SECURING MYSQL SERVER –

mysql_secure_installation is a script useful to

• set root password
• disallowing root login remotely
• removing anonymous user accounts after first installation
• removing test database which can be accessed by any users

Above script would work for default socket location i.e /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

If the server is started with a non-default socket location, mysql_secure_installation does not consider any socket options you specify and the script would fail (For example -> mysql_secure_installation –socket=/mysql/socket/mysql.sock)

We should also consider this situation in case if we need to install more than one instance of mysql on a single server.

For the secure installation script to work for a non default socket location, we need to create a softlink /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock -> <non-default socket>

1) ln -s /mysql/socket/mysqld.sock /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Then run mysql_secure_installation directly

2) mysql_secure_installation