MariaDB: Migration from MySQL

Introduction link

MariaDB is a community-developed fork of the MySQL relational database management system, the impetus being the community maintenance of its free status under the GNU GPL. As a fork of a leading open source software system, it is notable for being led by its original developers and triggered by concerns over direction by an acquiring commercial company Oracle. Contributors are required to share their copyright with Monty Program AB.

The intent is also to maintain high compatibility with MySQL, ensuring a “drop-in” replacement capability with library binary equivalency and exacting matching with MySQL APIs and commands. It includes the XtraDB storage engine as a replacement for InnoDB, as well as a new storage engine, Aria, that intends to be both a transactional and non-transactional engine perhaps even included in future versions of MySQL.

Its lead developer is Michael “Monty” Widenius, the founder of MySQL and Monty Program AB. He had previously sold his company, MySQL AB, to Sun Microsystems for 1 billion USD. MariaDB is named after Monty’s younger daughter, Maria.

For a migration from MySQL to MariaDB, it’s recommended to keep the same version (Example: MySQL 5.1 & MariaDB 5.1). Then you can upgrade to upper versions of MariaDB.

Installation link

To install MariaDB, it’s unfortunately not embedded in Debian, so we’ll add a repository. First of all, install a python tool to get aptkey:

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aptitude install python-software-properties

Then let’s add this repository (https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories/):

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apt-key adv --recv-keys --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xcbcb082a1bb943db
add-apt-repository 'deb http://mirrors.linsrv.net/mariadb/repo/10.0/debian wheezy main'

We’re now going to change apt pinning to prioritize MariaDB’s repository (/etc/apt/preferences.d/mariadb):

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Package: *
Pin: release o=MariaDB
Pin-Priority: 1000

You can delete MySQL if it was already installed:

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aptitude remove mysql-server mysql-client

Then we install MariaDB:

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aptitude update
aptitude install mariadb-server

That’s it, nothing else to do! Your MySQL databases are still accessible like if it was MySQL, but you’re running MariaDB :-)

References link

• http://mariadb.org/
• http://www.skysql.com/