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How to Install MySQL on CentOS 7

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Updated Wednesday, November 7, 2018 by Linode Written by Linode

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Before You Begin

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Install MySQL

Harden MySQL
Server

Using MySQL
Root Login

Create a New MySQL

User and Database
Create a Sample Table

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 Reset the MySQL
Root Password

Tune MySQL

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 MySQL is a popular database management system used for web and

Monthly Guides
Update server applications. However, MySQL is no longer in CentOS’s
repositories and MariaDB has become the default database system
Email address
offered. MariaDB is considered a drop-in replacement for MySQL and
would be sufficient if you just need a database system in general. See
Sign Up
our MariaDB in CentOS 7 guide for installation instructions.

If you nonetheless prefer MySQL, this guide will introduce how to

install, configure and manage it on a Linode running CentOS 7.

Large MySQL databases can require a considerable amount of

memory. For this reason, we recommend using a high memory Linode
for such setups.

Note

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 This guide is written for a non-root user. Commands that require elevated
privileges are prefixed with sudo . If you’re not familiar with the sudo command,
you can check our Users and Groups guide.

Before You Begin

1. Ensure that you have followed the Getting Started and Securing
Your Server guides, and the Linode’s hostname is set.

To check your hostname run:

hostname
hostname -f

The first command should show your short hostname, and the
second should show your fully qualified domain name (FQDN).

2. Update your system:

sudo yum update

3. You will need wget to complete this guide. It can be installed as

follows:

yum install wget

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 Install MySQL
MySQL must be installed from the community repository.

1. Download and add the repository, then update.

wget http://repo.mysql.com/mysql-community-release-el7-5.noarch.rpm
sudo rpm -ivh mysql-community-release-el7-5.noarch.rpm
yum update

2. Install MySQL as usual and start the service. During installation,

you will be asked if you want to accept the results from the .rpm
file’s GPG verification. If no error or mismatch occurs, enter y .

sudo yum install mysql-server

sudo systemctl start mysqld

MySQL will bind to localhost (127.0.0.1) by default. Please reference

our MySQL remote access guide for information on connecting to your
databases using SSH.

Note
Allowing unrestricted access to MySQL on a public IP not advised but you may
change the address it listens on by modifying the bind-address parameter in
/etc/my.cnf . If you decide to bind MySQL to your public IP, you should
implement firewall rules that only allow connections from specific IP addresses.

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 Harden MySQL Server
1. Run the mysql_secure_installation script to address several
security concerns in a default MySQL installation.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

You will be given the choice to change the MySQL root password,
remove anonymous user accounts, disable root logins outside of
localhost, and remove test databases. It is recommended that you
answer yes to these options. You can read more about the script in
the MySQL Reference Manual.

Note
If MySQL 5.7 was installed, you will need the temporary password that was
created during installation. This password is notated in the
/var/log/mysql.log file, and can be quickly found using the following
command.

sudo grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log

Using MySQL
The standard tool for interacting with MySQL is the mysql client which
installs with the mysql-server package. The MySQL client is used
through a terminal.

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 Root Login
1. To log in to MySQL as the root user:

mysql -u root -p

2. When prompted, enter the root password you assigned when the
mysql_secure_installation script was run.

You’ll then be presented with a welcome header and the MySQL

prompt as shown below:

mysql>

3. To generate a list of commands for the MySQL prompt, enter \h .

You’ll then see:

List of all MySQL commands:

Note that all text commands must be first on line and end with ';'
? (\?) Synonym for `help'.
clear (\c) Clear command.
connect (\r) Reconnect to the server. Optional arguments are db a
delimiter (\d) Set statement delimiter. NOTE: Takes the rest of the
edit (\e) Edit command with $EDITOR.
ego (\G) Send command to mysql server, display result vertica
exit (\q) Exit mysql. Same as quit.
go (\g) Send command to mysql server.
help (\h) Display this help.
nopager (\n) Disable pager, print to stdout.
notee (\t) Don't write into outfile.
pager (\P) Set PAGER [to_pager]. Print the query results via PA
print (\p) Print current command.
prompt (\R) Change your mysql prompt.

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 quit (\q) Quit mysql.
rehash (\#) Rebuild completion hash.
source (\.) Execute an SQL script file. Takes a file name as an
status (\s) Get status information from the server.
system (\!) Execute a system shell command.
tee (\T) Set outfile [to_outfile]. Append everything into giv
use (\u) Use another database. Takes database name as argumen
charset (\C) Switch to another charset. Might be needed for proce
warnings (\W) Show warnings after every statement.
nowarning (\w) Don't show warnings after every statement.

For server side help, type 'help contents'

mysql>

Create a New MySQL User and Database

1. In the example below, testdb is the name of the database,
testuser is the user, and password is the user’s password.

create database testdb;

create user 'testuser'@'localhost' identified by 'password';
grant all on testdb.* to 'testuser' identified by 'password';

You can shorten this process by creating the user while assigning
database permissions:

create database testdb;

grant all on testdb.* to 'testuser' identified by 'password';

2. Then exit MySQL.

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 exit

Create a Sample Table

1. Log back in as testuser .

mysql -u testuser -p

2. Create a sample table called customers. This creates a table with

a customer ID field of the type INT for integer (auto-incremented
for new records, used as the primary key), as well as two fields
for storing the customer’s name.

use testdb;
create table customers (customer_id INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRI

3. Then exit MySQL.

exit

Reset the MySQL Root Password

If you forget your root MySQL password, it can be reset.

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 1. Stop the current MySQL server instance, then restart it with an
option to not ask for a password.

sudo systemctl stop mysqld

sudo mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &

2. Reconnect to the MySQL server with the MySQL root account.

mysql -u root

3. Use the following commands to reset root’s password. Replace

password with a strong password.

use mysql;
update user SET PASSWORD=PASSWORD("password") WHERE USER='root';
flush privileges;
exit

4. Then restart MySQL.

sudo systemctl start mysqld

Tune MySQL
MySQL Tuner is a Perl script that connects to a running instance of
MySQL and provides configuration recommendations based on
workload. Ideally, the MySQL instance should have been operating for

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 at least 24 hours before running the tuner. The longer the instance has
been running, the better advice MySQL Tuner will give.

1. Download MySQL Tuner to your home directory.

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/major/MySQLTuner-perl/master

2. To run it:

perl ./mysqltuner.pl

You will be asked for the MySQL root user’s name and password.
The output will show two areas of interest: General
recommendations and Variables to adjust.

MySQL Tuner is an excellent starting point to optimize a MySQL

server but it would be prudent to perform additional research for
configurations tailored to the application(s) utilizing MySQL on your
Linode.

Still have a few questions?

Join our Community and post your questions for other Linode and Linux
enthusiasts to help you out.

Related Questions:
How to install phpMyAdmin on Centos7

How can I setup a LAMP/LEMP stack on my Linode?

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 How do I run both MySQL and MongoDB?

More Information
You may wish to consult the following resources for additional
information on this topic. While these are provided in the hope that
they will be useful, please note that we cannot vouch for the accuracy
or timeliness of externally hosted materials.

MySQL 5.6 Reference Manual

PHP MySQL Manual
Perl DBI examples for DBD::mysql
MySQLdb User’s Guide
MySQL Tuner Tutorial

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This guide is published under a CC BY-ND 4.0 license.

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