How To Install MySQL Server on Ubuntu 16.04

In this tutorial, we will show you how to install and configuration of MySQL on your Ubuntu 16.04 server. For those of you who didn’t know, MySQL is a relational database management system (RDBMS) that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. The MySQL source code is freely available because it was originally developed as freeware. MySQL is written in C and C++ and is compatible with all major operating systems. MySQL can be used for a variety of applications but is most commonly found on web servers.

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. I will show you the step-by-step installation MySQL server in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) server.

Prerequisites

• A server running one of the following operating systems: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus).
• 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 Server on Ubuntu 16.04

Step 1. First, make sure that all your system packages are up-to-date by running the following apt-get commands in the terminal.

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade

Step 2. Install MySQL server on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) server.

Installing MySQL is as simple as running just one command below, At the moment of writing this article it is version 5.7:

apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

Once complete, you can verify MySQL is installed by running the below command:

systemctl status mysql
systemctl start mysql
systemctl status mysql

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 MySQL:

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

To log in to MySQL, use the following command (note that it’s the same command you would use to log into a MySQL database):

mysql -u root -p

One of the most important things when running MySQL on a production server is to get the most out of its performance. If you are a beginner and you do not know how to tune your MySQL server, you can start with a program called MySQLTuner. It will help you to analyze your server and to tune MySQL for better overall performance.

Congratulations! You have successfully installed MySQL. Thanks for using this tutorial for installing the MySQL server in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (Xenial Xerus) system. For additional help or useful information, we recommend you check the official MySQL website.

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