Starting MySQL with different database directory

[Duane Hill]

On Mon, 5 Mar 2007, Kalashnikov Ilya wrote:

> On Mon, 2007-03-05 at 07:05 -0800, Dr. Jennifer Nussbaum wrote:
>
>> I hope this is the right place--i looked over the MySQL docs but they talk about a different startup practice than what FreeBSD uses.
>>
>> I have a new install of MySQL 5.1 on a FreeBSD 6.2 system. I want to have my
>> MySQL data directory in a place other than /var/db/mysql. I thought i do this by
>> copying the appropriate my.cnf into /etc/my.conf and adding a line like "datadir =
>> /usr/local/mysql/var/" and making it readable to mysql user. But this doesnt work;
>>  when i restart MySQL its still using /var/db/mysql.
>>
>> So i looked at the mysql-server startup script in /usr/local/etc/rc.d and added to
>> rc.conf "mysql_dbdir="/usr/local/mysql/var"". (I DON'T want to do it this way,
>> because i really want my MySQL related configuration things in my MySQL
>> configuration file, not split between there and my FreeBSD startup file. What if
>> i need to start mysql in some other way? But for now im just trying to see what
>> i can get to work.) This seemed to change something--mysqld had been running
>> when i made this change and when I ran "mysql-server stop" it couldnt stop,
>> because it was looking in /usr/local/mysql/var/foo.pid--i think this means it did
>> register the change to the new directory. But i couldnt then start it, because when
>> I run "mysql-server start" i get a "Can't connect to local MySQL server through
>> socket '/tmp/mysql.sock'" error.
>>
>> What's the right way to do this? Again id really prefer to do this all through the
>> my.cnf file, but this seems not to be getting read, at least for this reason.
>>
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Jen
>>
>>
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>
>
> By default MySQL daemon run as user "mysql". If you want start/stop
> mysqld then in /usr/local/etc/rc.d /mysql-server.sh replace line
> mysql_user="mysql" to mysql_user="<your-account>"
> and change in /etc/rc.conf   mysql_dbdir="/xxx/xxx/xx" or chahge owner
> for /xxx/xxx/xx to <your-account>
> Needed directory structure will created.
>
> Before all changes stop mysqld.
>

Or, you could just add underneath the mysql_enable line in /etc/rc.conf:

   mysql_flags="--user=user-to-run-as --datadir=/path/to/the/base/dir"

to /etc/rc.conf. That way you won't have to worry about possible 
overwriting of the startup script do to upgrades.