How To Install MariaDB on Rocky Linux 8

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MariaDB on Rocky Linux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, MariaDB is a powerful, popular, and highly scalable relational database. It is a very flexible open-source alternative to proprietary databases such as Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server. MariaDB offers many advanced features not found in other open-source databases including subqueries, stored procedures (in addition to triggers), and window functions. MariaDB is compatible with Linux and Windows operating systems.

This article assumes you have at least basic knowledge of Linux, know how to use the shell, and most importantly, you host your site on your own VPS. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account, if not you may need to add ‘sudo‘ to the commands to get root privileges. I will show you the step-by-step installation of the MariaDB database on Rocky Linux. 8.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems:  Rocky Linux 8.
• It’s recommended that you use a fresh OS install to prevent any potential issues.
• SSH access to the server (or just open Terminal if you’re on a desktop).
• A non-root sudo user or access to the root user. We recommend acting as a non-root sudo user, however, as you can harm your system if you’re not careful when acting as the root.

Install MariaDB on Rocky Linux 8

Step 1. The first step is to update your system to the latest version of the package list. To do so, run the following commands:

sudo dnf check-update
sudo dnf update

Step 2. Installing MariaDB on Rocky Linux 8.

By default, MariaDB is not available on Rocky Linux 8 base repository. Now run the following command below to add the MariaDB repository to your system:

sudo nano /etc/yum.repos.d/mariadb.repo

Add the following line:

# MariaDB 10.6 RedHat repository list - created UTC
# https://mariadb.org/download/

[mariadb]
name = MariaDB
baseurl = https://mirror.rackspace.com/mariadb/yum/10.6/rhel8-amd64
module_hotfixes=1
gpgkey=https://mirror.rackspace.com/mariadb/yum/RPM-GPG-KEY-MariaDB
gpgcheck=1

Then, run the following command to install the MariaDB package on your Rocky Linux:

sudo dnf update
sudo dnf install mariadb-server mariadb

Once the installation is complete, now enable MariaDB (to start automatically upon system boot), start, and verify the status using the commands below:

sudo systemctl start mariadb
sudo systemctl enable mariadb
sudo systemctl status mariadb

Step 3. Secure MariaDB on Rocky Linux.

By default, MariaDB is not hardened. You can secure MariaDB using the mysql_secure_installation script. you should read and below each step carefully which will set a root password, remove anonymous users, disallow remote root login, and remove the test database and access to secure MariaDB:

mysql_secure_installation

Configure it like this:

- Set root password? [Y/n] y
- Remove anonymous users? [Y/n] y
- Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n] y
- Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n] y
- Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n] y

Step 4. Testing the MariaDB installation.

Now that MariaDB is installed, you can test the connection to your MariaDB server:

mysql -u root -p

• mysql is the name of the command you are using to connect to the MariaDB server.
• -u root tells MariaDB that you want to log in as the root user.
• -p ensures that you are prompted to enter your password before the MariaDB shell will connect.

Output:

Enter password:
 Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
 Your MariaDB connection id is 13
 Server version: 10.6.4-MariaDB MariaDB Server
 Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.
 Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.
 MariaDB [(none)]>

Congratulations! You have successfully installed MariaDB. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the MariaDB server database on your Rocky Linux 8 system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official MariaDB website.