You can be very productive with MySQL without dedicating a lot of time to configuration and administration. In Chapter 2, we’ll look at several common ways of setting up the software you’ll need for this book. While you can skip most of the instructions if you already have a working MySQL installation, we recommend you at least skim through the material for your operating system; we’ll frequently refer to parts of this chapter later on. As part of this chapter, we explain how you can configure your MySQL server for good security.
MySQL provides many other tools for administration, including compile-time options, a large configuration file, and standalone utilities developed by both MySQL AB and external developers. We’ll give you the basics that will keep you up and running in most environments, and will briefly describe even some relatively advanced topics.
We won’t cover all the programs that come with the MySQL distribution, and we won’t spend too long on each one; the MySQL reference manual does a good job of covering all the options. We’ll instead look at the programs and options that you’re most likely to use in practice; these are the ones we’ve used ourselves a reasonable number of times over several years of working with MySQL.
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