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MySQL Reference Manual :: 2.1.1 Operating Systems Supported by MySQL
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- 2.1 General Installation Issues
- 2.1.1 Operating Systems Supported by MySQL
- 2.1.2 Choosing Which MySQL Distribution to Install
- 2.1.3 How to Get MySQL
- 2.1.4 Verifying Package Integrity Using MD5 Checksums or GnuPG
- 2.1.5 Installation Layouts
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This section lists the operating systems on which you can expect to be able to run MySQL.
We use GNU Autoconf, so it is possible to port MySQL to all modern systems that have a C++ compiler and a working implementation of POSIX threads. (Thread support is needed for the server. To compile only the client code, the only requirement is a C++ compiler.) We use and develop the software ourselves primarily on Linux (SuSE and Red Hat), FreeBSD, and Sun Solaris (Versions 8 and 9).
MySQL has been reported to compile successfully on the following combinations of operating system and thread package. Note that for many operating systems, native thread support works only in the latest versions.
AIX 4.x, 5.x with native threads. See Section 2.12.5.3, “IBM-AIX notes”.
Amiga.
BSDI 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See Section 2.12.4.5, “BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes”.
BSDI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.x with native threads. See Section 2.12.4.5, “BSD/OS Version 2.x Notes”.
Digital Unix 4.x with native threads. See Section 2.12.5.5, “Alpha-DEC-UNIX Notes (Tru64)”.
FreeBSD 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See Section 2.12.4.1, “FreeBSD Notes”.
FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x with native threads. See Section 2.12.4.1, “FreeBSD Notes”.
FreeBSD 4.x with LinuxThreads. See Section 2.12.4.1, “FreeBSD Notes”.
HP-UX 10.20 with the DCE threads or the MIT-pthreads package. See Section 2.12.5.1, “HP-UX Version 10.20 Notes”.
HP-UX 11.x with the native threads. See Section 2.12.5.2, “HP-UX Version 11.x Notes”.
Linux 2.0+ with LinuxThreads 0.7.1+ or
glibc2.0.7+ for various CPU architectures. See Section 2.12.1, “Linux Notes”.Mac OS X. See Section 2.12.2, “Mac OS X Notes”.
NetBSD 1.3/1.4 Intel and NetBSD 1.3 Alpha (requires GNU make). See Section 2.12.4.2, “NetBSD Notes”.
Novell NetWare 6.0. See Section 2.6, “Installing MySQL on NetWare”.
OpenBSD > 2.5 with native threads. OpenBSD < 2.5 with the MIT-pthreads package. See Section 2.12.4.3, “OpenBSD 2.5 Notes”.
OS/2 Warp 3, FixPack 29 and OS/2 Warp 4, FixPack 4. See Section 2.12.6, “OS/2 Notes”.
SCO OpenServer 5.0.X with a recent port of the FSU Pthreads package. See Section 2.12.5.8, “SCO UNIX and OpenServer 5.0.x Notes”.
SCO UnixWare 7.1.x. See Section 2.12.5.9, “SCO UnixWare 7.1.x and OpenUNIX 8.0.0 Notes”.
SCO Openserver 6.0.x. See Section 2.12.5.10, “SCO OpenServer 6.0.x Notes”.
SGI Irix 6.x with native threads. See Section 2.12.5.7, “SGI Irix Notes”.
Solaris 2.5 and above with native threads on SPARC and x86. See Section 2.12.3, “Solaris Notes”.
SunOS 4.x with the MIT-pthreads package. See Section 2.12.3, “Solaris Notes”.
Tru64 Unix. See Section 2.12.5.5, “Alpha-DEC-UNIX Notes (Tru64)”.
Windows 9x, Me, NT, 2000, XP, and 2003. See Section 2.3, “Installing MySQL on Windows”.
Not all platforms are equally well-suited for running MySQL. How well a certain platform is suited for a high-load mission-critical MySQL server is determined by the following factors:
General stability of the thread library. A platform may have an excellent reputation otherwise, but MySQL is only as stable as the thread library it calls, even if everything else is perfect.
The capability of the kernel and the thread library to take advantage of symmetric multi-processor (SMP) systems. In other words, when a process creates a thread, it should be possible for that thread to run on a different CPU than the original process.
The capability of the kernel and the thread library to run many threads that acquire and release a mutex over a short critical region frequently without excessive context switches. If the implementation of
pthread_mutex_lock()is too anxious to yield CPU time, this hurts MySQL tremendously. If this issue is not taken care of, adding extra CPUs actually makes MySQL slower.General filesystem stability and performance.
If your tables are big, the ability of the filesystem to deal with large files at all and to deal with them efficiently.
Our level of expertise here at MySQL AB with the platform. If we know a platform well, we enable platform-specific optimizations and fixes at compile time. We can also provide advice on configuring your system optimally for MySQL.
The amount of testing we have done internally for similar configurations.
The number of users that have successfully run MySQL on the platform in similar configurations. If this number is high, the chances of encountering platform-specific surprises are much smaller.
Based on the preceding criteria, the best platforms for running
MySQL at this point are x86 with SuSE Linux using a 2.4 kernel, and
ReiserFS (or any similar Linux distribution) and SPARC with Solaris
(2.7-9). FreeBSD comes third, but we really hope it joins the top
club once the thread library is improved. We also hope that at some
point we is able to include into the top category all other
platforms on which MySQL currently compiles and runs okay, but not
quite with the same level of stability and performance. This
requires some effort on our part in cooperation with the developers
of the operating system and library components that MySQL depends
on. If you are interested in improving one of those components, are
in a position to influence its development, and need more detailed
instructions on what MySQL needs to run better, send an email
message to the MySQL internals mailing list. See
Section 1.6.1.1, “The MySQL Mailing Lists”.
Please note that the purpose of the preceding comparison is not to say that one operating system is better or worse than another in general. We are talking only about choosing an OS for the specific purpose of running MySQL. With this in mind, the result of this comparison would be different if we considered more factors. In some cases, the reason one OS is better than the other could simply be that we have been able to put more effort into testing and optimizing for a particular platform. We are just stating our observations to help you decide which platform to use for running MySQL.
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