Installing a MySQL Source Distribution

Let us understand how to install MySQL from a source distribution −

Building MySQL from source

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

• GNU needs to be installed so as to uncompress the distribution. Another ‘tar’ should be installed to unpack the distribution.

• ANSI C++ compiler.

• A good ‘make’ program. GNU make is recommended

The below commands need to be executed to install a MySQL source distribution 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 can be installed by the user.

New users can be added using the bin/mysql_setpermission script if DBI and Msql−MySQL−modules Perl modules are installed.

Let us understand the steps in detail −

• To install source distribution, pick a directory where the distribution needs to be unpackged and move there.

• The distribution file has to be obtained from one of the sites listed in ‘Getting MySQL’. MySQL source distributions are given as compressed tar archives.

• The distribution needs to be unpacked into the current directory using the below command −

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

• This would create a directory named `mysql−VERSION'.

• The user has to change into top−level directory of the unpacked distribution using the below command −

shell> cd mysql-VERSION

• The release has to be configured, and then compiled, using the below commands −

shell> ./configure −−prefix=/usr/local/mysql
shell> make

• When ‘configure’ is run, certain options can be specified. Install everything using the below command, and ensure that it is run as root −

shell> make install

• MySQL grant tables need to be created if MySQL is being installed for the first time −

shell> scripts/mysql_install_db

Once this is done, initialize and test the distribution to ensure everything works fine.