Sometimes it can not be avoided. MySQL needs to be installed for one reason or another. This post covers installing MySQL on FreeBSD.

Software Versions

$ date -u "+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S +0000"
2016-07-14 01:23:55 +0000
$ uname -vm
FreeBSD 11.0-ALPHA6 #0 r302384: Thu Jul  7 22:40:47 JST 2016     root@mirage.sennue.com:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/MIRAGE_KERNEL  amd64
$ mysqladmin -u root -p version
mysqladmin  Ver 8.42 Distrib 5.7.13, for FreeBSD11.0 on amd64

Server version		5.7.13-log
Protocol version	10
*snipped some output*

Instructions

Install using packages.

pkg install mysql57-server mysql57-client

Alternatively, install using ports.

portmaster databases/mysql57-server databases/mysql57-client

Enable MySQL in rc.conf.

/etc/rc.conf partial listing

mysql_enable="YES"

Start MySQL from the command line. Note that the above rc.conf line will automatically start MySQL when the machine boots. Note that the default location for my.conf is /usr/local/etc/mysql/my.cnf.

service mysql-server start

Note that if /var/db/mysql exists and is not empty, mysql-server will fail to start the first time. Backup or remove this directory if you need to. See this blog post to track down other errors when starting mysql-server for the first time.

# Backup
mv /var/db/mysql /var/db/mysql.old

# Remove
rm -rf /var/db/mysql

Reset the password. Note that the initial password is stored in $HOME/.mysql_secret. For example, if you use mysql -u root -p the initial password is stored in /root/.mysql_secret.

mysql -u root -p -e "ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';"

If upgrading from an earlier version, run mysql_upgrade. Note that the command below upgrades as the root user.

mysql_upgrade -u root -p

Uninstall with pkg.

pkg delete mysql57-server mysql57-client

Uninstall with portmaster.

portmaster -e databases/mysql57-server databases/mysql57-client

References: