How To Install MySQL on Rocky Linux 8

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install MySQL on Rocky Linux 8. For those of you who didn’t know, MySQL is an open-source, cross-platform, and one of the most widely used Relational Database Management Systems (RDMS). MySQL 8.0 was released a while back and it is built with a number of improvements to enable innovative DBAs and developers to create and deploy the next generation of applications on the latest technologies.

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 MySQL 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 MySQL 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 MySQL 8 on Rocky Linux 8.

By default, MySQL is not available on Rocky Linux 8 base repository. Now run the following command below to verify if any other versions are available with the following command:

sudo dnf module list mysql

If the Module does not actively enable it with the command below:

sudo dnf module enable mysql:8.0

Next, install MySQL 8.0 in Rocky Linux as follows:

sudo dnf install mysql

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 mysqld
sudo systemctl enable mysqld
sudo systemctl status mysqld

Step 3. Secure MySQL on Rocky Linux.

By default, MySQL is not hardened. You can secure MySQL 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

Once done, then we will check the version for installed MySQL:

mysql --version

Step 4. Accessing the MySQL.

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

mysql -u root -p

• mysql is the name of the command you are using to connect to the MySQL 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 MySQL shell will connect.

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