We have many ways to install MySQL on linux machines such as source, binary and so on. But most of the Engineers always prefer default package managers (yum for RPM-Based distributions and apt for DPKG-Based distributions) for its ease of use and it can resolve all dependencies on its own. And of course, it is not possible to use package managers in environments where the internet is not allowed, but this is a different case. 

At some point, we need to install exactly specific version of MySQL for the following cases

• To create Production Replicas 
• To simulate an Production Issue on similar kind of environment
• To configure Disaster Recovery(DR)/UAT Setup
• Compatibility with opensource tools ( Eg , …

Security features overview

One of Oracle's tenets is the focus on security. For this reason, when it took over the stewardship of MySQL, it started addressing the most common issues. It was not quick acting, but we have seen real progress:

1. MySQL 5.7 has removed the anonymous accounts, which was the greatest threat to security. Because of those accounts, and the default privileges granted to them, users without any privileges could access the "test" database and do serious damage. Additionally, because of the way the privilege engine evaluates accounts, anonymous users could hijack legitimate users, by preventing them to work …

MySQL-Sandbox installs the MySQL server in isolation, by rejecting existing option files using the option --no-defaults. This is usually a good thing, because you don't want the initialization to be influenced by options in your /etc/my.cnf or other options files in default positions.

However, such isolation is also a problem when you need to add options during the initialization. One example is innodb-page-size, which can be set to many values, but only if the server was initialized accordingly. Thus, you can't set innodb-page-size=64K in your configuration file because the default value is different. It would fail, as InnoDB would conflict.

…

MySQL 8.0.0 was released today. It has been some time in the making, shrouded in a veil of secrecy for over one year. We knew, from listening to the gossip and looking at the few available previews, some of what was going to bring. So, for the observant users, its main features may not come as a surprise. For the rest of you, here's a quick roundup:

Notable features

• No MyISAM tables anymore! The grant tables are now InnoDB, meaning that grant operations are now atomic.
• A real data dictionary. This change is less visible than the previous one. The data dictionary tables are hidden and only a subset of the data is available through information_schema views. The reason for the hidden tables is to allow a stable interface through several versions. I am …

Several months ago I reported on Default Users in MySQL 5.7. With the addition of the sys schema the server needs an extra user to secure operations. The problem with extra users is that, if you are not aware of their existence and why they are needed, you may easily mismanage them. For example, you may have a cleanup routine that you run when you use a new server, and the routine may have a command like

DELETE FROM mysql.user WHERE user != 'root';

This was good up to MySQL 5.6. Then the sys schema was added, and with it the user mysql.sys, which may cause errors if you try to re-create views in the sys schema.

The latest user sneaking below the radar is mysqlxsys. Like its predecessor, it …

MySQL Sandbox 3.1.07 adds several options to execute shell or SQL commands during the sandbox installation.

Figure 1: MySQL Sandbox states and where you can run the hooks

There are 3 options to run shell commands, 2 to run SQL queries, and 2 to run SQL files.

## Shell commands
--pre_start_exec=command  : runs 'command' after the installation, before the server starts
--pre_grants_exec=command : runs 'command' after the server starts, before loading the grants.
--post_grants_exec=command : runs 'command' after the loading the grants.

## SQL statements
--pre_grants_sql=query : runs 'query' before loading the grants.
--pre_grants_file=filename : runs SQL file 'filename' before loading the grants.
--post_grants_sql=query : runs 'query' …

I saw an interesting post about the ability of installing MySQL 5.7 without changing existing tools and procedures. The post is a plea to make MySQL installation frictionless.

That post was followed by a conversation on Twitter, where the recent security enhancements are blamed for getting in the way of existing practices and need a rewrite of installation tools.

I know the problem very well, as I have faced the installation change in MySQL Sandbox. SO I can sympathize with the ones who have to change deployment tools that rely on mysql_install_db, which was a Perl script up to version 5.6, then it was replaced with a C++ program in 5.7 and deprecated in the same version.

It occurred to me that, in order to keep the …

This is a quick post only indirectly related to the series of articles about Docker that I have written recently.

Yesterday I was giving a presentation about Docker in Buenos Aires, and as usual I included a long live demo. Almost all went as expected. There was one step that I tried some time ago, and had always worked well, but when I tried to repeat it on stage, it failed miserably:

• Step 1: run the container

$ docker run  -d --name mybox -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=secret mysql/mysql-server …

Among the many New features introduced by MySQL 5.7, we can notice a strong trend towards improving the server security by default. Two features stand out in this respect:

• A password-less root is no longer the default for new installations. Unless you say otherwise, the default installers mysqld --initialize and the deprecated mysql_install_db will generate a random password which the user needs to change.
• The anonymous accounts are no longer created by default. When you start MySQL, you only get the root user (and a new one: read on).

The above features are a great advance not only for security but also for usability. The anonymous users were a continuous source of mismatched connections, …

Previous Episodes:

MySQL-Docker operations. - Part 1: Getting started with MySQL in DockerMySQL-Docker operations. - Part 2: Customizing MySQL in Docker
With the material covered in the first two articles, we have all the elements needed to set up replication in Docker. We just need to put the pieces together.
If you want to do everything by hand, it will only take a few minutes. The steps are not complicated. If you have followed the reasoning in the past episodes, you will know what to do.
Or, you can make your life easier by using the ready-made scripts available in Github as MySQL …