Install MariaDB

Owned by Chris Welford
Last updated: Mar 12, 2022 by Samuel Kirby
4 min read

On this page we state the minimum requirements for a MariaDB installation to support PhixFlow, and present an example installation.

The example installation incorporates the minimum requirements for MariaDB. It is suitable as an initial configuration for many instances of PhixFlow, but note that some of the options may need to change over time as the work carried out by PhixFlow increases.

Windows/Antivirus

MariaDB is not compatible with on-access anti-virus software, so this must be disabled for the MariaDB data folder(s).

For full details for creating an exception see Add an exclusion to Windows Security - Microsoft Support. However, for example, if you are on Windows, and using Windows Defender, do the following:

  • Start → Settings → Update & Security → Windows Security → Virus & threat protection → [Virus & threat protection Manage settings] → Exclusions [Add or remove exclusions] → Add an exclusion

  • Select Process and enter the exact path and name of the executable for the service e.g. C:\Program Files\MariaDB 10.4\bin\mysqld.exe

Minimum requirements

The following are the minimum requirements for a MariaDB installation to support PhixFlow.

Installation

Option

Setting

Option

Setting

Version

See System Requirements and Compatibility.

The following configuration parameters must be set in my.cnf

datadir

Ensure that the data directory being used has sufficient space for the initial period of PhixFlow operation.

This is in the [mysqld] section of the my.cnf file.

binlog_format

mixed

This must be added to the [mysqld] section of the my.cnf file.

wait_timeout

28800 (this is the default, but some installation processes set this to a much lower value)

This must be in the [mysqld] section of the my.cnf file.

The following configuration parameters can optionally be set in my.cnf

log_bin_trust_function_creators

1

This must be in the [mysqld] section of the my.cnf file.

This setting is needed because PhixFlow's migration scripts sometimes require the use of non-deterministic functions

Example

If you add all parameters above to my.cnf, including the optional parameters, then the [mysqld] section of your my.cnf file should look something like this:

[mysqld] ... datadir = /var/lib/mysql ... wait_timeout = 28800 ... binlog_format = mixed log_bin_trust_function_creators = 1

Database

The following settings are required for the PhixFlow database. All of these parameters are reflected in the example MariaDB database creation command given here: Install the PhixFlow Database Schema.

You will need a database, and a login with all privileges on that database. The database should be created with the following options:

Option

Setting

Option

Setting

character_set_server

utf8

collation_server

utf8_bin

Example installation

The following configuration is suggested as a guide. It incorporates the minimum requirements for MariaDB databases above.

It is based on an installation of MariaDB on the Ubuntu distribution of Linux. Installation on other distributions of Linux will follow a very similar pattern. For Debian-based distributions, many of the commands will be identical. For RHEL-based distributions, the commands will be similar, replacing apt with yum. However, in all cases, please check with in the MariaDB documentation (https://mariadb.com/kb/en/getting-installing-and-upgrading-mariadb/) to check the exact details for installation on your platform. In particular, instructions for downloading and installing tailored to your Linux distribution and target version of MariaDB are provided here: https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories.

For Ubuntu 18.04 and MariaDB 10.3/10.4:

Configure repository

  • Install the prerequisites and add the signing key:

    sudo apt-get install software-properties-common sudo apt-key adv --fetch-keys 'https://mariadb.org/mariadb_release_signing_key.asc'

  • Either add the repo for 10.3:

    sudo add-apt-repository 'deb [arch=amd64,arm64,ppc64el] https://mirrors.ukfast.co.uk/sites/mariadb/repo/10.3/ubuntu bionic main'

  • Or 10.4:

Install

Edit my.cnf

Open your my.cnf file:

In the [mysqld] section, update or add the below variables to match these values:

For versions earlier than 10.6, the setting expire_logs_days = 2 is used instead of binlog_expire_logs_seconds.

Also in the [mysqld] section check that the following are either present, and if not add them (next to other innodb settings, although the placement of these does not actually matter, as long as they are in the [mysqld] section):

Check the innodb_buffer_pool_size parameter is set to a suitable size depending on the specification of the server. See https://phixflow.atlassian.net/wiki/pages/createpage.action?spaceKey=HELPTRUNKR&title=MariaDB%20Planning

Bounce MariaDB:

Hardening

To harden the installation, run:

Respond to the questions in the following way:

Switching to unix_socket authentication means there is no password for root, instead anybody with sudo access can log in using sudo mysql. 

If the first option does not come up, respond to Set root password? with y instead. This should only happen if you're installing an old version of MariaDB.

Post-install

Firewall

If you want to access your database from another server:

  • Open your firewall for inbound TCP connections to your server's port (default port is 3306).

Add Admin Users

You could now use the root user for everything, but

  1. it is better practice from a security viewpoint to create individual users with their own passwords,

  2. by default, the root user doesn't allow remote access

You can add admin users using mysql: