These instructions are for MySQL 4.0 on our Debian 3.1 (RC) system.

Install the MySQL packages:

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

Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysqlclient12 libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl
Suggested packages:
  dbishell libcompress-zlib-perl mysql-doc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  libdbd-mysql-perl libdbi-perl libmysqlclient12 libnet-daemon-perl libplrpc-perl mysql-client mysql-common
  mysql-server
0 upgraded, 8 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 5209kB of archives.
After unpacking 12.8MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]  

Once install starts there will be a Hints screen:

│ Install Hints

│ MySQL will only install if you have a NON-NUMERIC hostname that is resolvable via the /etc/hosts file. │ E.g. if the "hostname" command returns "myhostname" then there must be a line like "10.0.0.1 │ myhostname". │ │ A new mysql user "debian-sys-maint" will be created. This mysql account is used in the start/stop and │ cron scripts. Don't delete. │ │ Please remember to set a PASSWORD for the MySQL root user! If you use a /root/.my.cnf, always write │ the "user" and the "password" lines in there, never only the password! See │ /usr/share/doc/mysql-server/README.Debian for more information.

Answer YES when prompted to start MySQL at boot.

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

Set the password for MySQL root user:

# /usr/bin/mysqladmin -u root password '$MYSQL_ROOT'

Create the MySQL configuration file, and make sure nobody else can read it:

# touch ~/.my.cnf
# chmod 0600 ~/.my.cnf

Edit the file to set the password when using various client programs:

[mysql]
user     = 'root'
password = '$MYSQL_ROOT'

[mysqladmin]
user     = 'root'
password = '$MYSQL_ROOT'

I wanted to install mysql-doc package too, but it doesn't seem to exist in Sarge.

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/README.Debian for more information.

Not sure if we need to set a password on the "debian-sys-maint" account, or anything else like that. The Debian docs don't say anything about it, so I suppose we're OK.

Could probably use some tuning and routine maintenance.

Backups.

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