mysqld_safe - Man Page

MariaDB server startup script (mysqld_safe is now a symlink to mariadbd-safe)

Synopsis

mysqld_safe options

Description

mysqld_safe is the recommended way to start a mysqld server on Unix. mysqld_safe adds some safety features such as restarting the server when an error occurs and logging runtime information to an error log file. Descriptions of error logging is given later in this section.

mysqld_safe tries to start an executable named mysqld. To override the default behavior and specify explicitly the name of the server you want to run, specify a --mysqld or --mysqld-version option to mysqld_safe. You can also use --ledir to indicate the directory where mysqld_safe should look for the server.

Many of the options to mysqld_safe are the same as the options to mysqld.

Options unknown to mysqld_safe are passed to mysqld if they are specified on the command line, but ignored if they are specified in the [mysqld_safe] or [mariadb_safe] groups of an option file.

mysqld_safe reads all options from the [mysqld], [server], [mysqld_safe], and [mariadb_safe] sections in option files. For example, if you specify a [mysqld] section like this, mysqld_safe will find and use the --log-error option:

[mysqld]
log-error=error.log

For backward compatibility, mysqld_safe also reads [safe_mysqld] sections, although you should rename such sections to [mysqld_safe] in current installations.

mysqld_safe supports the options in the following list. It also reads option files and supports the options for processing them.

If you execute mysqld_safe with the --defaults-file or --defaults-extra-file option to name an option file, the option must be the first one given on the command line or the option file will not be used. For example, this command will not use the named option file:

mysql> mysqld_safe --port=port_num --defaults-file=file_name

Instead, use the following command:

mysql> mysqld_safe --defaults-file=file_name --port=port_num

The mysqld_safe script is written so that it normally can start a server that was installed from either a source or a binary distribution of MariaDB, even though these types of distributions typically install the server in slightly different locations. mysqld_safe expects one of the following conditions to be true:

Because mysqld_safe tries to find the server and databases relative to its own working directory, you can install a binary distribution of MariaDB anywhere, as long as you run mysqld_safe from the MariaDB installation directory:

shell> cd mysql_installation_directory
shell> bin/mysqld_safe &

If mysqld_safe fails, even when invoked from the MariaDB installation directory, you can specify the --ledir and --datadir options to indicate the directories in which the server and databases are located on your system.

When you use mysqld_safe to start mysqld, mysqld_safe arranges for error (and notice) messages from itself and from mysqld to go to the same destination.

There are several mysqld_safe options for controlling the destination of these messages:

If none of these options is given, the default is --skip-syslog.

Note

If --syslog and --log-error are both given, a warning is issued and --log-error takes precedence.

When mysqld_safe writes a message, notices go to the logging destination (syslog or the error log file) and stdout. Errors go to the logging destination and stderr.

Normally, you should not edit the mysqld_safe script. Instead, configure mysqld_safe by using command-line options or options in the [mysqld_safe] section of a my.cnf option file. In rare cases, it might be necessary to edit mysqld_safe to get it to start the server properly. However, if you do this, your modified version of mysqld_safe might be overwritten if you upgrade MariaDB in the future, so you should make a copy of your edited version that you can reinstall.

On NetWare, mysqld_safe is a NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) that is ported from the original Unix shell script. It starts the server as follows:

  1. Runs a number of system and option checks.
  2. Runs a check on MyISAM tables.
  3. Provides a screen presence for the MariaDB server.
  4. Starts mysqld, monitors it, and restarts it if it terminates in error.
  5. Sends error messages from mysqld to the host_name.err file in the data directory.
  6. Sends mysqld_safe screen output to the host_name.safe file in the data directory.

See Also

For more information, please refer to the MariaDB Knowledge Base, available online at https://mariadb.com/kb/

Author

MariaDB Foundation (http://www.mariadb.org/).

Referenced By

mysqld_multi(1).

The man page mariadbd-safe(1) is an alias of mysqld_safe(1).

15 May 2020 MariaDB 10.11 MariaDB Database System