The wrong MySQL
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2005-01-29 07:29:35 - Graham Ellis"MySQL won't let me log in and I'm sure I have my password right"
"I've just installed MySQL and I'm using it the first time - but it seems to have a lot of data about your books already loaded"
"I'm running MySQL version x, but it claims to be version y"
Occasional incidents of MySQL courses. A possible cause? With every trainee running a MySQL daemon on their computer so that they can practise administration tasks, someone may be connecting to the wrong server. Remember that MySQL provides its service through TCP/IP port 3306 (default) and so it can be just as easy to talk to a server on another machine as the server on yours. How is the decision made?
1. Within the code of MySQL clients, defaults are defined which are used if there's no other indication given
2. A file called /etc/my.cnf is checked for any changes from the default
(On Windows systems - my.ini in the Windows system directory)
3. A file called .my.cnf in the user's home directory is checked for any changes from default
(On Windows systems - my.cnf in the root directory)
4. Command line options can override settings
In the sourcing and Installing MySQL module of our notes, we say:
If Mysql has been pointed to elsewhere you may need to
mv /etc/my.cnf /etc/mycnf.old
mv ~/.my.cnf ~/mycnf.old
and on a new installation this will revert your MySQL clients back to defaults unless you use command line overrides.