As a general rule, we recommend that when upgrading from one release series to another, you should go to the next series rather than skipping a series. For example, if you currently are running MySQL 3.23 and wish to upgrade to a newer series, upgrade to MySQL 4.0 rather than to 4.1 or 5.0.
The following items form a checklist of things that you should do whenever you perform an upgrade:
Before upgrading from MySQL 4.1 to 5.0, read Section 2.11.2, “Upgrading from MySQL 4.1 to 5.0”) as well as Appendix D, MySQL Change History. These provide information about features that are new in MySQL 5.0 or differ from those found in MySQL 4.1. If you wish to upgrade from a release series previous to MySQL 4.1, you should upgrade to each successive release series in turn until you have reached MySQL 4.1, and then proceed with the upgrade to MySQL 5.0. For information on upgrading from MySQL 4.1 or earlier releases, see the MySQL 3.23, 4.0, 4.1 Reference Manual.
Before you perform an upgrade, back up your databases,
including the mysql database that contains
the grant tables.
Some releases of MySQL introduce incompatible changes to tables. (Our aim is to avoid these changes, but occasionally they are necessary to correct problems that would be worse than an incompatibility between releases.) Some releases of MySQL introduce changes to the structure of the grant tables to add new privileges or features.
To avoid problems due to such changes, after you upgrade to a new version of MySQL, you should run mysql_upgrade to check your tables (and repair them if necessary), and to update your grant tables to make sure that they have the current structure so that you can take advantage of any new capabilities. See Section 5.6.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
If you are running MySQL Server on Windows, see Section 2.3.14, “Upgrading MySQL on Windows”.
If you are using replication, see Section 6.6, “Upgrading a Replication Setup”, for information on upgrading your replication setup.
If you previously installed a MySQL-Max distribution that includes a server named mysqld-max, and then upgrade later to a non-Max version of MySQL, mysqld_safe still attempts to run the old mysqld-max server. If you perform such an upgrade, you should remove the old mysqld-max server manually to ensure that mysqld_safe runs the new mysqld server.
You can always move the MySQL format files and data files between
different versions on the same architecture as long as you stay
within versions for the same release series of MySQL. If you
change the character set when running MySQL, you must run
myisamchk -r -q
--set-collation=collation_name
on all MyISAM tables. Otherwise, your indexes
may not be ordered correctly, because changing the character set
may also change the sort order.
If you are cautious about using new versions, you can always rename your old mysqld before installing a newer one. For example, if you are using MySQL 4.1.13 and want to upgrade to 5.0.10, rename your current server from mysqld to mysqld-4.1.13. If your new mysqld then does something unexpected, you can simply shut it down and restart with your old mysqld.
If, after an upgrade, you experience problems with recompiled
client programs, such as Commands out of sync
or unexpected core dumps, you probably have used old header or
library files when compiling your programs. In this case, you
should check the date for your mysql.h file
and libmysqlclient.a library to verify that
they are from the new MySQL distribution. If not, recompile your
programs with the new headers and libraries.
If problems occur, such as that the new mysqld
server does not start or that you cannot connect without a
password, verify that you do not have an old
my.cnf file from your previous installation.
You can check this with the --print-defaults
option (for example, mysqld --print-defaults).
If this command displays anything other than the program name, you
have an active my.cnf file that affects
server or client operation.
It is a good idea to rebuild and reinstall the Perl
DBD::mysql module whenever you install a new
release of MySQL. The same applies to other MySQL interfaces as
well, such as the PHP mysql extension and the
Python MySQLdb module.
When upgrading a 5.0 installation to 5.0.10 or above note that it is necessary to upgrade your grant tables. Otherwise, creating stored procedures and functions might not work. The procedure for doing this is described in Section 5.6.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
Note: It is good practice to back up your data before installing any new version of software. Although MySQL works very hard to ensure a high level of quality, you should protect your data by making a backup. MySQL generally recommends that you dump and reload your tables from any previous version to upgrade to 5.0.
In general, you should do the following when upgrading from MySQL 4.1 from 5.0:
Check the items in the change lists found later in this section to see whether any of them might affect your applications. Note particularly any that are marked Incompatible change. These result in incompatibilities with earlier versions of MySQL, and may require your attention before you upgrade.
Some releases of MySQL introduce incompatible changes to tables. (Our aim is to avoid these changes, but occasionally they are necessary to correct problems that would be worse than an incompatibility between releases.) Some releases of MySQL introduce changes to the structure of the grant tables to add new privileges or features.
To avoid problems due to such changes, after you upgrade to a new version of MySQL, you should check your tables (and repair them if necessary), and update your grant tables to make sure that they have the current structure so that you can take advantage of any new capabilities. See Section 5.6.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
Read the MySQL 5.0 change history to see what significant new features you can use in 5.0. See Section D.1, “Changes in release 5.0.x (Production)”.
If you are running MySQL Server on Windows, see Section 2.3.14, “Upgrading MySQL on Windows”.
MySQL 5.0 adds support for stored procedures.
This support requires the mysql.proc
table. To create this table, you should run the
mysql_upgrade program as described in
Section 5.6.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
MySQL 5.0 adds support for views. This support
requires extra privilege columns in the
mysql.user and
mysql.db tables. To create these columns,
you should run the mysql_upgrade program
as described in Section 5.6.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
If you are using replication, see Section 6.6, “Upgrading a Replication Setup”, for information on upgrading your replication setup.
Several visible behaviors have changed between MySQL 4.1 and MySQL 5.0 to make MySQL more compatible with standard SQL. These changes may affect your applications.
The following lists describe changes that may affect applications and that you should watch out for when upgrading to MySQL 5.0.
Server Changes:
Incompatible change: The
indexing order for end-space in TEXT
columns for InnoDB and
MyISAM tables has changed. Starting from
5.0.3, TEXT indexes are compared as
space-padded at the end (just as MySQL sorts
CHAR, VARCHAR and
TEXT fields). If you have a index on a
TEXT column, you should run
CHECK TABLE on it. If the check reports
errors, rebuild the indexes: Dump and reload the table if it
is an InnoDB table, or run
OPTIMIZE TABLE or REPAIR
TABLE if it is a MyISAM table.
Warning: Incompatible
change. For BINARY columns,
the pad value and how it is handled has changed as of MySQL
5.0.15. The pad value for inserts now is
0x00 rather than space, and there is no
stripping of the pad value for retrievals. For details, see
Section 11.4.2, “The BINARY and VARBINARY Types”.
Incompatible change: As of
MySQL 5.0.3, the server by default no longer loads
user-defined functions (UDFs) unless they have at least one
auxiliary symbol (for example, an
xxx_init or xxx_deinit
symbol) defined in addition to the main function symbol.
This behavior can be overridden with the
--allow-suspicious-udfs option. See
Section 24.2.4.6, “User-Defined Function Security Precautions”.
Incompatible change: The update log has been removed in MySQL 5.0. If you had enabled it previously, you should enable the binary log instead.
Incompatible change:
Support for the ISAM storage engine has
been removed in MySQL 5.0. If you have any
ISAM tables, you should convert them
before upgrading. For example, to
convert an ISAM table to use the
MyISAM storage engine, use this
statement:
ALTER TABLE tbl_name ENGINE = MyISAM;
Use a similar statement for every ISAM
table in each of your databases.
Incompatible change:
Support for RAID options in
MyISAM tables has been removed in MySQL
5.0. If you have tables that use these options, you should
convert them before upgrading. One way to do this is to dump
them with mysqldump, edit the dump file
to remove the RAID options in the
CREATE TABLE statements, and reload the
dump file. Another possibility is to use CREATE
TABLE to create a
new table from the new_tbl ... SELECT
raid_tblRAID table. However,
the CREATE TABLE part of the statement
must contain sufficient information to re-create column
attributes as well as indexes, or column attributes may be
lost and indexes will not appear in the new table. See
Section 13.1.5, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”.
The .MYD files for
RAID tables in a given database are
stored under the database directory in subdirectories that
have names consisting of two hex digits in the range from
00 to ff. After
converting all tables that use RAID
options, these RAID-related
subdirectories still will exist but can be removed. Verify
that they are empty, and then remove them manually. (If they
are not empty, there is some RAID table
that has not been converted.)
In MySQL 5.0.6, binary logging of stored routines and triggers was changed. This change has implications for security, replication, and data recovery, as discussed in Section 17.4, “Binary Logging of Stored Routines and Triggers”.
SQL Changes:
Incompatible change:
Beginning with MySQL 5.0.12, natural joins and joins with
USING, including outer join variants, are
processed according to the SQL:2003 standard. The changes
include elimination of redundant output columns for
NATURAL joins and joins specified with a
USING clause and proper ordering of
output columns. The precedence of the comma operator also
now is lower compared to JOIN,
LEFT JOIN, and so forth.
These changes make MySQL more compliant with standard SQL.
However, they can result in different output columns for
some joins. Also, some queries that appeared to work
correctly prior to 5.0.12 must be rewritten to comply with
the standard. For details about the scope of the changes and
examples that show what query rewrites are necessary, see
Section 13.2.7.1, “JOIN Syntax”.
Incompatible change:
Previously, a lock wait timeout caused
InnoDB to roll back the entire current
transaction. As of MySQL 5.0.13, it rolls back only the most
recent SQL statement.
Incompatible change: The
namespace for triggers has changed in MySQL 5.0.10.
Previously, trigger names had to be unique per table. Now
they must be unique within the schema (database). An
implication of this change is that DROP
TRIGGER syntax now uses a schema name instead of a
table name (schema name is optional and, if omitted, the
current schema will be used).
When upgrading from a previous version of MySQL 5 to MySQL
5.0.10 or newer, you must drop all triggers and re-create
them or DROP TRIGGER will not work after
the upgrade. Here is a suggested procedure for doing this:
Upgrade to MySQL 5.0.10 or later to be able to access
trigger information in the
INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TRIGGERS table.
(It should work even for pre-5.0.10 triggers.)
Dump all trigger definitions using the following
SELECT statement:
SELECT CONCAT('CREATE TRIGGER ', t.TRIGGER_SCHEMA, '.', t.TRIGGER_NAME,
' ', t.ACTION_TIMING, ' ', t.EVENT_MANIPULATION, ' ON ',
t.EVENT_OBJECT_SCHEMA, '.', t.EVENT_OBJECT_TABLE,
' FOR EACH ROW ', t.ACTION_STATEMENT, '//' )
INTO OUTFILE '/tmp/triggers.sql'
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TRIGGERS AS t;
The statement uses INTO OUTFILE, so
you must have the FILE privilege. The
file will be created on the server host. Use a different
filename if you like. To be 100% safe, inspect the
trigger definitions in the
triggers.sql file, and perhaps make
a backup of the file.
Stop the server and drop all triggers by removing all
.TRG files in your database
directories. Change location to your data directory and
issue this command:
shell> rm */*.TRG
Start the server and re-create all triggers using the
triggers.sql file. For the file
created earlier, use these commands in the
mysql program:
mysql>delimiter // ;mysql>source /tmp/triggers.sql //
Use the SHOW TRIGGERS statement to
check that all triggers were created successfully.
Incompatible change: As of
MySQL 5.0.15, the CHAR() function returns
a binary string rather than a string in the connection
character set. An optional USING
clause may
be used to produce a result in a specific character set
instead. Also, arguments larger than 256 produce multiple
characters. They are no longer interpreted modulo 256 to
produce a single character each. These changes may cause
some incompatibilities:
charset_name
CHAR(ORD('A')) = 'a' is no longer
true:
mysql> SELECT CHAR(ORD('A')) = 'a';
+----------------------+
| CHAR(ORD('A')) = 'a' |
+----------------------+
| 0 |
+----------------------+
To perform a case-insensitive comparison, you can
produce a result string in a non-binary character set by
adding a USING clause or converting
the result:
mysql>SELECT CHAR(ORD('A') USING latin1) = 'a';+-----------------------------------+ | CHAR(ORD('A') USING latin1) = 'a' | +-----------------------------------+ | 1 | +-----------------------------------+ mysql>SELECT CONVERT(CHAR(ORD('A')) USING latin1) = 'a';+--------------------------------------------+ | CONVERT(CHAR(ORD('A')) USING latin1) = 'a' | +--------------------------------------------+ | 1 | +--------------------------------------------+
CREATE TABLE ... SELECT CHAR(...)
produces a VARBINARY column, not a
VARCHAR column. To produce a
VARCHAR column, use
USING or CONVERT()
as just described to convert the
CHAR() result into a non-binary
character set.
Previously, the following statements inserted the value
0x00410041 ('AA'
as a ucs2 string) into the table:
CREATE TABLE t (ucs2_column CHAR(2) CHARACTER SET ucs2); INSERT INTO t VALUES (CHAR(0x41,0x41));
As of MySQL 5.0.15, the statements insert a single
ucs2 character with value
0x4141.
Incompatible change: By default, integer subtraction involving an unsigned value should produce an unsigned result. Tracking of the “unsignedness” of an expression was improved in MySQL 5.0.13. This means that, in some cases where an unsigned subtraction would have resulted in a signed integer, it now results in an unsigned integer. One context in which this difference manifests itself is when a subtraction involving an unsigned operand would be negative.
Suppose that i is a TINYINT
UNSIGNED column and has a value of 0. The server
evaluates the following expression using 64-bit unsigned
integer arithmetic with the following result:
mysql> SELECT i - 1 FROM t;
+----------------------+
| i - 1 |
+----------------------+
| 18446744073709551615 |
+----------------------+
If the expression is used in an UPDATE t SET i = i
- 1 statement, the expression is evaluated and the
result assigned to i according to the
usual rules for handling values outide the column range or 0
to 255. That is, the value is clipped to the nearest
endpoint of the range. However, the result is
version-specific:
Before MySQL 5.0.13, the expression is evaluated but is treated as the equivalent 64-bit signed value (–1) for the assignment. The value of –1 is clipped to the nearest endpoint of the column range, resulting in a value of 0:
mysql> UPDATE t SET i = i - 1; SELECT i FROM t;
+------+
| i |
+------+
| 0 |
+------+
As of MySQL 5.0.13, the expression is evaluated and retains its unsigned attribute for the assignment. The value of 18446744073709551615 is clipped to the nearest endpoint of the column range, resulting in a value of 255:
mysql> UPDATE t SET i = i - 1; SELECT i FROM t;
+------+
| i |
+------+
| 255 |
+------+
To get the older behavior, use CAST() to
convert the expression result to a signed value:
UPDATE t SET i = CAST(i - 1 AS SIGNED);
Alternatively, set the
NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION SQL mode.
However, this will affect all integer subtractions involving
unsigned values.
Incompatible change: Before
MySQL 5.0.13, NOW() and
SYSDATE() return the same value (the time
at which the statement in which the function occurs begins
executing). As of MySQL 5.0.13, SYSDATE()
returns the time at which it it executes, which can differ
from the value returned by NOW(). For
information about the implications for binary logging and
replication, see the description for
SYSDATE() in
Section 12.5, “Date and Time Functions” and for
SET TIMESTAMP in
Section 13.5.3, “SET Syntax”. To restore the former behavior
for SYSDATE() and cause it to be an alias
for NOW(), start the server with the
--sysdate-is-now option (available as of
MySQL 5.0.20).
Incompatible change: Before
MySQL 5.0.13,
GREATEST(
and
x,NULL)LEAST(
return x,NULL)x when
x is a
non-NULL value. As of 5.0.3, both
functions return NULL if any argument is
NULL, the same as Oracle. This change can
cause problems for applications that rely on the old
behavior.
Incompatible change: Before
MySQL 4.1.13/5.0.8, conversion of
DATETIME values to numeric form by adding
zero produced a result in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS
format. The result of DATETIME+0 is now
in YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.000000 format.
Incompatible change: In
MySQL 4.1.12/5.0.6, the behavior of LOAD DATA
INFILE and SELECT ... INTO
OUTFILE has changed when the FIELDS
TERMINATED BY and FIELDS ENCLOSED
BY values both are empty. Formerly, a column was
read or written the display width of the column. For
example, INT(4) was read or written using
a field with a width of 4. Now columns are read and written
using a field width wide enough to hold all values in the
field. However, data files written before this change was
made might not be reloaded correctly with LOAD DATA
INFILE for MySQL 4.1.12/5.0.6 and up. This change
also affects data files read by
mysqlimport and written by
mysqldump --tab, which use LOAD
DATA INFILE and SELECT ... INTO
OUTFILE. For more information, see
Section 13.2.5, “LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax”.
Incompatible change: The
implementation of DECIMAL has changed in
MySQL 5.0.3. You should make your applications aware of this
change. For information about this change, and about
possible incompatibilities with old applications, see
Chapter 21, Precision Math.
DECIMAL columns are stored in a more
efficient format. To convert a table to use the new
DECIMAL type, you should do an
ALTER TABLE on it. (The ALTER
TABLE also will change the table's
VARCHAR columns to use the new
VARCHAR data type properties, described
in a separate item.)
A consequence of the change in handling of the
DECIMAL and NUMERIC
fixed-point data types is that the server is more strict to
follow standard SQL. For example, a data type of
DECIMAL(3,1) stores a maximum value of
99.9. Before MySQL 5.0.3, the server allowed larger numbers
to be stored. That is, it stored a value such as 100.0 as
100.0. As of MySQL 5.0.3, the server clips 100.0 to the
maximum allowable value of 99.9. If you have tables that
were created before MySQL 5.0.3 and that contain
floating-point data not strictly legal for the data type,
you should alter the data types of those columns. For
example:
ALTER TABLEtbl_nameMODIFYcol_nameDECIMAL(4,1);
The behavior used by the server for
DECIMAL columns in a table depends on the
version of MySQL used to create the table. If your server is
from MySQL 5.0.3 or higher, but you have
DECIMAL columns in tables that were
created before 5.0.3, the old behavior still applies to
those columns. To convert the tables to the newer
DECIMAL format, dump them with
mysqldump and reload them.
Incompatible change: MySQL
5.0.3 and up uses precision math when calculating with
DECIMAL and integer columns (64 decimal
digits) and for rounding exact-value numbers. Rounding
behavior is well-defined, not dependent on the
implementation of the underlying C library. However, this
might result in incompatibilities for applications that rely
on the old behavior. (For example, inserting .5 into an
INT column results in 1 as of MySQL
5.0.3, but might be 0 in older versions.) For more
information about rounding behavior, see
Section 21.4, “Rounding Behavior”, and
Section 21.5, “Precision Math Examples”.
Incompatible change:
MyISAM and InnoDB
tables created with DECIMAL columns in
MySQL 5.0.3 to 5.0.5 will appear corrupt after an upgrade to
MySQL 5.0.6. (The same incompatibility will occur for these
tables created in MySQL 5.0.6 after a downgrade to MySQL
5.0.3 to 5.0.5.) If you have such tables, check and repair
them with mysql_upgrade after upgrading.
See Section 5.6.2, “mysql_upgrade — Check Tables for MySQL Upgrade”.
Incompatible change: Before
MySQL 5.0.2, SHOW STATUS returned global
status values. The default as of 5.0.2 is to return session
values, which is incompatible with previous versions. To
issue a SHOW STATUS statement that will
retrieve global status values for all versions of MySQL,
write it like this:
SHOW /*!50002 GLOBAL */ STATUS;
Incompatible change: User
variables are not case sensitive in MySQL 5.0.
In MySQL 4.1, SET @x = 0; SET @X = 1; SELECT
@x; created two variables and returned
0. In MySQL 5.0, it creates
one variable and returns 1. Replication
setups that rely on the old behavior may be affected by this
change.
Some keywords are reserved in MySQL 5.0 that were not reserved in MySQL 4.1. See Section 9.5, “Treatment of Reserved Words in MySQL”.
As of MySQL 5.0.3, trailing spaces no longer are removed
from values stored in VARCHAR and
VARBINARY columns. The maximum lengths
for VARCHAR and
VARBINARY columns in MySQL 5.0.3 and
later are 65,535 characters and 65,535 bytes, respectively.
When a binary upgrade (filesystem-level copy of data files)
to MySQL 5.0 is performed for a table with a
VARBINARY column, the column is
space-padded to the full allowable width of the column. This
causes values in VARBINARY columns that
do not occupy the full width of the column to include extra
trailing spaces after the upgrade, which means that the data
in the column is different.
In addition, new rows inserted into a table upgraded in this way will be space padded to the full width of the column.
This issue can be resolved as follows:
For each table containing VARBINARY
columns, execute the statement
ALTER TABLEtable_nameENGINE=engine_name;
where table_name is the name
of the table and engine_name
is the name of the storage engine currently used by
table_name. In other words,
if the table named mytable uses the
MyISAM storage engine, then you would
use this statement:
ALTER TABLE mytable ENGINE=MYISAM;
This rebuilds the table so that it uses the 5.0
VARBINARY format.
Then you must remove all trailing spaces from any
VARBINARY column values. For each
VARBINARY column
varbinary_column, you should
perform the following statement (where
table_name is the name of the
table containing the VARBINARY
column):
UPDATEtable_nameSETvarbinary_column= RTRIM(varbinary_column);
This is necessary and safe because trailing spaces are stripped before 5.0.3, meaning that any trailing spaces are erroneous.
This problem does not occur (and thus these two steps are not required) for tables upgraded using the recommended procedure of dumping tables prior to the upgrade and reloading them afterwards.
Note: If you create a table
with new VARCHAR or
VARBINARY columns in MySQL 5.0.3 or
later, the table will not be usable if you downgrade to a
version older than 5.0.3. Dump the table with
mysqldump before downgrading and reload
it after downgrading.
Comparisons made between FLOAT or
DOUBLE values that happened to work in
MySQL 4.1 may not do so in 5.0. Values of these types are
imprecise in all MySQL versions, and you are
strongly advised to avoid such
comparisons as WHERE
,
regardless of the MySQL version you are
using. See Section A.5.8, “Problems with Floating-Point Comparisons”.
col_name=some_double
As of MySQL 5.0.3, BIT is a separate data
type, not a synonym for TINYINT(1). See
Section 11.1.1, “Overview of Numeric Types”.
MySQL 5.0.2 adds several SQL modes that allow stricter
control over rejecting records that have invalid or missing
values. See Section 5.2.5, “The Server SQL Mode”, and
Section 1.9.6.2, “Constraints on Invalid Data”. If you want to
enable this control but continue to use MySQL's capability
for storing incorrect dates such as
'2004-02-31', you should start the server
with
--sql_mode="TRADITIONAL,ALLOW_INVALID_DATES".
As of MySQL 5.0.2, the SCHEMA and
SCHEMAS keywords are accepted as synonyms
for DATABASE and
DATABASES, respectively. (While
“schemata” is grammatically correct and even
appears in some MySQL 5.0 system database and table names,
it cannot be used as a keyword.)
A new startup option named
innodb_table_locks was added that causes
LOCK TABLE to also acquire
InnoDB table locks. This option is
enabled by default. This can cause deadlocks in applications
that use AUTOCOMMIT=1 and LOCK
TABLES. If you application encounters deadlocks
after upgrading, you may need to add
innodb_table_locks=0 to your
my.cnf file.
C API Changes:
Incompatible change:
Because the MySQL 5.0 server has a new implementation of the
DECIMAL data type, a problem may occur if
the server is used by older clients that still are linked
against MySQL 4.1 client libraries. If a client uses the
binary client/server protocol to execute prepared statements
that generate result sets containing numeric values, an
error will be raised: 'Using unsupported buffer
type: 246'
This error occurs because the 4.1 client libraries do not
support the new MYSQL_TYPE_NEWDECIMAL
type value added in 5.0. There is no way to disable the new
DECIMAL data type on the server side. You
can avoid the problem by relinking the application with the
client libraries from MySQL 5.0.
Incompatible change: The
ER_WARN_DATA_TRUNCATED warning symbol was
renamed to WARN_DATA_TRUNCATED in MySQL
5.0.3.
The reconnect flag in the
MYSQL structure is set to 0 by
mysql_real_connect(). Only those client
programs which did not explicitly set this flag to 0 or 1
after mysql_real_connect() experience a
change. Having automatic reconnection enabled by default was
considered too dangerous (due to the fact that table locks,
temporary tables, user variables, and session variables are
lost after reconnection).
You can copy the .frm,
.MYI, and .MYD files
for MyISAM tables between different
architectures that support the same floating-point format.
(MySQL takes care of any byte-swapping issues.) See
Section 14.1, “The MyISAM Storage Engine”.
In cases where you need to transfer databases between different architectures, you can use mysqldump to create a file containing SQL statements. You can then transfer the file to the other machine and feed it as input to the mysql client.
Use mysqldump --help to see what options are available. If you are moving the data to a newer version of MySQL, you should use mysqldump --opt to take advantage of any optimizations that result in a dump file that is smaller and can be processed more quickly.
The easiest (although not the fastest) way to move a database between two machines is to run the following commands on the machine on which the database is located:
shell>mysqladmin -h 'shell>other_hostname' createdb_namemysqldump --optdb_name| mysql -h 'other_hostname'db_name
If you want to copy a database from a remote machine over a slow network, you can use these commands:
shell>mysqladmin createshell>db_namemysqldump -h 'other_hostname' --opt --compressdb_name| mysqldb_name
You can also store the dump in a file, transfer the file to the target machine, and then load the file into the database there. For example, you can dump a database to a compressed file on the source machine like this:
shell> mysqldump --quick db_name | gzip > db_name.gz
Transfer the file containing the database contents to the target machine and run these commands there:
shell>mysqladmin createshell>db_namegunzip <db_name.gz | mysqldb_name
You can also use mysqldump and
mysqlimport to transfer the database. For
large tables, this is much faster than simply using
mysqldump. In the following commands,
DUMPDIR represents the full pathname
of the directory you use to store the output from
mysqldump.
First, create the directory for the output files and dump the database:
shell>mkdirshell>DUMPDIRmysqldump --tab=DUMPDIRdb_name
Then transfer the files in the
DUMPDIR directory to some
corresponding directory on the target machine and load the files
into MySQL there:
shell>mysqladmin createshell>db_name# create databasecatshell>DUMPDIR/*.sql | mysqldb_name# create tables in databasemysqlimportdb_nameDUMPDIR/*.txt # load data into tables
Do not forget to copy the mysql database
because that is where the grant tables are stored. You might
have to run commands as the MySQL root user
on the new machine until you have the mysql
database in place.
After you import the mysql database on the
new machine, execute mysqladmin
flush-privileges so that the server reloads the grant
table information.