These instructions are for MySQL 5.0 on our Debian 4.0 system.

Install MySQL along with its pre-requisites:

apt-get install mysql-common mysql-client mysql-server

NOTE: The MySQL documentation is non-free, and not included with Debian. Use the online documentation provided at MySQL's site.

NOTE: In the following instructions, replace $MYSQL_ROOT with the actual password.

Set the password for MySQL root user. (If this doesn't work, rename your .my.cnf file temporarily and try again).

export MYSQL_ROOT=$MYSQL_ROOT
mysqladmin -u root password "$MYSQL_ROOT"

Create root's MySQL configuration file, and make sure nobody else can read it:

touch /root/.my.cnf
chmod 0600 /root/.my.cnf

Edit the /root/.my.cnf file to set the password when using various client programs:

[mysql]
user     = 'root'
password = '$MYSQL_ROOT' # THIS IS NOT THE REAL PASSWORD; DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THIS!

[mysqladmin]
user     = 'root'
password = '$MYSQL_ROOT' # THIS IS NOT THE REAL PASSWORD; DO NOT CUT AND PASTE THIS!

I wanted to install mysql-doc package too, but it doesn't seem to exist even in the non-free section. This appears to be due to the MySQL corporation's licensing.

The Debian installation creates a MySQL user named "debian-sys-maint". This MySQL account is used in the start/stop and cron scripts. Don't delete it.

See /usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.0/README.Debian.gz for more information.

Could probably use some tuning and routine maintenance.

Backups.

Initially installed, configured, and documented by Craig Buchek, 2005-02-23.

Installed version 5.0 on 2007-06-08, Craig Buchek.