow)
--with-embedded-privilege-control	Build parts to check user's privileges (only affects embedded library)
--with-embedded-server	Build the embedded server
--with-error-inject	Enable error injection in MySQL Server		5.1.11
--with-example-storage-engine	Enable the Example Storage Engine	no
--with-extra-charsets	Use charsets in addition to default
--with-fast-mutexes	Compile with fast mutexes	enabled	5.1.5
--with-federated-storage-engine	Enable federated storage engine	no	5.1.3	5.1.9
--with-gnu-ld	Assume the C compiler uses GNU ld	no
--with-innodb	Enable innobase storage engine	no	5.1.3	5.1.9
--with-lib-ccflags	Extra CC options for libraries
--with-libwrap=DIR	Compile in libwrap (tcp_wrappers) support
--with-low-memory	Try to use less memory to compile to avoid memory limitations
--with-machine-type	Set the machine type, like "powerpc"
--with-max-indexes=N	Sets the maximum number of indexes per table	64
--with-mysqld-ldflags	Extra linking arguments for mysqld
--with-mysqld-libs	Extra libraries to link with for mysqld
--with-mysqld-user	What user the mysqld daemon shall be run as
--with-mysqlmanager	Build the mysqlmanager binary	Build if server is built
--with-named-curses-libs	Use specified curses libraries
--with-named-thread-libs	Use specified thread libraries
--with-ndb-ccflags	Extra CC options for ndb compile
--with-ndb-docs	Include the NDB Cluster ndbapi and mgmapi documentation
--with-ndb-port	Port for NDB Cluster management server
--with-ndb-port-base	Port for NDB Cluster management server
--with-ndb-sci=DIR	Provide MySQL with a custom location of sci library
--with-ndb-test	Include the NDB Cluster ndbapi test programs
--with-ndbcluster	Include the NDB Cluster table handler	no
--with-openssl=DIR	Include the OpenSSL support
--with-openssl-includes	Find OpenSSL headers in DIR
--with-openssl-libs	Find OpenSSL libraries in DIR
--with-other-libc=DIR	Link against libc and other standard libraries installed in the specified nonstandard location
--with-pic	Try to use only PIC/non-PIC objects	Use both
--with-plugin-PLUGIN	Forces the named plugin to be linked into mysqld statically		5.1.11
--with-plugins	Plugins to include in mysqld	none	5.1.11
--with-pstack	Use the pstack backtrace library
--with-pthread	Force use of pthread library
--with-row-based-replication	Include row-based replication		5.1.5	5.1.6
--with-server-suffix	Append value to the version string
--with-ssl=DIR	Include SSL support		5.1.11
--with-system-type	Set the system type, like "sun-solaris10"
--with-tags	Include additional configurations	automatic
--with-tcp-port	Which port to use for MySQL services	3306
--with-unix-socket-path	Where to put the unix-domain socket
--with-yassl	Include the yaSSL support
--with-zlib-dir=no\|bundled\|DIR	Provide MySQL with a custom location of compression library
--without-PACKAGE	Do not use PACKAGE
--without-bench	Skip building of the benchmark suite
--without-debug	Build a production version without debugging code
--without-docs	Skip building of the documentation
--without-extra-tools	Skip building utilities in the tools directory
--without-geometry	Do not build geometry-related parts
--without-libedit	Use system libedit instead of bundled copy
--without-man	Skip building of the man pages
--without-ndb-binlog	Disable ndb binlog		5.1.6
--without-ndb-debug	Disable special ndb debug features
--without-plugin-PLUGIN	Exclude PLUGIN		5.1.11
--without-query-cache	Do not build query cache
--without-readline	Use system readline instead of bundled copy
--without-row-based-replication	Don't include row-based replication		5.1.7	5.1.14
--without-server	Only build the client
--without-uca	Skip building of the national Unicode collations

Some of the configure options available are described here. For options that may be of use if you have difficulties building MySQL, see Chapter 4, Dealing with Problems Compiling MySQL.

To compile just the MySQL client libraries and client programs and not the server, use the --without-server option:
```
shell> ./configure --without-server
```
If you have no C++ compiler, some client programs such as mysql cannot be compiled because they require C++.. In this case, you can remove the code in configure that tests for the C++ compiler and then run ./configure with the --without-server option. The compile step should still try to build all clients, but you can ignore any warnings about files such as mysql.cc. (If make stops, try make -k to tell it to continue with the rest of the build even if errors occur.)
If you want to build the embedded MySQL library (libmysqld.a), use the --with-embedded-server option.
If you don't want your log files and database directories located under /usr/local/var, use a configure command something like one of these:
```
shell> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql
shell> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local \
           --localstatedir=/usr/local/mysql/data
```
The first command changes the installation prefix so that everything is installed under /usr/local/mysql rather than the default of /usr/local. The second command preserves the default installation prefix, but overrides the default location for database directories (normally /usr/local/var) and changes it to /usr/local/mysql/data.

You can also specify the installation directory and data directory locations at server startup time by using the --basedir and --datadir options. These can be given on the command line or in an MySQL option file, although it is more common to use an option file. See Using Option Files.
This option specifies the port number on which the server listens for TCP/IP connections. The default is port 3306. To listen on a different port, use a configure command like this:
```
shell> ./configure --with-tcp-port=3307
```
If you are using Unix and you want the MySQL socket file location to be somewhere other than the default location (normally in the directory /tmp or /var/run), use a configure command like this:
```
shell> ./configure \
           --with-unix-socket-path=/usr/local/mysql/tmp/mysql.sock
```
The socket file name must be an absolute path name. You can also change the location of mysql.sock at server startup by using a MySQL option file. See How to Protect or Change the MySQL Unix Socket File.
If you want to compile statically linked programs (for example, to make a binary distribution, to get better performance, or to work around problems with some Red Hat Linux distributions), run configure like this:
```
shell> ./configure --with-client-ldflags=-all-static \
           --with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static
```
If you are using gcc and don't have libg++ or libstdc++ installed, you can tell configure to use gcc as your C++ compiler:
```
shell> CC=gcc CXX=gcc ./configure
```
When you use gcc as your C++ compiler, it does not attempt to link in libg++ or libstdc++. This may be a good thing to do even if you have those libraries installed. Some versions of them have caused strange problems for MySQL users in the past.

The following list indicates some compilers and environment variable settings that are commonly used with each one.
- gcc 2.7.2:
```
CC=gcc CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -felide-constructors"
```
- gcc 2.95.2:
```
CFLAGS="-O3 -mpentiumpro" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mpentiumpro \
-felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti"
```
- pgcc 2.90.29 or newer:
```
CFLAGS="-O3 -mpentiumpro -mstack-align-double" CXX=gcc \
CXXFLAGS="-O3 -mpentiumpro -mstack-align-double \
-felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti"
```
In most cases, you can get a reasonably optimized MySQL binary by using the options from the preceding list and adding the following options to the configure line:
```
--prefix=/usr/local/mysql --enable-assembler \
--with-mysqld-ldflags=-all-static
```
The full configure line would, in other words, be something like the following for all recent gcc versions:
```
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
```
The binaries we provide on the MySQL Web site at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/ are all compiled with full optimization and should be perfect for most users. See Installing MySQL from Generic Binaries on Unix/Linux. There are some configuration settings you can tweak to build an even faster binary, but these are only for advanced users. See How Compiling and Linking Affects the Speed of MySQL.

If the build fails and produces errors about your compiler or linker not being able to create the shared library libmysqlclient.so.N (where N is a version number), you can work around this problem by giving the --disable-shared option to configure. In this case, configure does not build a shared libmysqlclient.so.N library.
By default, MySQL uses the latin1 (cp1252 West European) character set. To change the default set, use the --with-charset option:
```
shell> ./configure --with-charset=CHARSET
```
CHARSET may be one of binary, armscii8, ascii, big5, cp1250, cp1251, cp1256, cp1257, cp850, cp852, cp866, cp932, dec8, eucjpms, euckr, gb2312, gbk, geostd8, greek, hebrew, hp8, keybcs2, koi8r, koi8u, latin1, latin2, latin5, latin7, macce, macroman, sjis, swe7, tis620, ucs2, ujis, utf8. (Additional character sets might be available. Check the output from ./configure --help for the current list.)

The default collation may also be specified. MySQL uses the latin1_swedish_ci collation by default. To change this, use the --with-collation option:
```
shell> ./configure --with-collation=COLLATION
```
To change both the character set and the collation, use both the --with-charset and --with-collation options. The collation must be a legal collation for the character set. (Use the SHOW COLLATION statement to determine which collations are available for each character set.)

With the configure option --with-extra-charsets=LIST, you can define which additional character sets should be compiled into the server. LIST is one of the following:
- A list of character set names separated by spaces
- complex to include all character sets that can't be dynamically loaded
- all to include all character sets into the binaries
Clients that want to convert characters between the server and the client should use the SET NAMES statement. See Session System Variables, and Connection Character Sets and Collations.
To configure MySQL with debugging code, use the --with-debug option:
```
shell> ./configure --with-debug
```
This causes a safe memory allocator to be included that can find some errors and that provides output about what is happening. See MySQL Internals: Porting.

As of MySQL 5.1.12, using --with-debug to configure MySQL with debugging support enables you to use the --debug="d,parser_debug" option when you start the server. This causes the Bison parser that is used to process SQL statements to dump a parser trace to the server's standard error output. Typically, this output is written to the error log.
To cause the Debug Sync facility to be compiled into the server, use the --enable-debug-sync option. This facility is used for testing and debugging. When compiled in, Debug Sync is disabled by default. To enable it, start mysqld with the --debug-sync-timeout=N option, where N is a timeout value greater than 0. (The default value is 0, which disables Debug Sync.) N becomes the default timeout for individual synchronization points.

Debug Sync is also compiled in if you configure with the --with-debug option (which implies --enable-debug-sync), unless you also use the --disable-debug-sync option.

For a description of the Debug Sync facility and how to use synchronization points, see MySQL Internals: Test Synchronization.

The --enable-debug-sync and --disable-debug-sync options were added in MySQL 5.1.41.
If your client programs are using threads, you must compile a thread-safe version of the MySQL client library with the --enable-thread-safe-client configure option. This creates a libmysqlclient_r library with which you should link your threaded applications. See How to Make a Threaded Client.
Some features require that the server be built with compression library support, such as the COMPRESS() and UNCOMPRESS() functions, and compression of the client/server protocol. The --with-zlib-dir=no|bundled|DIR option provides control over compression library support. The value no explicitly disables compression support. bundled causes the zlib library bundled in the MySQL sources to be used. A DIR path name specifies the directory in which to find the compression library sources.
It is possible to build MySQL with large table support using the --with-big-tables option.

This option causes the variables that store table row counts to be declared as unsigned long long rather than unsigned long. This enables tables to hold up to approximately 1.844E+19 ((2³²)²) rows rather than 2³² (~4.295E+09) rows. Previously it was necessary to pass -DBIG_TABLES to the compiler manually in order to enable this feature.
Run configure with the --disable-grant-options option to cause the --bootstrap, --skip-grant-tables, and --init-file options for mysqld to be disabled. For Windows, the configure.js script recognizes the DISABLE_GRANT_OPTIONS flag, which has the same effect. The capability is available as of MySQL 5.1.15.
This option allows MySQL Community Server features to be enabled. Additional options may be required for individual features, such as --enable-profiling to enable statement profiling. This option was added in MySQL 5.1.24. It is enabled by default as of MySQL 5.1.28; to disable it, use --disable-community-features.
When given with --enable-community-features, the --enable-profiling option enables the statement profiling capability exposed by the SHOW PROFILE and SHOW PROFILES statements. (See SHOW PROFILES Syntax.) This option was added in MySQL 5.1.24. It is enabled by default as of MySQL 5.1.28; to disable it, use --disable-profiling.
See General Installation Guidance, for options that pertain to particular operating systems.
See Using SSL Connections, for options that pertain to configuring MySQL to support secure (encrypted) connections.
Several configure options apply to plugin selection and building:
```
--with-plugins=PLUGIN[,PLUGIN]...
--with-plugins=GROUP
--with-plugin-PLUGIN
--without-plugin-PLUGIN
```
PLUGIN is an individual plugin name such as csv or archive.

As shorthand, GROUP is a configuration group name such as none (select no plugins) or all (select all plugins).

You can build a plugin as static (compiled into the server) or dynamic (built as a dynamic library that must be installed using the INSTALL PLUGIN statement before it can be used). Some plugins might not support static or dynamic build.

configure --help shows the following information pertaining to plugins:
- The plugin-related options
- The names of all available plugins
- For each plugin, a description of its purpose, which build types it supports (static or dynamic), and which plugin groups it is a part of.
--with-plugins can take a list of one or more plugin names separated by commas, or a plugin group name. The named plugins are configured to be built as static plugins.

--with-plugin-PLUGIN configures the given plugin to be built as a static plugin.

--without-plugin-PLUGIN disables the given plugin from being built.

If a plugin is named both with a --with and --without option, the result is undefined.

For any plugin that is not explicitly selected or disabled, it is selected to be built dynamically if it supports dynamic build, and not built if it does not support dynamic build. (Thus, in the case that no plugin options are given, all plugins that support dynamic build are selected to be built as dynamic plugins. Plugins that do not support dynamic build are not built.)

Top / Previous / Next / Up / Table of Contents