Add a login user and group for mysqld to run as:

shell> groupadd mysql
shell> useradd -g mysql mysql

These commands add the mysql group and the mysql user. The syntax for useradd and groupadd may differ slightly on different versions of Unix, or they may have different names such as adduser and addgroup.

You might want to call the user and group something else instead of mysql. If so, substitute the appropriate name in the following steps.

Pick the directory under which you want to unpack the distribution and change location into it. In the following example, we unpack 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 2.1.3, “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. Then create a symbolic link to that directory:

shell> gunzip < /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz | tar xvf -
shell> ln -s full-path-to-mysql-VERSION-OS mysql

The tar command creates a directory named mysql-VERSION-OS. The ln command makes a symbolic link to that directory. This lets you refer more easily to the installation directory as /usr/local/mysql.

With GNU tar, no separate invocation of gunzip is necessary. You can replace the first line with the following alternative command to uncompress and extract the distribution:

shell> tar zxvf /path/to/mysql-VERSION-OS.tar.gz

Change location into the installation directory:

shell> cd mysql

You will find several files and subdirectories in the mysql directory. The most important for installation purposes are the bin and scripts subdirectories:

Ensure that the distribution contents are accessible to mysql. If you unpacked the distribution as mysql, no further action is required. If you unpacked the distribution as root, its contents will be owned by root. Change its ownership to mysql by executing the following commands as root in the installation directory:

shell> chown -R mysql .
shell> chgrp -R mysql .

The first command changes the owner attribute of the files to the mysql user. The second changes the group attribute to the mysql group.

If you have not installed MySQL before, you must create the MySQL data directory and initialize the grant tables:

shell> scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql

If you run the command as root, include the --user option as shown. If you run the command while logged in as that user, you can omit the --user option.

The command should create the data directory and its contents with mysql as the owner.

After creating or updating the grant tables, you need to restart the server manually.

Most of the MySQL installation can be owned by root if you like. The exception is that the data directory must be owned by mysql. To accomplish this, run the following commands as root in the installation directory:

shell> chown -R root .
shell> chown -R mysql data

If you want 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 Section 2.13.2.2, “Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically”.

You can set up new accounts using the bin/mysql_setpermission script if you install the DBI and DBD::mysql Perl modules. See Section 4.6.14, “mysql_setpermission — Interactively Set Permissions in Grant Tables”. For Perl module installation instructions, see Section 2.15, “Perl Installation Notes”.

If you would like to use mysqlaccess and have the MySQL distribution in some nonstandard location, you must change the location where mysqlaccess expects to find the mysql client. Edit the bin/mysqlaccess script at approximately line 18. Search for a line that looks like this:

$MYSQL     = '/usr/local/bin/mysql';    # path to mysql executable

Change the path to reflect the location where mysql actually is stored on your system. If you do not do this, a Broken pipe error will occur when you run mysqlaccess.