mysql socket issues

Question

Whenever I try and run mysql I get the following error:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock' (2)

I did some research and it looks to be cause the file mysqld.sock doesn't exist. I did a

ps -elf | grep mysql

and could not find mysql running. I then did

service mysql start

and it just froze (never started) I eventually ^C out of it and did

service mysql status

and it said that mysql is running, but when I run

ps -elf | grep mysql

it again shows nothing. I then stop the mysql service and again it hangsup so I used ^C to stop that and when I check the status it properly shows the status as stopped. I am so awkwardly lost and don't know where to go from here. The following is the latest from my error log file:

111227 18:07:42 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't open file: './wordpress/wp_7_rg_form_view.frm' (errno: 24)
111227 21:37:43 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Normal shutdown

111227 21:37:43 [Note] Event Scheduler: Purging the queue. 0 events
111227 21:37:45  InnoDB: Starting shutdown...
111227 21:37:48  InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 0 4272160105
111227 21:37:48 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Shutdown complete

111227 21:40:33 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled. /usr/sbin/mysqld: Can't find file: './mysql/plugin.frm' (errno: 13)
111227 21:40:33 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it.
111227 21:40:33  InnoDB: Operating system error number 13 in a file operation.
InnoDB: The error means mysqld does not have the access rights to
InnoDB: the directory.
InnoDB: File name ./ibdata1
InnoDB: File operation call: 'open'.
InnoDB: Cannot continue operation.

The following is (part of) my my.cnf file:

[client]
port            = 3306
socket          = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

[mysqld_safe]
socket          = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
nice            = 0

[mysqld]
transaction-isolation=READ-COMMITTED
user            = mysql
socket          = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
port            = 3306
basedir         = /usr
datadir         = /storageContainer/mysql
tmpdir          = /tmp

Let me know if you need more info... We would theoretically need to get mysql back up and running without losing anydata ...

Side note: I also checked and we only have 1 instance of the mysql-server.

Answer 1

The error lines should help you : MySQL can't open files and then stop before doing something nasty. So check why these files can't be opened. ./wordpress/wp_7_rg_form_view.frm and ./mysql/plugin.frm should exists and be writeable for MySQL. Usualy they are in /var/lib/mysql folder in Linux (In your case /storageContainer/mysql). If they exists, check permissions. Do you change something on this server ? If MySQL loose files like this, there is maybe a hardware problem too.