4.7 Installing a MySQL source distribution

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

• GNU gunzip to uncompress the distribution.
• A reasonable tar to unpack the distribution. GNU tar is known to work.
• A working ANSI C++ compiler. gcc >= 2.8.1, egcs >= 1.0.2, SGI C++ and SunPro C++ are some of the compilers that are known to work. libg++ is not needed when using gcc. gcc 2.7.x has a bug that makes it impossible to compile some perfectly legal C++ files, such as `sql/sql_base.cc'. If you only have gcc 2.7.x, you must upgrade your gcc to be able to compile MySQL.
• A good make program. GNU make is always recommended and is sometimes required. If you have problems, we recommend trying GNU make 3.75 or newer.

If you run into problems, PLEASE ALWAYS USE mysqlbug when posting questions to mysql@lists.mysql.com. 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. 2.3 How to report bugs or problems.

4.7.1 Quick installation overview

The basic commands you must execute to install a MySQL source distribution are (from an unpacked tar file):

shell> configure
shell> make
shell> make install
shell> scripts/mysql_install_db
shell> /usr/local/mysql/bin/safe_mysqld &

If you start from a source RPM, then do the following.

shell> rpm --rebuild 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 Msql-Mysql-modules Perl modules.

Here follows a more detailed description:

To install a source distribution, follow the steps below, then proceed to 4.15 Post-installation setup and testing, for post-installation initialization 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 Getting MySQL. MySQL source distributions are provided as compressed tar archives and have names like `mysql-VERSION.tar.gz', where VERSION is a number like 3.23.5-alpha.
3. Unpack the distribution into the current directory:

   shell> gunzip < mysql-VERSION.tar.gz | tar xvf -
   

   This command creates a directory named `mysql-VERSION'.
4. Change into the top-level directory of the unpacked distribution:

   shell> cd mysql-VERSION
   

5. 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. configure options, discusses some of the more useful options. If configure fails, and you are going to send mail to 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. 2.3 How to report bugs or problems. If the compile fails, see 4.8 Problems compiling?, for help with a number of common problems.
6. Install everything:

   shell> make install
   

   You might need to run this command as root.
7. 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 3.22.10 started the MySQL server when you run mysql_install_db. This is no longer true!
8. If you want to install support for the Perl DBI/DBD interface, see 4.10 Perl installation comments.
9. 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 4.15.3 Starting and stopping MySQL automatically.

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

You can start the MySQL server with the following command, where BINDIR is the directory in which safe_mysqld is installed (`/usr/local/bin' by default):

shell> BINDIR/safe_mysqld &

If that command fails immediately with mysqld daemon ended then 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. 19.3 Running multiple MySQL servers on the same machine.

4.15 Post-installation setup and testing.

4.7.2 Applying patches

Sometimes patches appear on the mailing list or are placed in the patches area of the MySQL FTP site.

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 files. Apply a plain patch as shown above 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.

4.7.3 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. For a list of options supported by configure, run this command:

shell> ./configure --help

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

• 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 don't have a C++ compiler, mysql will not compile (it is the one client program that requires 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 will still try to build mysql, but you can ignore any warnings about `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 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.
• If you are using Unix and you want the MySQL socket located 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
  

  Note that the given file must be an absolute pathname!
• If you want to compile statically-linked programs (e.g., to make a binary distribution, to get more speed or to work around problems with some RedHat 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 will not attempt to link in libg++ or libstdc++. If the build fails and produces errors about your compiler or linker not being able to create the shared library `libmysqlclient.so.#' (`#' is a version number), you can work around this problem by giving the --disable-shared option to configure. In this case, configure will not build a shared libmysqlclient.so.# library.
• You can configure MySQL not to use DEFAULT column values for non-NULL columns (i.e., columns that are not allowed to be NULL). This causes INSERT statements to generate an error unless you explicitly specify values for all columns that require a non-NULL value. To suppress use of default values, run configure like this:

  shell> CXXFLAGS=-DDONT_USE_DEFAULT_FIELDS ./configure
  

• By default, MySQL uses the ISO-8859-1 (Latin1) character set. To change the default set, use the --with-charset option:

  shell> ./configure --with-charset=CHARSET
  

  CHARSET may be one of big5, cp1251, cp1257, czech, danish,dec8, dos, euc_kr, gb2312 gbk, german1, hebrew, hp8, hungarian, koi8_ru, koi8_ukr, latin1, latin2, sjis, swe7, tis620, ujis, usa7, win1251 or win1251ukr. 9.1.1 The character set used for data and sorting Note that if you want to change the character set, you must do a make distclean between configurations! If you want to convert characters between the server and the client, you should take a look at the SET OPTION CHARACTER SET command. SET OPTION. Warning: If you change character sets after having created any tables, you will have to run isamchk -r -q on every table. Your indexes may be sorted incorrectly otherwise. (This can happen if you install MySQL, create some tables, then reconfigure MySQL to use a different character set and reinstall it.)
• 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. G.1 Debugging a MySQL server.
• Options that pertain to particular systems can be found in the system-specific sections later in this chapter. 4.11 System-specific issues.