MySQL Database: Operating Systems Supported By MySQL

Operating Systems Supported by MySQL

This section lists the operating systems on which you can expect to be able to run MySQL.

We use GNU Autoconf, so it is possible to port MySQL to all modern systems that have a C++ compiler and a working implementation of POSIX threads. (Thread support is needed for the server. To compile only the client code, the only requirement is a C++ compiler.) We use and develop the software ourselves primarily on Linux (SuSE and Red Hat), FreeBSD, and Sun Solaris (Versions 8 and 9).

MySQL has been reported to compile successfully on the following combinations of operating system and thread package. Note that for many operating systems, native thread support works only in the latest versions.

  • AIX 4.x, 5.x with native threads..
  • Amiga.
  • BSDI 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package.
  • BSDI 3.0, 3.1 and 4.x with native threads.
  • Digital Unix 4.x with native threads.
  • FreeBSD 2.x with the MIT-pthreads package.
  • FreeBSD 3.x and 4.x with native threads. S
  • FreeBSD 4.x with LinuxThreads.
  • HP-UX 10.20 with the DCE threads or the MIT-pthreads package.
  • HP-UX 11.x with the native threads.
  • Linux 2.0+ with LinuxThreads 0.7.1+ or glibc 2.0.7+ for various CPU architectures.
  • Mac OS X.
  • NetBSD 1.3/1.4 Intel and NetBSD 1.3 Alpha (requires GNU make).
  • Novell NetWare 6.0.
  • OpenBSD > 2.5 with native threads. OpenBSD < 2.5 with the MIT-pthreads package.
  • OS/2 Warp 3, FixPack 29 and OS/2 Warp 4, FixPack 4.
  • SCO OpenServer with a recent port of the FSU Pthreads package.
  • SCO UnixWare 7.1.x.
  • SGI Irix 6.x with native threads.
  • Solaris 2.5 and above with native threads on SPARC and x86.
  • SunOS 4.x with the MIT-pthreads package.
  • Tru64 Unix.
  • Windows 9x, Me, NT, 2000, XP, and 2003.

Not all platforms are equally well-suited for running MySQL. How well a certain platform is suited for a high-load mission-critical MySQL server is determined by the following factors:

  • General stability of the thread library. A platform may have an excellent reputation otherwise, but MySQL is only as stable as the thread library it calls, even if everything else is perfect.
  • The capability of the kernel and the thread library to take advantage of symmetric multi-processor (SMP) systems. In other words, when a process creates a thread, it should be possible for that thread to run on a different CPU than the original process.
  • The capability of the kernel and the thread library to run many threads that acquire and release a mutex over a short critical region frequently without excessive context switches. If the implementation of pthread_mutex_lock() is too anxious to yield CPU time, this hurts MySQL tremendously. If this issue is not taken care of, adding extra CPUs actually makes MySQL slower.
  • General filesystem stability and performance.
  • If your tables are big, the ability of the filesystem to deal with large files at all and to deal with them efficiently.
  • Our level of expertise here at MySQL AB with the platform. If we know a platform well, we enable platform-specific optimizations and fixes at compile time. We can also provide advice on configuring your system optimally for MySQL.
  • The amount of testing we have done internally for similar configurations.
  • The number of users that have successfully run MySQL on the platform in similar configurations. If this number is high, the chances of encountering platform-specific surprises are much smaller.