How to install and Configure Mariadb 10 in FreeBSD 13

In this guide we will learn how to install and configure MariaDB 10 in FreeBSD 13.

MariaDB is an open-source one of the most popular relational database management system (RDBMS) that is a highly compatible drop-in replacement of MySQL. It is built upon the values of performance, stability, and openness, and MariaDB Foundation ensures contributions will be accepted on technical merit.

MariaDB was developed as a software fork of MySQL in 2009 in response to Oracle’s acquisition of MySQL. MariaDB intends to remain free and open-source software under the GNU General Public License. It is part of most cloud offerings and the default in most Linux distributions.

Prerequisites:

To follow along, ensure you have:

An up to date FreeBSD server/workstation
Root access to the server or user with Sudo access
Access to the internet from the server

Ensure that the system is up to date

Before proceeding let us ensure that the Fedora server is up to date. We will use the pkg command as a root user if you don’t have sudo installed:

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pkg update

Installing mariadb in FreeBSD 13

Mariadb can found in the default FreeBSD repos. To search the name of the package, use this command:

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$ pkg search mariadb

mariadb-connector-c-3.2.4      MariaDB database connector for C
mariadb-connector-odbc-3.1.14  MariaDB database connector for odbc
mariadb103-client-10.3.32      Multithreaded SQL database (client)
mariadb103-server-10.3.32      Multithreaded SQL database (server)
mariadb104-client-10.4.22      Multithreaded SQL database (client)
mariadb104-server-10.4.22      Multithreaded SQL database (server)
mariadb105-client-10.5.13      Multithreaded SQL database (client)
mariadb105-server-10.5.13      Multithreaded SQL database (server)
p5-DBD-MariaDB-1.21            MariaDB driver for the Perl5 Database Interface (DBI)

Install the latest version of Mariadb (mariadb105-*) using this command

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pkg install mariadb105-server mariadb105-client

Starting and enabling Mariadb

Mariadb will not be started by default. Use this command to start:

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service mysql-server start

Confirm that the service is up and running by checking its status

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$ service mysql-server status

mysql is running as pid 1371.

Now that it is started, let us enable start on boot with this:

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$ sysrc mysql_enable="YES"

mysql_enable:  -> YES

Configuring MariaDB

For new MariaDB installations, the next step is to run the included security script. This script changes some of the less secure default options. We will use it to block remote root logins and to remove unused database users.

Run the security script:

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sudo mysql_secure_installation

This will take you through a series of prompts where you can make some changes to your MariaDB installation’s security options. The first prompt will ask you to enter the current database root password. Since we have not set one up yet, press ENTER to indicate &“none”.

The next prompt asks you whether you’d like to set up a database root password. Type N and then press ENTER. The root account for MariaDB is tied closely to automated system maintenance, so we should not change the configured authentication methods for that account. Doing so would make it possible for a package update to break the database system by removing access to the administrative account. Later, we will cover how to optionally set up an additional administrative account for password access if socket authentication is not appropriate for your use case.

From there, you can press Y and then ENTER to accept the defaults for all the subsequent questions. This will remove some anonymous users and the test database, disable remote root logins, and load these new rules so that MariaDB immediately respects the changes you have made.

This is my server’s output

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$ mysql_secure_installation

NOTE: RUNNING ALL PARTS OF THIS SCRIPT IS RECOMMENDED FOR ALL MariaDB
      SERVERS IN PRODUCTION USE!  PLEASE READ EACH STEP CAREFULLY!

In order to log into MariaDB to secure it, we'll need the current
password for the root user. If you've just installed MariaDB, and
haven't set the root password yet, you should just press enter here.

Enter current password for root (enter for none):
OK, successfully used password, moving on...

Setting the root password or using the unix_socket ensures that nobody
can log into the MariaDB root user without the proper authorisation.

You already have your root account protected, so you can safely answer 'n'.

Switch to unix_socket authentication [Y/n]
Enabled successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

You already have your root account protected, so you can safely answer 'n'.

Change the root password? [Y/n]
New password:
Re-enter new password:
Password updated successfully!
Reloading privilege tables..
 ... Success!

By default, a MariaDB installation has an anonymous user, allowing anyone
to log into MariaDB without having to have a user account created for
them.  This is intended only for testing, and to make the installation
go a bit smoother.  You should remove them before moving into a
production environment.

Remove anonymous users? [Y/n]
 ... Success!

Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from 'localhost'.  This
ensures that someone cannot guess at the root password from the network.

Disallow root login remotely? [Y/n]

 ... Success!

By default, MariaDB comes with a database named 'test' that anyone can
access.  This is also intended only for testing, and should be removed
before moving into a production environment.

Remove test database and access to it? [Y/n]  - Dropping test database...
 ... Success!
 - Removing privileges on test database...
 ... Success!

Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes made so far
will take effect immediately.

Reload privilege tables now? [Y/n]
 ... Success!

Cleaning up...

All done!  If you've completed all of the above steps, your MariaDB
installation should now be secure.

Thanks for using MariaDB!

Testing MariaDB

Now that mariadb is all set up and is running, we need to confirm that it can accept connections.

To test, connect to mariadb with root user - mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -p

Output:

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$ mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -p

Enter password:
Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 13
Server version: 10.5.13-MariaDB FreeBSD Ports

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

root@127.0.0.1 [(none)]>

Check mariadb version:

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root@127.0.0.1 [(none)]> SELECT VERSION();
+-----------------+
| VERSION()       |
+-----------------+
| 10.5.13-MariaDB |
+-----------------+
1 row in set (0.001 sec)

root@127.0.0.1 [(none)]>

For an additional check, you can try connecting to the database using the mysqladmin tool, which is a client that lets you run administrative commands. For example, this command says to connect to MariaDB as root and return the version using the Unix socket:

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mysqladmin version

You should receive output similar to this:

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$ mysqladmin version

mysqladmin  Ver 9.1 Distrib 10.5.13-MariaDB, for FreeBSD13.0 on amd64
Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Server version  10.5.13-MariaDB
Protocol version 10
Connection  Localhost via UNIX socket
UNIX socket  /var/run/mysql/mysql.sock
Uptime:   16 min 9 sec

Threads: 1  Questions: 25  Slow queries: 0  Opens: 21  Open tables: 14  Queries per second avg: 0.025

This means that MariaDB is up and running and that your user is able to authenticate successfully.

Conclusion

In this guide you installed MariaDB to act as an SQL server. During the installation process you also secured the server.