mariadbd-safe(1) — Linux manual page

NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO | AUTHOR | COLOPHON

MARIADBD-SAFE(1)         MariaDB Database System         MARIADBD-SAFE(1)

NAME         top

       mariadbd-safe - MariaDB server startup script (mariadbd-safe is
       now a symlink to mariadbd-safe)

SYNOPSIS         top


       mariadbd-safe options

DESCRIPTION         top

       mariadbd-safe is the recommended way to start a mariadbd server on
       Unix.  mariadbd-safe adds some safety features such as restarting
       the server when an error occurs and logging runtime information to
       an error log file. Descriptions of error logging is given later in
       this section.

       mariadbd-safe tries to start an executable named mariadbd. To
       override the default behavior and specify explicitly the name of
       the server you want to run, specify a --mariadbd or
       --mariadbd-version option to mariadbd-safe. You can also use
       --ledir to indicate the directory where mariadbd-safe should look
       for the server.

       Many of the options to mariadbd-safe are the same as the options
       to mariadbd.

       Options unknown to mariadbd-safe are passed to mariadbd if they
       are specified on the command line, but ignored if they are
       specified in the [mariadbd-safe] or [mariadbd_safe] groups of an
       option file.

       mariadbd-safe reads all options from the [mariadbd], [server],
       [mariadbd-safe] and [mariadbd_safe] sections in option files. For
       example, if you specify a [mariadbd] section like this, mariadbd-
       safe will find and use the --log-error option:

           [mariadbd]
           log-error=error.log

       For backward compatibility, mariadbd-safe also reads
       [safe_mariadbd] sections, although you should rename such sections
       to [mariadbd-safe] in current installations.

       mariadbd-safe supports the options in the following list. It also
       reads option files and supports the options for processing them.

       •   --help

           Display a help message and exit.

       •   --basedir=path

           The path to the MariaDB installation directory.

       •   --core-file-size=size

           The size of the core file that mariadbd should be able to
           create. The option value is passed to ulimit -c.

       •   --crash-script=file

           Script to call in the event of mariadbd crashing.

       •   --datadir=path

           The path to the data directory.

       •   --defaults-extra-file=path

           The name of an option file to be read in addition to the usual
           option files. This must be the first option on the command
           line if it is used. If the file does not exist or is otherwise
           inaccessible, the server will exit with an error.

       •   --defaults-file=file_name

           The name of an option file to be read instead of the usual
           option files. This must be the first option on the command
           line if it is used.

       •   --flush-caches

           Flush and purge buffers/caches before starting the server.

       •   --ledir=path

           If mariadbd-safe cannot find the server, use this option to
           indicate the path name to the directory where the server is
           located.

       •   --log-error=file_name

           Write the error log to the given file.

       •   --malloc-lib=lib

           Preload shared library lib if available.

       •   --mariadbd=prog_name

           The name of the server program (in the ledir directory) that
           you want to start. This option is needed if you use the
           MariaDB binary distribution but have the data directory
           outside of the binary distribution. If mariadbd-safe cannot
           find the server, use the --ledir option to indicate the path
           name to the directory where the server is located.

       •   --mariadbd-version=suffix

           This option is similar to the --mariadbd option, but you
           specify only the suffix for the server program name. The
           basename is assumed to be mariadbd. For example, if you use
           --mariadbd-version=debug, mariadbd-safe starts the
           mariadbd-debug program in the ledir directory. If the argument
           to --mariadbd-version is empty, mariadbd-safe uses mariadbd in
           the ledir directory.

       •   --nice=priority

           Use the nice program to set the server's scheduling priority
           to the given value.

       •   --no-auto-restart, --nowatch, --no-watch

           Exit after starting mariadbd.

       •   --no-defaults

           Do not read any option files. This must be the first option on
           the command line if it is used.

       •   --numa-interleave

           Run mariadbd with its memory interleaved on all NUMA nodes.

       •   --open-files-limit=count

           The number of files that mariadbd should be able to open. The
           option value is passed to ulimit -n. Note that you need to
           start mariadbd-safe as root for this to work properly!

       •   --pid-file=file_name

           The path name of the process ID file.

       •   --plugin-dir=dir_name

           Directory for client-side plugins.

       •   --port=port_num

           The port number that the server should use when listening for
           TCP/IP connections. The port number must be 1024 or higher
           unless the server is started by the root system user.

       •   --skip-kill-mariadbd

           Do not try to kill stray mariadbd processes at startup. This
           option works only on Linux.

       •   --socket=path

           The Unix socket file that the server should use when listening
           for local connections.

       •   --syslog, --skip-syslog

           --syslog causes error messages to be sent to syslog on systems
           that support the logger program.  --skip-syslog suppresses the
           use of syslog; messages are written to an error log file.

       •   --syslog-tag=tag

           For logging to syslog, messages from mariadbd-safe and
           mariadbd are written with a tag of mariadbd-safe and mariadbd,
           respectively. To specify a suffix for the tag, use
           --syslog-tag=tag, which modifies the tags to be mariadbd-
           safe-tag and mariadbd-tag.

       •   --timezone=timezone

           Set the TZ time zone environment variable to the given option
           value. Consult your operating system documentation for legal
           time zone specification formats.

       •   --user={user_name|user_id}

           Run the mariadbd server as the user having the name user_name
           or the numeric user ID user_id. (“User” in this context refers
           to a system login account, not a MariaDB user listed in the
           grant tables.)

       If you execute mariadbd-safe with the --defaults-file or
       --defaults-extra-file option to name an option file, the option
       must be the first one given on the command line or the option file
       will not be used. For example, this command will not use the named
       option file:

           mariadb> mariadbd-safe --port=port_num --defaults-file=file_name

       Instead, use the following command:

           mariadb> mariadbd-safe --defaults-file=file_name --port=port_num

       The mariadbd-safe script is written so that it normally can start
       a server that was installed from either a source or a binary
       distribution of MariaDB, even though these types of distributions
       typically install the server in slightly different locations.
       mariadbd-safe expects one of the following conditions to be true:

       •   The server and databases can be found relative to the working
           directory (the directory from which mariadbd-safe is invoked).
           For binary distributions, mariadbd-safe looks under its
           working directory for bin and data directories. For source
           distributions, it looks for libexec and var directories. This
           condition should be met if you execute mariadbd-safe from your
           MariaDB installation directory (for example, /usr/local/mysql
           for a binary distribution).

       •   If the server and databases cannot be found relative to the
           working directory, mariadbd-safe attempts to locate them by
           absolute path names. Typical locations are /usr/local/libexec
           and /usr/local/var. The actual locations are determined from
           the values configured into the distribution at the time it was
           built. They should be correct if MariaDB is installed in the
           location specified at configuration time.

       Because mariadbd-safe tries to find the server and databases
       relative to its own working directory, you can install a binary
       distribution of MariaDB anywhere, as long as you run mariadbd-safe
       from the MariaDB installation directory:

           shell> cd mysql_installation_directory
           shell> bin/mariadbd-safe &

       If mariadbd-safe fails, even when invoked from the MariaDB
       installation directory, you can specify the --ledir and --datadir
       options to indicate the directories in which the server and
       databases are located on your system.

       When you use mariadbd-safe to start mariadbd, mariadbd-safe
       arranges for error (and notice) messages from itself and from
       mariadbd to go to the same destination.

       There are several mariadbd-safe options for controlling the
       destination of these messages:

       •   --syslog: Write error messages to syslog on systems that
           support the logger program.

       •   --skip-syslog: Do not write error messages to syslog. Messages
           are written to the default error log file (host_name.err in
           the data directory), or to a named file if the --log-error
           option is given.

       •   --log-error=file_name: Write error messages to the named error
           file.

       If none of these options is given, the default is --skip-syslog.

           Note

       If --syslog and --log-error are both given, a warning is issued
       and --log-error takes precedence.

       When mariadbd-safe writes a message, notices go to the logging
       destination (syslog or the error log file) and stdout. Errors go
       to the logging destination and stderr.

       Normally, you should not edit the mariadbd-safe script. Instead,
       configure mariadbd-safe by using command-line options or options
       in the [mariadbd-safe] section of a my.cnf option file. In rare
       cases, it might be necessary to edit mariadbd-safe to get it to
       start the server properly. However, if you do this, your modified
       version of mariadbd-safe might be overwritten if you upgrade
       MariaDB in the future, so you should make a copy of your edited
       version that you can reinstall.

       On NetWare, mariadbd-safe is a NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) that
       is ported from the original Unix shell script. It starts the
       server as follows:

        1. Runs a number of system and option checks.

        2. Runs a check on MyISAM tables.

        3. Provides a screen presence for the MariaDB server.

        4. Starts mariadbd, monitors it, and restarts it if it terminates
           in error.

        5. Sends error messages from mariadbd to the host_name.err file
           in the data directory.

        6. Sends mariadbd-safe screen output to the host_name.safe file
           in the data directory.

COPYRIGHT         top

       Copyright 2007-2008 MySQL AB, 2008-2010 Sun Microsystems, Inc.,
       2010-2024 MariaDB Foundation

       This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it
       and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public
       License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of
       the License.

       This documentation is distributed in the hope that it will be
       useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied
       warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
       See the GNU General Public License for more details.

       You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
       along with the program; if not, write to the Free Software
       Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
       02110-1335 USA or see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

SEE ALSO         top

       For more information, please refer to the MariaDB Knowledge Base,
       available online at https://mariadb.com/kb/

AUTHOR         top

       MariaDB Foundation (http://www.mariadb.org/).

COLOPHON         top

       This page is part of the MariaDB (MariaDB database server)
       project.  Information about the project can be found at 
       ⟨http://mariadb.org/⟩.  If you have a bug report for this manual
       page, see ⟨https://mariadb.com/kb/en/mariadb/reporting-bugs/⟩.
       This page was obtained from the project's upstream Git repository
       ⟨https://github.com/MariaDB/server⟩ on 2025-02-02.  (At that time,
       the date of the most recent commit that was found in the
       repository was 2025-01-31.)  If you discover any rendering
       problems in this HTML version of the page, or you believe there is
       a better or more up-to-date source for the page, or you have
       corrections or improvements to the information in this COLOPHON
       (which is not part of the original manual page), send a mail to
       man-pages@man7.org

MariaDB 11.4                 3 September 2024            MARIADBD-SAFE(1)

Pages that refer to this page: mariadbd-multi(1)mariadbd-safe(1)