[nylug-talk] Is there a general best practice location to install mysql?

[Peter C. Norton]

On Fri, Oct 05, 2007 at 09:11:03AM -0400, Brandorr wrote:
> On 10/5/07, Peter C. Norton <spacey-nylug at lenin.net> wrote:
> > On Thu, Oct 04, 2007 at 06:19:20PM -0400, Brandorr wrote:
> > > I am compiling it and want to match any typical filesystem locations
> > > for installation.
> > >
> > > Do I install in / ? Or in /usr  or in /usr/mysql5 or in /usr/mysql/5.0 ??
> >
> > Unless your distro has specific requirements (eg using arch or another
> > symlink system), the norm is to install the binaries in /usr/bin,
> > libraries in /usr/lib (or /usr/lib64 if you're going for a dual-abi),
> > and have data in /var/mysql. Configuration should go either into /etc
> > for a single file, /etc/mysql/ for configuration only, or sometimes
> > /var/lib/mysql/ with symlinks /etc/mysql. I'm not clear why the last
> > is done commonly, but I suspect it's so that everything important and
> > relevant to the database is on the same filesystem and can be moved
> > around as needed.
> 
> If that is the case how do people support concurrent installs of mysql 4 and 5?

I think that "support" of two databases is not always easily
automatable. Doing this usually requires more than just reloacting
binaries, since each version, at least, will require at least some
configuration on the part of the user for the location and naming of
sockets, and re-numbering of tcp ports. If you do this automatically,
you're going to have to do a bit of poking and prodding at the client
side, too. 

-Peter

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