Can't start/stop mysql service

Question

Taking over a Debian Etch web server with MySQL running.

I usually start, stop and restart msyql using:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart

For some reason on this set up I get the following:

:~# /etc/init.d/mysql stop

Stopping MySQL database server: mysqld failed!

The mysql process is running fine:

:~# ps aux | grep mysql 
root      2045  0.0  0.1   2676  1332 ?        S    Jun25   0:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
mysql     2082  0.6 10.7 752544 111188 ?       Sl   Jun25  18:49 /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-external-locking --port=3306 --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
root      2083  0.0  0.0   1568   504 ?        S    Jun25   0:00 logger -p daemon.err -t mysqld_safe -i -t mysqld
root     11063  0.0  0.0   2856   716 pts/0    S+   17:29   0:00 grep mysql

I'm sure there are some really easy way to do it but I want to understand what is going on as well. Why is the typical way not working for me?

EDIT UPDATE as an update:

JBRLSVR001:/var/log/mysql# mysqladmin shutdown
JBRLSVR001:/var/log/mysql# dpkg --list mysql\*
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed 
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                                         Version                                      Description
 +++-============================================-============================================-========================================================================================================
un  mysql-client                                 <none>                                       (no description available)
un  mysql-client-4.1                             <none>                                       (no description available)
ii  mysql-client-5.0                             5.0.32-7etch8                                mysql database client binaries
ii  mysql-common                                 5.0.32-7etch8                                mysql database common files (e.g. /etc/mysql /my.cnf)
un  mysql-common-4.1                             <none>                                       (no description available)
ii  mysql-server                                 5.0.32-7etch8                                mysql database server (meta package depending on the latest version)
un  mysql-server-4.1                             <none>                                       (no description available)
ii  mysql-server-5.0                             5.0.32-7etch8                                mysql database server binaries

mysqladmin shutdown does work but i'm still curious why the /etc/init.d/mysql commands aren't working.

Answer 1

mysqladmin shutdown

should work to shutdown the server.

I see two likely possibilities:

1. MySQL has a problem and is refusing to shut down for some reason.
2. The previous admin did something strange. Either modified the init.d script or didn't bother using the Debian packages at all to install MySQL.

What does dpkg --list mysql\* say?

What does /var/log/mysql.err say? Or the other mysql logs?

EDIT:

So mysqladmin shutdown worked?

According to that, the mysql-server package is installed (mysql-server-5.0; the mysql-server package is probably just a stub). So they may have installed over it? Running debsums mysql-server-5.0 might tell you more. dpkg --listfiles mysql-server-5.0 could help, too...

What's actually in /etc/init.d/mysql? I haven't checked that specific version of the package, but it should try to use mysqladmin shutdown ... Maybe you're lucky and they only broke that...

Answer 2

2 more hints:

sh -x /etc/init.d/mysql restart

This will show you the commands executed by the init script.

install the package debsums, and you can test which packages were modified (verify is also available for RPM, but IMHO works better).

Answer 3

Assuming the package is somewhat strange the problem could be the pid file. I suspect that the new packages or compiled install did not create /var/run/mysql/ or whatever is standard on Debian for the pid file to be written to or the init script is looking for the mysqld.pid file in another place. If you can fix the init/pid file mismatch things should probably work.

Answer 4

The mysql shutdown script uses the debian-sys-maint user to run 'mysqladmin shutdown', by reading the password for the user from /etc/mysql/debian.cnf. You should check that this file exists, and that you can run mysqladmin shutdown as this user.

Answer 5

You could technically end it with:

pkill -9 mysqld

But you might lose data?

You might be better off asking someone at http://www.serverfault.com

Answer 6

pkill mysql

will definitely work

Answer 7

Using "pkill mysql" will also likely lose you data, particularly if invoked as "pkill -9" :(

I'd also recommend using 'sh -x' to see what the problem with the init script might be, and you can also go peek in the error logs for MySQL (/var/log/mysql or /var/lib/mysql, depending on config) to see if it is stuck on a really long running query or something and thus not willing to quit gracefully quite yet.

Answer 8

use the following command :

$mysqladmin shutdown

this should be available in /usr/bin directory in your case.

Answer 9

you need to be a super user to start stop mysql (and most other services) on debian.

Not sure if you are already or not ... if not, you need to do one of

• log in as root
• put sudo before your /etc/init.d/mysql restart command (it'll ask you for your password, and you will need to be in the sudoers group)