[Techtalk] Starting mysql server

[James Sutherland]

On 19 Oct 2008, at 11:55, Anne Wainwright wrote:

> Hi, all,
>
> I am running mysql 4.1
>
> Cannot get the server mysqld to run which I trace down to a missing / 
> var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
> There is no copy anywhere on the installation (just upgraded).
> Maybe this is by design?
>
> Any suggestions please

That's a 'named socket', not a normal file - it's supposed to be  
created by mysqld when it starts, then all the clients connect to  
MySQL by opening that "file". It's a lot like a network socket, except  
local to that machine and governed by file permissions instead of  
firewall rules.

The absence shouldn't make mysqld fail to start, but it could be  
failing to create the socket: does your mysql user have write access  
to the directory /var/run/mysqld in order to create it? Is there  
anything helpful in the log files, or an error message when you run  
mysqld?


James.