After starting the year by upgrading my Ubuntu desktop at work to 5.1 (and spending a couple of hours after borking my new kernel), my mysql-server had become lost in the transition.
Reinstalling the mysql-server package gave a cryptic error message:
Setting up mysql-server-5.1 (5.1.37-1ubuntu5) ...
Installing new version of config file /etc/init.d/mysql ...
* Stopping MySQL database server mysqld [ OK ]
Warning: found usr.sbin.mysqld in /etc/apparmor.d/force-complain, forcing complain mode
* Starting MySQL database server mysqld [fail]
invoke-rc.d: initscript mysql, action "start" failed.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server-5.1 (--configure):
subprocess installed post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of mysql-server:
mysql-server depends on mysql-server-5.1; however:
Package mysql-server-5.1 is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing mysql-server (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Processing triggers for menu ...
No apport report written because the error message indicates its a followup error from a previous failure.
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-server-5.1
mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)
Quite weird, yes. Trying to find anything in the mysql-logs didn’t yield anything either (both were empty), but luckily the syslog provided an answer this time. Among loads of other messages regarding mysql the answer hid from general view:
Jan 7 14:30:48 ubuntu mysqld_safe[20249]: 100107 14:30:48 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: unknown option '--skip-bdb' Jan 7 14:30:48 ubuntu mysqld_safe[20249]: 100107 14:30:48 [ERROR] Aborting
Taking a look at the mysql config file in /etc/mysql/my.cnf confirmed this:
# # * BerkeleyDB # # Using BerkeleyDB is now discouraged as its support will cease in 5.1.12. skip-bdb
Apparently not just the support ceased, but also the skip-bdb parameter. That seems a bit odd – I’d suggest at least keeping the parameter around for another release cycle, but anyhow:
# # * BerkeleyDB # # Using BerkeleyDB is now discouraged as its support will cease in 5.1.12. # skip-bdb
And suddenly everything went in the right general direction!