How to install mysql 5.5 or 5.6 on ubuntu 16.04 xenial

Installing MySQL 5.5/6 on Ubuntu 16.06

You might be hosting your site on something like Acquia and they have recently upgraded to Ubuntu 16 Xenial.

However, you (as an awesome developer) still want to duplicate the environment as much as possible so you want to configure a local or staging server using Ubuntu, etc.

Here’s how to install MySQL 5.5/6 on Xenial.

First, a couple items:

• apt-get install mysql

This and other methods of installation will not work. You will need to do the install manually.

4-18-2019 – End Of Life

Before installing, you should consider that 5.5 is End of Life and 5.6 is EOL in 2021.

UPDATED 7-21-17 – Scroll to the bottom

Find the correct install for MySQL 5.5/6

Go to www.mysql.com  > downloads > you will see links for older versions.

When you get to the dropdowns for OS, you will see Ubuntu. Note that these only go up to 14. Instead, select Linux/Generic. Scroll to the bottom to get the TAR Archive – select 32 or 64 bit.

Click download

On the following page look for “No thanks, just start my download.” Right click and copy the URL. Here is the URL for 5.5 as it was when I wrote this:

https://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.5/mysql-5.5.56-linux-glibc2.5-x86_64.tar.gz

Connect to your server.

1. Uninstall any existing version of MySQL

   sudo rm /var/lib/mysql/ -R

2. Delete the MySQL profile

   sudo rm /etc/mysql/ -R

3. Automatically uninstall mysql

   sudo apt-get autoremove mysql* --purge
   sudo apt-get remove apparmor

4. Download version 5.5.51 from MySQL site

   wget https://dev.mysql.com/get/Downloads/MySQL-5.5/mysql-5.5.56-linux-glibc2.5-x86_64.tar.gz

5. Add mysql user group

   sudo groupadd mysql

6. Add mysql (not the current user) to mysql user group

   sudo useradd -g mysql mysql

7. Extract  to /usr/local

   sudo tar -xvf mysql-5.5.56-linux-glibc2.5-x86_64.tar.gz /usr/local/

8. Create mysql folder in /usr/local by moving the untarred folder

   cd /usr/local
   sudo mv mysql-5.5.49-linux2.6-x86_64 mysql

9. Set mysql directory owner and user group

   cd mysql
   sudo chown -R mysql:mysql *

10. Install the required lib package (works with 5.6 as well)

    sudo apt-get install libaio1

11. Execute mysql installation script

    sudo scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql

12. Set mysql directory owner from outside the mysql directory

    sudo chown -R root .

13. Set data directory owner from inside mysql directory

    sudo chown -R mysql data

14. Copy the mysql configuration file

    sudo cp support-files/my-medium.cnf /etc/my.cnf (mysql 5.5)
    sudo cp support-files/my-default.cnf /etc/my.cnf (mysl 5.6)

15. Start mysql

    sudo bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql &
    sudo cp support-files/mysql.server /etc/init.d/mysql.server

16. Initialize root user password

    sudo bin/mysqladmin -u root password '[your new password]'

17. Add mysql path to the system

    sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql /usr/local/bin/mysql

18. Reboot!
19. Start mysql server

    sudo /etc/init.d/mysql.server start
    

20. Stop mysql server

    sudo /etc/init.d/mysql.server stop

21. Check status of mysql

    sudo /etc/init.d/mysql.server status

22. Enable myql on startup

    sudo update-rc.d -f mysql.server defaults

    Disable mysql on startup (Optional)

    sudo update-rc.d -f mysql.server remove

23. REBOOT!
24. Now directly use the command below to start mysql if it hasn’t

    sudo service start mysql -u root -p

Update 7-21-2017

There’s always an easier way, instructions from here.

sudo add-apt-repository 'deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu trusty universe'
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt install mysql-server-5.6 * see note below if you get an error
sudo apt install mysql-client-5.6

You may need to

sudo rm /var/lib/mysql/debian-5.7.flag

or it will abort with Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)