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MySQL 5.1 Reference Manual :: 2 Installing and Upgrading MySQL :: 2.7 Installing MySQL on Mac OS X
2.7.1 Installing MySQL Using the Installation Package »
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2.7. Installing MySQL on Mac OS X

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2.7.1. Installing MySQL Using the Installation Package
2.7.2. Installing the MySQL Startup Item
2.7.3. Installing and Using the MySQL Preference Pane
2.7.4. Using MySQL on Mac OS X Server
2.7.5. MySQL Installation on Mac OS X Notes

MySQL for Mac OS X is available in a number of different forms:

  • Native Package Installer format, which uses the native Mac OS X installer to walk you through the installation of MySQL. For more information, see Section 2.7.1, “Installing MySQL Using the Installation Package”. You can use the package installer with Mac OS X 10.3 and later, and available for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, and both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. There is no Universal Binary available using the package installation method. The user you use to perform the installation must have administrator privileges.

  • Tar package format, which uses a file packaged using the Unix tar and gzip commands. To use this method, you will need to open a Terminal window. You do not need administrator privileges using this method, as you can install the MySQL server anywhere using this method. For more information on using this method, you can use the generic instructions for using a tarball, Section 2.2, “Installing MySQL from Generic Binaries on Unix/Linux”.You can use the package installer with Mac OS X 10.3 and later, and available for both PowerPC and Intel architectures, and both 32-bit and 64-bit architectures. A Universal Binary, incorporating both Power PC and Intel architectures and 32-bit and 64-bit binaries is available.

    In addition to the core installation, the Package Installer also includes Section 2.7.2, “Installing the MySQL Startup Item” and Section 2.7.3, “Installing and Using the MySQL Preference Pane”, both of which simplify the management of your installation.

  • Mac OS X server includes a version of MySQL as standard. If you want to use a more recent version than that supplied with the Mac OS X server release, you can make use of the package or tar formats. For more information on using the MySQL bundled with Mac OS X, see Section 2.7.4, “Using MySQL on Mac OS X Server”.

For additional information on using MySQL on Mac OS X, see Section 2.7.5, “MySQL Installation on Mac OS X Notes”.


User Comments

Posted by braintrino @ ComputationalNeuralSystems.com on May 14 2003 5:50pm[Delete] [Edit]

After you have setup mySQL, there is an excellent web-based tool to admin mySQL called phpMyAdmin. It saves you tons of typing or getting lost. It makes managing mySQL a breeze.

http://www.phpmyadmin.net/

It is a php tool, and php is already installed in MacOSX so everything is ready to go, and you don't need to do anything except installing phpMyAdmin.

Posted by Mark Allan on October 3 2005 9:26am[Delete] [Edit]

If you're trying to use MySQL with phpMyAdmin, you've set up the phpMyAdmin's config.inc.php, and you're getting an error saying "Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client", you need to set the password on the mysql command line using the OLD_PASSWORD('password') routine.

For example:
tcsh: mysql
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR root@localhost = OLD_PASSWORD('mypassword');

Posted by Paul Fletcher on August 11 2006 3:24am[Delete] [Edit]

I'm a little new to working with MySQL on our new Xserve G5. I was expecting a horrible time installing this, tons of files that would need to be compiled and installed in Terminal. I'm not bad in Terminal, but what a waste of time when it could be so much easier. Anyways, I just wanted to leave this review saying that this was EXTREMELY EASY to install, and it works GREAT! Thanks MySQL for all the time you spent on making a wonderful easy installer application, and GREAT documentation as well!

Thanks,
Paul

Posted by [name withheld] on September 27 2006 4:17pm[Delete] [Edit]

For those of you running on Mac OS 10.3 (Panther) like myself, this tip may save you a few hours...

I installed the MySQL 5 package from this website, and when I first tried to connect to the database using php4 (the preinstalled version that comes with MacOSx) I got an "or die" error that looked something like this -->

Warning: mysql_connect(): Client does not support authentication protocol requested by server; consider upgrading MySQL client

Solution:
save yourself some trouble and just read this...

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/old-client.html

This is just a quick and dirty fix. A better solution would be to upgrade php to version 5, but to do so you would also have to update apache as well. If your lazy like me this will do just fine.

Posted by Andre Mas on March 14 2010 10:59pm[Delete] [Edit]

Another approach is via MacPorts (http://www.macports.org) or Fink (http://www.finkproject.org), though there may be a small lag between the latest version of MySQL and the version available in the MacPorts and Fink repositories.

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