Installing MySQL 5 and related tools, in MacOSX for absolute newbies!

Apr 29, 2009 java english
Share on:

I get to receive quite often this question.This post is targeted to absolute beginners. It is just a collection of steps and relevant links on how to install MySQL database server on your mac, the default administration tools and a free mac based SQL client.

  1. Download MySQL Community Server. Head here, and select the MySQL server that fit's your MacOSX version.My choice for my CoreDuo iMac is - MacOSX 10.5 x86.

  2. After downloading the dmg, double click the dmg and you will have the following window!

Double click on mysql-5.1.xxx-osx.xx86.pkg το begin installing the actual server. After that, double click on the MySQL.prefPane to install a simple control panel found on your System Preferences. In the end you must have a successful installation of both and the MySQL item on your System Preferences will look something like the following image.

By pressing Start and Stop you can manually control the service and the check box underneath enables the by-default start of the service on your Macintosh start-up (if you wish so). I prefer to manually start it.

  1. Download the default MySQL Administration tools also known as GUI tools. Can be found here for mySQL 5.x. Eventually these tools are MySQL Administrator (a front-end in order to make various administrative tasks on your server such as define new users, new database schema's, assign roles, security and database connection properties) and MySQL Query browser, a simple SQL front end.

If you want to log in to your server and make any changes, you may use the root user for start server ip :localhost username : root password : (no password, blank)

This is how mySQL administrator looks like.

  1. Use a free SQL client.Eventually MySQL Query Browser (mentioned above) may do the job but if you are looking for something a bit more sophisticated and free, have a look on SequelPro. You will find it here.it's free + universal binary+ supports multiple major versions of MySQL.

Other possible alternatives for an SQL client would be the java based SQuirrel.

  1. If you are Java developer then you most probably will need to have the MySQL JDBC drivers. Found here.

That's all about it!