Fedora® 11 and Red Hat® Enterprise Linux® Bible

Chapter 24. Setting Up a MySQL Database Server

In This Chapter

• Finding MySQL packages

• Configuring the MySQL server

• Working with MySQL databases

• Displaying MySQL databases

• Making changes to tables and records

• Adding and removing user access

• Checking and fixing databases

MySQL is a popular Structured Query Language (SQL) database server. Like other database servers that utilize SQL, MySQL provides the means of accessing and managing SQL databases. However, MySQL also provides tools for creating database structures, as well as for adding, modifying, and removing data from those structures. Because MySQL is a relational database, data can be stored and controlled in small, manageable tables. Those tables can be used in combination to create flexible yet complex data structures.

A Swedish company called MySQL AB was responsible for developing MySQL (www.mysql.com). MySQL AB released MySQL as an open-source product several years ago, gaining revenue by offering a variety of MySQL support packages, commercial licenses, and MySQL brand franchise products. In February, 2008, Sun Microsystems Inc. acquired MySQL AB for about one billion dollars. (Who says you can't make money with open source software?) The following spring, Oracle acquired Sun and now has control of this and other open source software projects.

Although all the ramifications of Oracle's acquisition of MySQL have not all played out yet, for now MySQL software is still available as open-source software. However, for the time being, ...