How To Install the Latest MySQL on Ubuntu 20.04

Introduction

MySQL is a prominent open-source relational database management system (RDBMS) used to create, store and retrieve data for a wide variety of popular applications. MySQL is the M in the LAMP stack, a commonly used set of open-source software that also includes Linux, the Apache web server, and the PHP programming language.

When MySQL releases new features, you may need to install a more up-to-date version than what your Linux distributor provides. For this reason, MySQL developers share their own software repository to install the latest version.

In this tutorial, you will install the latest version of MySQL. Before doing so, you will need to add the MySQL software repository. Then, you will install the MySQL software itself, secure the install, and verify that MySQL is running and responding to commands.

Prerequisites

Before starting this tutorial, you will need:

• An Ubuntu 20.04 server with a non-root, sudo-enabled user and a firewall, as described in this Ubuntu 20.04 server setup tutorial.

Step 1 — Adding the MySQL Software Repository

The MySQL developers provide a .deb package that configures and installs the official MySQL software repositories. Once the repositories are set up, you will run Ubuntu’s standard apt command to install the software. To do this, you will download the .deb file with curl and then install it with the dpkg command.

First, load the MySQL download page in your web browser. Find the Download button in the right corner and press it to get to the next page. This page will prompt you to log in or sign up for an Oracle web account. Ignore this and locate the link that says No thanks, just start my download. Right-click the link and select Copy Link Address (this option may be worded differently, depending on your browser).

Next, you will download the file. On your server, move to a directory you can write to:

cd /tmp

Download the file using curl and replace the highlighted URL with the address you copied from the MySQL Download page:

curl -OL https://dev.mysql.com/get/mysql-apt-config_0.8.18-1_all.deb

This command uses two flags with curl. -O instructs curl to output to a file instead of standard output. The L flag makes curl follow HTTP redirects, because the address you copied actually redirects to another location before the file downloads.

The file is now downloaded in your current directory. List the files to make sure:

ls

You will see the filename listed:

Output
mysql-apt-config_0.8.18-1_all.deb
. . .

Now you can use dpkg to begin the install:

sudo dpkg -i mysql-apt-config*

dpkg is used to install, remove, and inspect .deb software packages. The -i flag requests to install from the specified file.

During installation, you’ll be prompted with a configuration screen where you can choose which version of MySQL you prefer, and an option to install repositories for other MySQL-related tools.

Since you only want to install the latest version of MySQL, you can choose Ok from the menu options and press ENTER. The repository information you need is already included with the defaults.

The package will finish adding the repository. Then you can refresh your apt package cache to make the new software packages available:

sudo apt update

Tidy everything up by deleting the file download with the rm command:

rm mysql-apt-config*

Now that the MySQL repositories are added, you’re ready to install the actual MySQL server software. You can update the configuration of these repositories in the future by running sudo dpkg-reconfigure mysql-apt-config, selecting new options, and then sudo apt update to refresh your package cache.

Step 2 — Installing MySQL

With your new repository added and package cache freshly updated, you will use apt to install the latest MySQL server package:

sudo apt install mysql-server

apt identifies all available mysql-server packages and confirms that the MySQL package is the newest version. Then, it will calculate package dependencies and prompt you to approve the installation. Type y then ENTER to proceed with the installation.

You will be asked to create a root password during the configuration phase of the installation. Be sure to choose a secure password. After you enter the password twice and hit ENTER, you will be asked to configure an authentication plugin. The default of Use Strong Password Encryption is recommended, so press ENTER to choose it. The installation process will continue until finished.

MySQL is now installed and running. You can check with systemctl:

systemctl status mysql

Output
● mysql.service - MySQL Community Server
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/mysql.service; enabled; vendor preset: >
     Active: active (running) since Thu 2021-08-05 22:11:42 UTC; 1min 23s ago
       Docs: man:mysqld(8)
             http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/en/using-systemd.html
    Process: 5268 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/mysql-8.0/mysql-systemd-start pre (cod>
   Main PID: 5322 (mysqld)
     Status: "Server is operational"
      Tasks: 37 (limit: 9513)
     Memory: 353.3M
     CGroup: /system.slice/mysql.service
             └─5322 /usr/sbin/mysqld

MySQL is installed and running if you see Active: active (running). Next, you will secure your installation.

Step 3 — Securing MySQL

MySQL comes with a command we can use to perform a few security-related updates on our new install. Run the following command:

mysql_secure_installation

This command will bring up the configuration screen from earlier and ask for the MySQL root password credentials you created upon installation. Type it in and press ENTER. Then, you will answer a series of yes or no prompts. This is what they’ll ask:

• First, you will be asked whether you want to enable the validate password plugin, a plugin that can automatically enforce certain password strength rules for your MySQL users. Enabling this is a decision you’ll need to make based on your individual security needs. Type y and ENTER to enable it, or press ENTER to skip it. If enabled, you will also be prompted to choose a level from 0–2 on how strict the password validation will be. Choose a number and hit ENTER to continue.

• Second, you’ll be asked if you want to change the root password. Since you created the password during installation, you can safely skip this. Hit ENTER to continue without updating the password.

• Lastly, the other prompts can be answered yes. You will be asked about removing the anonymous MySQL user, disallowing remote root login, removing the test database, and reloading privilege tables to ensure the previous changes take effect properly. Type y and hit ENTER for each.

The configuration screen will disappear after all the prompts are answered. This indicates your MySQL installation is reasonably secured. You can confirm by running a client that connects to the server and returns some information.

Step 4 – Testing MySQL

mysqladmin is a command line administrative client for MySQL. You will use it connect to the server and output some version and status information:

mysqladmin -u root -p version

The -u root portion of this command tells mysqladmin to log in as the MySQL root user, -p instructs the client to ask for a password, and version is the actual command we want to run.

The output will let us know what version of the MySQL server is running, its uptime, and some other status information:

Output
mysqladmin  Ver 8.0.26 for Linux on x86_64 (MySQL Community Server - GPL)
Copyright (c) 2000, 2021, Oracle and/or its affiliates.

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its
affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective
owners.

Server version          8.0.26
Protocol version        10
Connection              Localhost via UNIX socket
UNIX socket             /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
Uptime:                 31 min 1 sec

Threads: 2  Questions: 12  Slow queries: 0  Opens: 130  Flush tables: 3  Open tables: 49  Queries per second avg: 0.006

This output indicates that you’ve successfully installed and secured the latest MySQL server.

Conclusion

You’ve now completed a basic install of the latest version of MySQL, which will work for many popular applications. If you have more advanced needs you can apply some other configuration tasks:

• If you prefer a graphical interface for administering your MySQL server, phpMyAdmin is a popular web-based solution. Our tutorial How To Install and Secure phpMyAdmin can get you started.
• If you want to create a new MySQL user, you can follow our tutorial How To Create a New User and Grant Permissions in MySQL
• If you want to create copies of your data in MySQL, check out our tutorial How To Set Up Replication in MySQL