Install MySQL and MySQL Ruby gem on Snow Leopard, 64 bit

Posted on August 19, 2009 by kain

Warning: I consider this tutorial outdated. Please switch to a better system like brew, rvm and the mysql2 gem.

This is the source approach to get MySQL and MySQL Ruby gem working on Snow Leopard.

I assume you don’t have any previous MySQL installations lying around, this guide covers the installation from scratch.

If you want to install your ruby gems in your self-contained home directory without using sudo, check the end of the article.

Install required software

Let’s start by getting into a directory, I’ll use ~/src.
By convention you may want to use /SourceCache aswell.

Download the latest MySQL source distribution and install Xcode from Snow Leopard DVD.

While you’re downloading MySQL and installing Xcode you need to set your PATH environment variable correctly.

PATH Setup

Open a Terminal and verify what’s your current PATH by doing this:

echo $PATH

This will return a string containing the current search paths, you have to make sure that’s containing /usr/local/bin, /usr/local/sbin and /usr/local/mysql/bin.

Don’t rely on your terminal application to set those paths; instead go ahead and edit/create the file .bash_profile (file that starts with a dot are hidden) in your home folder (~).

As a Textmate user I’ll use the mate command to fire up my editor.

mate ~/.bash_profile

Inside this file, write:

PATH="/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH" # if not already present
PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin"
export PATH=$PATH

With this in place we are sure that we will find MySQL required files later.

If you don’t want to reopen the terminal or switch to another tab, just execute:

source ~/.bash_profile

This will pickup changes to $PATH.

MySQL installation

Decompress the MySQL source:

tar xzvf mysql-5.1.40.tar.gz && cd mysql-5.1.40

Of course match the version number you downloaded, the latest as of this writing is 5.1.40.

Configure MySQL this way (one line):

CC=gcc CFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer" CXX=gcc CXXFLAGS="-arch x86_64 -O3 -fno-omit-frame-pointer -felide-constructors -fno-exceptions -fno-rtti" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/mysql --with-extra-charsets=complex --enable-thread-safe-client --enable-local-infile --enable-shared --with-plugins=innobase

Compile MySQL and install:

make && sudo make install

We are not done with MySQL yet, we need to install default tables and set up permissions:

cd /usr/local/mysql
sudo ./bin/mysql_install_db --user=mysql
sudo chown -R mysql ./var

We now have to auto start MySQL upon booting.
Create a file named

com.mysql.mysqld.plist

and add the following code in it:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
    <key>KeepAlive</key>
    <true />
    <key>Label</key>
    <string>com.mysql.mysqld</string>
    <key>Program</key>
    <string>/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe</string>
    <key>RunAtLoad</key>
    <true />
    <key>UserName</key>
    <string>mysql</string>
    <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
    <string>/usr/local/mysql</string>
</dict>
</plist>

or see the script on github (raw).

Next move this file in the proper place with sudo and assign correct permissions:

sudo mv ~/src/com.mysql.mysqld.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons
sudo chown root /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist

Start up MySQL now with:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist

To stop MySQL manually do:

sudo launchctl unload -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist

MySQL should be running (unless you stopped it, eh), it’s time to change our MySQL root’s password:

mysqladmin -u root password "mypassword"

Replace mypassword with your password.

Test MySQL:

mysqladmin -u root -p version

Write your password when asked and you should see some useful data.

Time to install the ruby mysql bindings gem.

MySQL Ruby gem setup

Please see the section below for a note about sudo.

First, update rubygems.

sudo gem update --system

If this doesn’t work for some reason or you get “Nothing to update” try this instead:

sudo gem install rubygems-update
sudo update_rubygems

Time to build our gem, write:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config

And we are done, thanks for reading.

Extras

Not always is desiderable to install gems system-wide, so add this to your .bash_profile

export GEM_PATH="$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8"
export GEM_HOME="$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8"
PATH="$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin:$PATH"
export PATH=$PATH

This will self-contain gem files and binaries in your home directory and you can install gems without using sudo.

Bonus
My entire .bash_profile:

export GIT_EDITOR="/usr/bin/mate -w"
export EDITOR="/usr/bin/mate -w"
export RAILS="$HOME/src/rails"
export GEM_PATH="$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8"
export GEM_HOME="$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8"
 
# CAPP_BUILD, directory for built Cappuccino framework.
export CAPP_BUILD="$HOME/src/cappuccino_framework"
 
# Cappuccino jake branch.
PATH="$CAPP_BUILD/Release/CommonJS/objective-j/bin:$PATH"
PATH="$HOME/src/narwhal/bin:$PATH"
 
# Normal stuff.
PATH="$PATH:/opt/local/sbin"
PATH="$PATH:/opt/local/bin"
PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/mysql/bin"
PATH="$HOME/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin:$PATH"
 
# Finalize PATH
export PATH=$PATH
 
function parse_git_branch {
  ref=$(git symbolic-ref HEAD 2> /dev/null) || return
  echo "("${ref#refs/heads/}")"
}
 
RED="\[\033[0;31m\]"
YELLOW="\[\033[0;33m\]"
GREEN="\[\033[0;32m\]"
 
PS1="$RED\$(date +%H:%M) \w$YELLOW \$(parse_git_branch)$GREEN\$ "

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60 thoughts on “Install MySQL and MySQL Ruby gem on Snow Leopard, 64 bit”

Lorenzo on August 28, 2009 at 3:11 pm said:

You are my new hero!!

Thanks for the tip

Reply ↓
ANTStorm on August 29, 2009 at 5:17 pm said:

Thanks a lot! This saved me a lot of time!

After upgrading to Snow Leopard all of the ruby(and some others) header files were missing, so before actually compiling mysql install XCode from Optional Installations on your Snow Leopard DVD.

Reply ↓
Mike Farmer on August 30, 2009 at 3:32 am said:

Thanks for posting this. That space after the first “<" on the first two lines wouldn't allow launchctl to load the file. You may want to update that. I also ran "plutil -convert binary1 com.mysql.mysqld.plist" and that gave me the debugging information I needed.

Thanks again!

Reply ↓
Alex Eckermann on August 30, 2009 at 4:26 am said:

Cheers. Did save me some time and it worked first time.

+1 Awesomeness awarded to the Author :)

Reply ↓
kain on August 30, 2009 at 1:15 pm said:

@Mike Farmer thanks for pointing this out, post was updated to reflect this information, I have to find a solution to this formatting problem.

Reply ↓
kain on August 30, 2009 at 7:04 pm said:

after some tinkering tag rendering in com.mysql.mysqld.plist should be fixed.

Reply ↓
Antonio on August 31, 2009 at 10:35 pm said:

That was a great post. Saved me a ton of time.
Thanks
Antonio

Reply ↓
Pingback: Getting Macports and Git Working on Snow Leopard 10.6 | SFNaim | Curtis McHale
Justin Leitgeb on September 10, 2009 at 1:23 am said:

Great tips, saved me some time. FYI, the mysql version has already bumped since your post, and the new one is mysql-5.1.38. Not a big deal, I’m sure, but since we’re going through the trouble you might as well have the latest and greatest. :)

Reply ↓
kain on September 10, 2009 at 1:27 am said:

@Justin Leitgeb
yeah, good timing as I was looking at release notes, I’ll update the post, thanks :)

Reply ↓
Pingback: Instalando Apache y PHP 5.3 en Snow Leopard « El blog de Martini
Pingback: id blog = [self trainOf:_Thought]; :: Snow Leopard Migration Issues
oli on October 2, 2009 at 1:52 am said:

Thanks for your advice, saved me some time making it work 64 bit.

:-)

Reply ↓
TimoGlock on October 8, 2009 at 12:08 pm said:

There’s a weird problem while shutting down OSx, system takes 10-15 seconds with mysqld PID that’s still valid, you got the spinning round, so there’s something wrong… check this, launching in verbose mode and shutting your OSx down.

Reply ↓
noodl on October 10, 2009 at 11:20 pm said:

Small nitpick.. Better to use /Library/LaunchDaemons rather than /System/Library/LaunchDaemons it’ll work the same but follows the convention of not messing in /System
Otherwise thanks for the ARCHFLAGS=”-arch x86_64″ tip =)

Reply ↓
NICO on October 18, 2009 at 10:39 am said:

Imposible install mysql gem. I follow all the instructions but always show “No definition for …” mesasges.

Reply ↓
Pingback: Ruby on Rails on Snow Leopard « Libby Hemphill
Marcus on October 28, 2009 at 5:23 pm said:

Same here: all goes well until installing the gem;
Building native extensions. This could take a while…
ERROR: Error installing mysql:
ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

/Users/mmitchell/.rvm/ruby-1.8.6-p383/bin/ruby extconf.rb –with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
checking for mysql_ssl_set()… no
checking for rb_str_set_len()… no
checking for rb_thread_start_timer()… no
checking for mysql.h… no
checking for mysql/mysql.h… no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more
details. You may need configuration options.

Provided configuration options:
–with-opt-dir
–without-opt-dir
–with-opt-include
–without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
–with-opt-lib
–without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
–with-make-prog
–without-make-prog
–srcdir=.
–curdir
–ruby=/Users/mmitchell/.rvm/ruby-1.8.6-p383/bin/ruby
–with-mysql-config

Gem files will remain installed in /Users/mmitchell/.rvm/gems/ruby/1.8.6/gems/mysql-2.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /Users/mmitchell/.rvm/gems/ruby/1.8.6/gems/mysql-2.8.1/ext/mysql_api/gem_make.out

Anyone else getting this? Fixes?

Reply ↓
Kevin on October 31, 2009 at 10:30 pm said:

Sadly, I’m getting the same issue as Marcus.

Anybody have an idea?

Reply ↓
kain on November 1, 2009 at 8:04 am said:

are you sure you have /usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin in your PATH?

Reply ↓

Yup. They’re in my PATH. Also, MySQL is running fine, so I know the install is good. Thanks for your help!

~ echo $PATH
/Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/ruby-1.8.6-p383/bin:/Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/gems/ruby/1.8.6/bin:/Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin:/usr/local/mysql/bin:/Users/kevinsmith/sdks/android-sdk-mac_x86-1.6_r1/tools
~ env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing mysql:
        ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
 
/Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/ruby-1.8.6-p383/bin/ruby extconf.rb --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
checking for mysql_ssl_set()... no
checking for rb_str_set_len()... no
checking for rb_thread_start_timer()... no
checking for mysql.h... no
checking for mysql/mysql.h... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.
 
Provided configuration options:
        --with-opt-dir
        --without-opt-dir
        --with-opt-include
        --without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
        --with-opt-lib
        --without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
        --with-make-prog
        --without-make-prog
        --srcdir=.
        --curdir
        --ruby=/Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/ruby-1.8.6-p383/bin/ruby
        --with-mysql-config
 
 
Gem files will remain installed in /Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/gems/ruby/1.8.6/gems/mysql-2.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /Users/kevinsmith/.rvm/gems/ruby/1.8.6/gems/mysql-2.8.1/ext/mysql_api/gem_make.out
~

Reply ↓

kain on November 1, 2009 at 6:12 pm said:

did you update rubygems for your ruby version managed with rvm?
what’s your rubygem version? (gem -v)

I’m using the stock Ruby shipped with Snow Leopard, ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [universal-darwin10.0], rubygems 1.3.5

Reply ↓
Kevin on November 1, 2009 at 11:01 pm said:
Figured out my issue. By default, rvm was not building the x86_64 version of Ruby (was defaulting to i386). To fix this, I added the following to ~/.rmvrc:
rvm_archflags="-arch x86_64"
Then, I removed ~/.rvm/src/ruby-1.8.6-p383 and reinstalled 1.8.6 with rvm. After all that, the MySQL gem installed w/o a hitch.

I hope this helps anybody else with this same issue.

Thanks, Claudio, for your help and a great write up.
Reply ↓
- kain on November 1, 2009 at 11:02 pm said:
  
  very nice to know, hope your findings will help other peeps, thanks!
  
  Reply ↓
riccardo on November 7, 2009 at 8:53 pm said:

Thanks for the great help. But I get this error:

pastrufazio3:mysql riccardodebenedetti$ mysqladmin -u root -p version
Enter password:
mysqladmin: connect to server at ‘localhost’ failed
error: ‘Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ (2)’
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ exists!

What should I change?

Reply ↓
- kain on November 7, 2009 at 8:55 pm said:
  make sure you do not skip any step.
  
  obvious question: did you started mysql with
  sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist
  ?
  
  Also note that there are instructions in the article on how to stop mysql after this command, so make sure it’s running.
  Reply ↓
riccardo on November 7, 2009 at 9:10 pm said:

I launched and arrested Mysql but I received the error message

pastrufazio3:mysql riccardodebenedetti$ sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysqld.plist
pastrufazio3:mysql riccardodebenedetti$ mysqladmin -u root -p version
Enter password:
mysqladmin: connect to server at ‘localhost’ failed
error: ‘Can’t connect to local MySQL server through socket ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ (2)’
Check that mysqld is running and that the socket: ‘/tmp/mysql.sock’ exists!

Grazie mille

Reply ↓
- kain on November 7, 2009 at 9:27 pm said:
  
  can you see something like this
  http://img.skitch.com/20091107-j1tcwixcskq276a3he58cajfh.png
  in activity manager?
  the mysql daemon isn’t started for some reason, but I have little info to understand what’s going on here.
  
  Reply ↓
  - riccardo on November 7, 2009 at 9:39 pm said:
    
    Here is the picture of the processes involved:
    http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/HmfPn0b0-PT3Emi7kuR31Q?feat=directlink
    
    Reply ↓
    - kain on November 7, 2009 at 10:02 pm said:
      
      you may have multiple versions of mysql installed, especially one 32bit, probably from macports or binary dmg image.
      
      as stated in this guide I assumed that no prior versions of mysql are installed, you probably need to get rid of other versions running on your system
      
      Reply ↓
      - riccardo on November 7, 2009 at 11:22 pm said:
        
        I seemed to have them removed … Know any way to delete them deeply?
riccardo on November 8, 2009 at 12:21 am said:

I did a little ‘clean and everything works perfectly. Thank you
excellent help … big thanks

Reply ↓
- kain on November 8, 2009 at 1:31 am said:
  
  glad you sorted that out Riccardo! happy hacking
  
  Reply ↓

Hi Kain,

Awesome tutorial, I did everything and almost everything worked fine.
I could build and install mysql and it’s running nicely, but I really can’t install the mysql gem.

I’m with:

- Mac OS X 10.6.1
- Ruby 1.8.7 (2008-08-11 patchlevel 72) [universal-darwin10.0]
- Gem 1.3.5
- MySQL 5.1.40

And I’m getting the following error while trying to install the mysql gem:

manoel-lemoss-macbook-pro:~ mlemos$ sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysql_config
Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing mysql:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.
 
/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby extconf.rb
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lm... yes
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lz... yes
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lsocket... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lnsl... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
checking for main() in -lmygcc... no
checking for mysql_query() in -lmysqlclient... no
*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers.  Check the mkmf.log file for more
details.  You may need configuration options.
 
Provided configuration options:
	--with-opt-dir
	--without-opt-dir
	--with-opt-include
	--without-opt-include=${opt-dir}/include
	--with-opt-lib
	--without-opt-lib=${opt-dir}/lib
	--with-make-prog
	--without-make-prog
	--srcdir=.
	--curdir
	--ruby=/System/Library/Frameworks/Ruby.framework/Versions/1.8/usr/bin/ruby
	--with-mysql-config
	--without-mysql-config
	--with-mysql-dir
	--without-mysql-dir
	--with-mysql-include
	--without-mysql-include=${mysql-dir}/include
	--with-mysql-lib
	--without-mysql-lib=${mysql-dir}/lib
	--with-mysqlclientlib
	--without-mysqlclientlib
	--with-mlib
	--without-mlib
	--with-mysqlclientlib
	--without-mysqlclientlib
	--with-zlib
	--without-zlib
	--with-mysqlclientlib
	--without-mysqlclientlib
	--with-socketlib
	--without-socketlib
	--with-mysqlclientlib
	--without-mysqlclientlib
	--with-nsllib
	--without-nsllib
	--with-mysqlclientlib
	--without-mysqlclientlib
	--with-mygcclib
	--without-mygcclib
	--with-mysqlclientlib
	--without-mysqlclientlib
 
 
Gem files will remain installed in /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1 for inspection.
Results logged to /Library/Ruby/Gems/1.8/gems/mysql-2.8.1/ext/mysql_api/gem_make.out

Any ideias on how can I solve that?