How do I run mysqld as a regular non-daemon program?

Question

I'd like to run a local copy of mysql, to keep software development environments isolated. However, I can't seem to get the mysqld server to start up.

I've created a database directory with mysql_install_db. I've figured out that I need a socket file, and how to specify the path. However, mysqld keeps reporting that it can't find or open the file.

/path/to/mysqld --datadir=./db/mysql --socket=./tmp/mysqld.sock

(snip)

130102 9:54:28 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: No such file or directory
130102 9:54:28 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: ./tmp/mysqld.sock ?

Answer 1

The socket file needs to be specified with a fully qualified path, although the datadir can stay relative.

/path/to/mysqld --datadir=./db/mysql --socket=/Users/jlove/myproject/tmp/mysqld.sock