ProblemYou want to start and stop the mysql program. SolutionInvoke mysql from your command prompt to start it, specifying any connection parameters that may be necessary. To leave mysql, use a QUIT statement. DiscussionTo start the mysql program, try just typing its name at your command-line prompt. If mysql starts up correctly, you'll see a short message, followed by a mysql> prompt that indicates the program is ready to accept statements. To illustrate, here's what the welcome message looks like (to save space, I won't show it in any further examples): % mysql Welcome to the MySQL monitor. Commands end with ; or \g. Your MySQL connection id is 18427 to server version: 5.0.27-log Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the buffer. mysql> If you invoke mysql and you get an error message that it cannot be found or is an invalid command, that means your command interpreter doesn't know where mysql is installed. See Section 1.7 for instructions on setting the PATH environment variable that your command interpreter uses to find commands. If mysql tries to start but exits immediately with an "access denied" message, you need to specify connection parameters. The most commonly needed parameters are the host to connect to (the host that runs the MySQL server), your MySQL username, and a password. For example: % mysql -h localhost -p -u cbuser Enter password: cbpass If you don't have a MySQL username and password, you must obtain permission to use the MySQL server, as described earlier in Section 1.1. The way you specify connection parameters for mysql also applies to other MySQL programs such as mysqldump and mysqladmin. For example, to generate a dump file named cookbook.sql that contains a backup of the tables in the cookbook database, execute mysqldump like this: % mysqldump -h localhost -p -u cbuser cookbook > cookbook.sql Enter password: cbpass Some operations require an administrative MySQL account. The mysqladmin program can perform operations that are available only to the MySQL root account, so you need to invoke it as follows: % mysqladmin -p -u root shutdown Enter password: enter MySQL root account password here In general, I'll show commands for MySQL programs in examples with no connection parameter options. I assume that you'll supply any parameters that you need, either on the command line or in an option file (Section 1.4) so that you don't have to type them each time you invoke mysql, mysqldump, and so forth. The syntax and default values for the connection parameter options are shown in the following table. These options have both a single-dash short form and a double-dash long form.
If the value that you use for an option is the same as its default value, you can omit the option. However, as the table indicates, there is no default password. To supply one, use a -p or --password option, and then enter your password when mysql prompts you for it: % mysql -p Enter password: enter your password here If you like, you can specify the password directly on the command line by using -p password (note that there is no space after the -p) or --password = password. I don't recommend doing this on a multiple-user machine, because the password may be visible to other users who are running tools, such as ps, that report process information. To terminate a mysql session, issue a QUIT command: mysql> QUIT You can also terminate the session by issuing an EXIT command or (under Unix) by typing Ctrl-D.
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