This section describes how start the server on Unix and Unix-like systems. (For Windows, see Section 2.3.4.5, “Starting the Server for the First Time”.) For some suggested commands that you can use to test whether the server is accessible and working properly, see Section 2.9.3, “Testing the Server”.

Start the MySQL server like this if your installation includes mysqld_safe:

$> bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &

Start the server like this if your installation includes systemd support:

$> systemctl start mysqld

Substitute the appropriate service name if it differs from mysqld (for example, mysql on SLES systems).

It is important that the MySQL server be run using an unprivileged (non-root) login account. To ensure this, run mysqld_safe as root and include the --user option as shown. Otherwise, you should execute the program while logged in as mysql, in which case you can omit the --user option from the command.

For further instructions for running MySQL as an unprivileged user, see Section 6.1.5, “How to Run MySQL as a Normal User”.

If the command fails immediately and prints mysqld ended, look for information in the error log (which by default is the host_name.err file in the data directory).

If the server is unable to access the data directory it starts or read the grant tables in the mysql database, it writes a message to its error log. Such problems can occur if you neglected to create the grant tables by initializing the data directory before proceeding to this step, or if you ran the command that initializes the data directory without the --user option. Remove the data directory and run the command with the --user option.

If you have other problems starting the server, see Section 2.9.2.1, “Troubleshooting Problems Starting the MySQL Server”. For more information about mysqld_safe, see Section 4.3.2, “mysqld_safe — MySQL Server Startup Script”. For more information about systemd support, see Section 2.5.10, “Managing MySQL Server with systemd”.