I’m pretty sure I’m going to forget these steps, so, just to be safe, I’m putting it here. I’m dividing this tutorial into two sections, one for default MySQL that comes from Slackware and the other one is for new MySQL.

Using the Default MySQL#

We need to create separate (different from the default) directory for the data to be stored. I’m going to create a new one for it. I’m going to name the directory as mysql-1. Make sure you use full path when running mysql_install_db.

cd /var/lib
mkdir mysql-1
chown -R mysql.mysql mysql-1
mysql_install_db --datadir=/var/lib/mysql-1 --user=mysql

We also need a new configuration file so that it won’t clash with the default MySQL.

cp /etc/my-small.cnf /etc/my-1.cnf
nano /etc/my-1.cnf

These are the settings that I’ve changed from the default file (other settings remain unchanged).

[client]
port = 3307
socket = /var/run/mysql/mysql-1.sock

[mysqld]
port = 3307
socket = /var/run/mysql/mysql-1.sock
server-id = 10

innodb_data_home_dir = /var/lib/mysql-1/
innodb_log_group_home_dir = /var/lib/mysql-1/

To run our newly configured MySQL instance, use this command:

/usr/bin/mysqld_safe --defaults-file=/etc/my-1.cnf --datadir=/var/lib/mysql-1 &

By checking background process, you should see something like this

$ ps ax | grep mysql

23416 pts/1    S      0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --defaults-file=/etc/my-1.cnf --datadir=/var/lib/mysql-1
23515 pts/1    Sl     0:00 /usr/libexec/mysqld --defaults-file=/etc/my-1.cnf --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql-1 --user=mysql --log-error=/var/lib/mysql-1/eebox.err --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql-1/eebox.pid --socket=/var/run/mysql/mysql-1.sock --port=3307

Time for some test, we need to make sure we’re connecting to the correct server. One way to do this is by checking the server_id.

$ mysql -u root -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3307
mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE "server_id";
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| server_id     | 10    |
+---------------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

As you can see, we have the same server_id as we specified in our my-1.cnf. You can use this command to shut it down.

mysqladmin -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3307 shutdown

Using new Downloaded MySQL#

Download MySQL Download > MySQL Community Server > Linux Generic > Linux – Generic 2.6 (x86, 32-bit), Compressed TAR Archive

cp mysql-5.5.9-linux2.6-i686.tar.gz /opt
cd opt
tar zxvf mysql-5.5.9-linux2.6-i686.tar.gz
mv mysql-5.5.9-linux2.6-i686 mysql
cd mysql
chown -R mysql.mysql .
./scripts/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
cp support-files/my-small.cnf /etc/my-2.cnf
nano /etc/my-2.cnf

/etc/my-2.cnf

[client]
port = 3308
socket = /var/run/mysql/mysql-2.sock

[mysqld]
port = 3308
socket = /var/run/mysql/mysql-2.sock
server-id = 20

innodb_data_home_dir = /var/lib/mysql-1/
innodb_log_group_home_dir = /var/lib/mysql-1/

To run it, you need to specify some parameters

/opt/mysql/bin/mysqld --defaults-file=/etc/my-2.cnf --basedir=/opt/mysql --datadir=/opt/mysql/data --plugin-dir=/opt/mysql/lib/plugin --user=mysql --log-error=/opt/mysql/data/eebox.err

To shut it down, you can use the following command

./bin/mysqladmin -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3308 shutdown

You can test the server connection just like the method I used above.

That’s it, good luck!