2.9 Installing MySQL from Source

Use a standard MySQL source distribution. To obtain a standard distribution, see Section 2.1.2, “How to Get MySQL”. For instructions on building from a standard distribution, see Section 2.9.2, “Installing MySQL Using a Standard Source Distribution”.

Standard distributions are available as compressed tar files, Zip archives, or RPM packages. Distribution files have names of the form mysql-VERSION.tar.gz, mysql-VERSION.zip, or mysql-VERSION.rpm, where VERSION is a number like 8.0.15. File names for source distributions can be distinguished from those for precompiled binary distributions in that source distribution names are generic and include no platform name, whereas binary distribution names include a platform name indicating the type of system for which the distribution is intended (for example, pc-linux-i686 or winx64).

Use a MySQL development tree. For information on building from one of the development trees, see Section 2.9.3, “Installing MySQL Using a Development Source Tree”.

CMake, which is used as the build framework on all platforms. CMake can be downloaded from http://www.cmake.org.

A good make program. Although some platforms come with their own make implementations, it is highly recommended that you use GNU make 3.75 or higher. It may already be available on your system as gmake. GNU make is available from http://www.gnu.org/software/make/.

MySQL 8.0 source code permits use of C++14 features. To enable a good level of C++14 support across all supported platforms, the following minimum compiler versions apply:

The MySQL C API requires a C++ or C99 compiler to compile.

The Boost C++ libraries are required to build MySQL (but not to use it). MySQL compilation requires a particular Boost version. Typically, that is the current Boost version, but if a specific MySQL source distribution requires a different version, the configuration process will stop with a message indicating the Boost version that it requires. To obtain Boost and its installation instructions, visit the official site. After Boost is installed, tell the build system where the Boost files are located by defining the WITH_BOOST option when you invoke CMake. For example:

cmake . -DWITH_BOOST=/usr/local/boost_version_number

Adjust the path as necessary to match your installation.

The ncurses library.

Sufficient free memory. If you encounter problems such as “internal compiler error” when compiling large source files, it may be that you have too little memory. If compiling on a virtual machine, try increasing the memory allocation.

Perl is needed if you intend to run test scripts. Most Unix-like systems include Perl. On Windows, you can use a version such as ActiveState Perl.

For a .tar.gz compressed tar file: GNU gunzip to uncompress the distribution and a reasonable tar to unpack it. If your tar program supports the z option, it can both uncompress and unpack the file.

GNU tar is known to work. The standard tar provided with some operating systems is not able to unpack the long file names in the MySQL distribution. You should download and install GNU tar, or if available, use a preinstalled version of GNU tar. Usually this is available as gnutar, gtar, or as tar within a GNU or Free Software directory, such as /usr/sfw/bin or /usr/local/bin. GNU tar is available from http://www.gnu.org/software/tar/.

For a .zip Zip archive: WinZip or another tool that can read .zip files.

For an .rpm RPM package: The rpmbuild program used to build the distribution unpacks it.

The Git revision control system is required to obtain the development source code. The GitHub Help provides instructions for downloading and installing Git on different platforms. MySQL officially joined GitHub in September, 2014. For more information about MySQL's move to GitHub, refer to the announcement on the MySQL Release Engineering blog: MySQL on GitHub

bison 2.1 or higher, available from http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/. (Version 1 is no longer supported.) Use the latest version of bison where possible; if you experience problems, upgrade to a later version, rather than revert to an earlier one.

bison is available from http://www.gnu.org/software/bison/. bison for Windows can be downloaded from http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/bison.htm. Download the package labeled “Complete package, excluding sources”. On Windows, the default location for bison is the C:\Program Files\GnuWin32 directory. Some utilities may fail to find bison because of the space in the directory name. Also, Visual Studio may simply hang if there are spaces in the path. You can resolve these problems by installing into a directory that does not contain a space; for example C:\GnuWin32.

On Solaris Express, m4 must be installed in addition to bison. m4 is available from http://www.gnu.org/software/m4/.