Tools: How To Install MySQL on CentOS

By Melissa Anderson and Vinayak Baranwal MySQL is an open-source database management system, commonly installed as part of the popular LEMP (Linux, Nginx, MySQL/MariaDB, PHP/Python/Perl) stack. It uses a relational database and SQL (Structured Query Language) to manage its data. CentOS prefers MariaDB by default, a fork of MySQL managed by the original MySQL developers and designed as a replacement for MySQL. If you run yum install mysql (or dnf install mysql on newer versions), it is MariaDB that is installed rather than MySQL. If you’re wondering about MySQL vs. MariaDB, MariaDB will generally work seamlessly in place of MySQL, so unless you have a specific use-case for MySQL, see the How To Install MariaDB on Centos 7 guide. This tutorial will explain how to install MySQL version 8 on a CentOS or compatible RHEL-based server. Compatibility Note: This tutorial was originally written for CentOS 7 and is also compatible with CentOS Stream 9 and other RHEL-based distributions. CentOS 7 (end of life June 30, 2024) and CentOS 8 (end of life December 31, 2021) have reached end of life. For production deployments, use a supported RHEL-based distribution such as CentOS Stream. To follow this tutorial, you will need: As mentioned in the introduction, running the Yum command to install MySQL will actually install MariaDB, not Oracle MySQL. To install MySQL, you’ll need to visit the MySQL Community Yum Repository which provides the official MySQL packages. CentOS 7 uses yum; CentOS Stream 9 and later use dnf. On newer CentOS versions, replace yum with dnf in the commands below. The repository package must match your system’s RHEL version (el7, el8, or el9). In a web browser, visit: Note that the prominent Download links don’t lead directly to the files. Instead, they lead to a subsequent page where you’re invited to log in or sign up for an account. If you don’t want to create an account, you can locate the text “No thanks, just start my download”, then right-click and copy the link location, or you can edit the version number in the commands below. Locate the desired version, and update it as needed in the link below. The repository designation (el7, el8, or el9) corresponds to your OS: el7 for CentOS 7, el8 and el9 for newer releases. Select the matching repository for your system. Verify your release before selecting the repository package: The example below uses an el7 package; on el8 or el9, download the matching repository package for your system. Once the rpm file is saved, we will verify the integrity of the download by running md5sum and comparing it with the corresponding MD5 value listed on the site: Compare this output with the appropriate MD5 value on the site: Now that we’ve verified that the file wasn’t corrupted or changed, we’ll install the package: This adds two new MySQL yum repositories, and we can now use them to install MySQL server: Note: If you’re using CentOS Stream 9 or a similarly recent release, the package manager has changed from yum to dnf. In that case, you should install MySQL with the following command instead: Press y to confirm that you want to proceed. Since we’ve just added the package, we’ll also be prompted to accept its GPG key. Press y to download it and complete the install. We’ll start the daemon with the following command: systemctl doesn’t display the outcome of all service management commands, so to be sure we succeeded, we’ll use the following command: If MySQL has successfully started, the output should contain Active: active (running) and the final line should look something like: Note: MySQL is automatically enabled to start at boot when it is installed. You can change that default behavior with sudo systemctl disable mysqld During the installation process, a temporary password is generated for the MySQL root user. Locate it in the mysqld.log with this command: Make note of the password, which you will need in the next step to secure the installation and where you will be forced to change it. The default password policy requires 12 characters, with at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character. MySQL includes a security script to change some of the less secure default options for things like remote root logins and sample users. Use this command to run the security script. This will prompt you for the default root password. As soon as you enter it, you will be required to change it. Enter a new 12-character password that contains at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter, one number and one special character. Re-enter it when prompted. You’ll receive feedback on the strength of your new password, and then you’ll be immediately prompted to change it again. Since you just did, you can confidently say No: After we decline the prompt to change the password again, we’ll press Y and then ENTER to all the subsequent questions in order to remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, remove the test database and access to it, and reload the privilege tables. Now that we’ve secured the installation, let’s test it. We can verify our installation and get information about it by connecting with the mysqladmin tool, a client that lets you run administrative commands. Use the following command to connect to MySQL as root (-u root), prompt for a password (-p), and return the version. You should see output similar to this: This indicates your installation has been successful. Why does yum install MariaDB?
CentOS and other RHEL-based distributions ship the mysql package as a compatibility alias for MariaDB. Installing Oracle MySQL requires adding the official MySQL repository. Can I use this tutorial on CentOS Stream?
Yes. Use dnf instead of yum and choose the repository package that matches your release (el8 or el9). How do I check my CentOS version?
Run cat /etc/os-release to see your version and pick the correct el7, el8, or el9 repository. Can MySQL and MariaDB run on the same server?
Running both on the same host is not recommended. They use the same client tools and port (3306) and can conflict; use one or the other per server. In this tutorial, we’ve installed and secured MySQL on a CentOS server. To learn more about using MySQL, this guide to learning more about MySQL commands can help. You might also consider implementing some additional security measures. Thanks for learning with the DigitalOcean Community. Check out our offerings for compute, storage, networking, and managed databases. Learn more about our products Building future-ready infrastructure with Linux, Cloud, and DevOps. Full Stack Developer & System Administrator. Technical Writer @ DigitalOcean | GitHub Contributor | Passionate about Docker, PostgreSQL, and Open Source | Exploring NLP & AI-TensorFlow | Nailed over 50+ deployments across production environments. This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer. You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link! Failed to start server, this is erorr information Hi,
Thanks for the very details steps. I was able to follow all the way to the sudo mysql_secure_installation under Step 3: Configuration. I got an erro saying “Error: Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)”. I know I entered the correct temporary password I found from the log file. Also, I realized that I got the same error no matter what password I used. So this appears to be a problem with the user name itself. Any help is appreciated. i am getting the same error , Thanks for the very details steps. I was able to follow all the way to the sudo mysqlsecureinstallation under Step 3: Configuration. I got an erro saying “Error: Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)”. I know I entered the correct temporary password I found from the log file. Also, I realized that I got the same error no matter what password I used. So this appears to be a problem with the user name itself. Any help is appreciated. If you skip Step 3 (for now) and try to connect with the first command in Step 4, mysqladmin -u root -p version you should also be prompted for the root password. If you enter the temporary password from the log file, are you able to connect? After the step “mysql_secure_installation” i always get an “Estimated strength of the password: 0” What could it be the problem? can I disable this plugin? Another brilliant article. Thanks for sharing! Excellent article. Thanks for sharing! If you have 1GB ram, and use some of it for some process, like tomcat, then service starting may fail because of insufficient memory. You can create swap memory to solve this problem. here a solution: https://stackoverflow.com/a/13999800/167288 I have followed the installation guide and it seems that it hangs when I start the sql server for the first time. Below is a record of the status. Please assist. Thanks. [root@iZwz92280sqlsr3912i7atZ ~]# sudo systemctl status mysqld
mysqld.service - MySQL Server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mysqld.service; enabled)
Active: activating (start) since Mon 2018-07-23 12:16:43 CST; 4h 54min ago
Docs: man:mysqld(8)
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/en/using-systemd.html
Process: 27963 ExecStartPre=/usr/bin/mysqld_pre_systemd (code=exited, status=0 /SUCCESS)
Main PID: 28033 (mysqld)
CGroup: /system.slice/mysqld.service
ââ28033 /usr/sbin/mysqld Hello, when I go in step 3, you give me the following error, please can you help me solve it. Error: Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)
[root@processagile ~]# mysqladmin -u root -p version
Enter password:
mysqladmin: connect to server at ‘localhost’ failed
error: ‘Access denied for user ‘root’@‘localhost’ (using password: YES)’ I have a problem with this tutorial, after i md5sum mysql80-community-release-el7-3.noarch.rpm command to verify the output is ‘4e07071a356ec12db0d09e1cdd739250 mysql80-community-release-el7-3.noarch.rpm’ that not equals with value on https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/repo/yum/ and then i cannot proceed to install mysql on my server, please help me. Please complete your information! Get paid to write technical tutorials and select a tech-focused charity to receive a matching donation. Full documentation for every DigitalOcean product. The Wave has everything you need to know about building a business, from raising funding to marketing your product. Stay up to date by signing up for DigitalOcean’s Infrastructure as a Newsletter. New accounts only. By submitting your email you agree to our Privacy Policy Scale up as you grow — whether you're running one virtual machine or ten thousand. Sign up and get $200 in credit for your first 60 days with DigitalOcean.* *This promotional offer applies to new accounts only.