How to install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise)

[EN] How to install MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise)

This how to will cover the upgrade process of MySQL 5.6 on Ubuntu 12.04 precise. This may also work on Ubuntu 12.10 (quantal) but I haven’t tested it at moment.

DISCLAIMER: I am not responsible for any DATA LOSS you may face when using this how to! Use it at your own risk, create a backup and use your brain! With manual installation you will definitely LOOSE the support of your distribution vendor in case of security updates, be aware of this fact! Thank you!

This how to was created on an up to date (at the day of writing) Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS machine (use lsb_relase -a to check). MySQL was already running on this machine.

First of all you need to download your new mysql 5.6 server software. You will find the latest version at the download page of mysql.com. Select “Debian Linux” as your platform and depending on your architecture (use uname -i to get this info) you should choose the appropriate package. I have selected x86, 64 bit and will use the package “mysql-5.6.15-debian6.0-x86_64.deb” for the next steps. Hint: Oracle suggests you to login or register, you don’t need it as there is a link “No thanks, just start my download” at the bottom of the page ;-).

Download the package (about 300 MB):

wget http://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.6/mysql-5.6.15-debian6.0-x86_64.deb -O mysql-5.6.15-debian6.0-x86_64.deb

… and install it using dpkg:

dpkg -i  mysql-5.6.15-debian6.0-x86_64.deb

… don’t be a messy and delete the package as you hopefully won’t need it again:

 rm mysql-5.6.15-debian6.0-x86_64.deb

Now look at your fresh mysql 5.6 setup at /opt/mysql/server-5.6/. You should really read theINSTALL-BINARY file as there are some remarks that are good to know and aren’t covered in this howto.

As I mentioned there was already an running instance of mysql on my system. If something wents wrong we really want to have a kind of backup. You could do this on different ways, either you could use mysqldump or to keep it simple stop mysql using service mysql stopand copy your /var/lib/mysql directory using cp -rp /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql.old. This may take a lot of time depending on the size of your databases. In case of emergeny you could then install your distributions mysql version and use your old data.

service mysql stop && cp -rp /var/lib/mysql /var/lib/mysql.old

Now, as you have saved your production data you can remove your Ubuntu version of mysql-server. You can do this by:

apt-get remove mysql-server mysql-server-5.5 mysql-server-core-5.5

Move your my.cnf from /etc/mysql/my.cnf which is the Ubuntu default location to /etc/my.cnfwhich is the one mysql uses for the start scripts. Do this by mv /etc/mysql/my.cnf /etc/my.cnf and note that the /etc/mysql/conf.d/* files will be included anyway.

mv /etc/mysql/my.cnf /etc/my.cnf

To get mysql started you will need to copy the new startscript to /etc/init.d by cp /opt/mysql/server-5.6/support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server. As you probably want mysql to start automatically on system startup use update-rc.d mysql.server defaults to create a standard runlevel configuration.

cp /opt/mysql/server-5.6/support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server && update-rc.d mysql.server defaults

MySQL 5.6 depends on libaio which can installed by:

apt-get install libaio1

Set correct rights for your mysql installation:

chown -R mysql /opt/mysql/server-5.6/
chgrp -R mysql /opt/mysql/server-5.6/

Update some paths in your /etc/my.cnf (use a text editor of your choice, e.g. nano):

basedir = /opt/mysql/server-5.6
lc-messages-dir = /opt/mysql/server-5.6/share

And update your mysql information schema to the latest version:

/opt/mysql/server-5.6/scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql --datadir=/var/lib/mysql

Pitfall: This will create my.cnf in /opt/mysql/server-5.6/ which sets SQL mode to strict. Your applications may have problems with this mode. For compatibility reasons you should DELETE this my.cnf and only rely on your /etc/my.cnf. Delete it by rm /opt/mysql/server-5.6/my.cnf. You won’t be able to overwrite this setting with your /etc/my.cnf and removeSTRICT_TRANS_TABLES from your sql_mode. Read more about mysql_install_db here.

rm /opt/mysql/server-5.6/my.cnf

Start mysql by

service mysql.server start

And check your /var/log/syslog for errors. If everything works fine, you should see something like "Version: '5.6.10' socket: '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' port: 3306 MySQL Community Server (GPL)" and you shoudn’t find any mysql related errors.

Have fun with your freshly upgraded mysql 5.6 server!

Update (29.12.2013): Updated the download url and package name to mysql-5.6.15-debian6.0-x86_64.deb (Thanks hien)!

Courtesy:

http://www.peterchen.net/2013/02/20/en-how-to-install-mysql-5-6-on-ubuntu-12-04-precise/