Missing my-default.cnf Failing mysql_install_db

[Krzysztof Adamski]

Default installation of "5.6.27-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 (Ubuntu)" does not contain my-default.cnf. Because of that I can't run

host:/usr/bin$ mysql_install_db
FATAL ERROR: Could not find my-default.cnf

If you compiled from source, you need to run 'make install' to
copy the software into the correct location ready for operation.

If you are using a binary release, you must either be at the top
level of the extracted archive, or pass the --basedir option
pointing to that location.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Tom importepeu (aliasprotect-ubuntu)]

Hi,

We're using mysql-server 5.6 on Ubuntu Server 14.04.01. The package version is 5.6.27-0ubuntu0.14.04.1. I saw that this bug was fixed in release 5.6.23 but this bug also appears with 5.6.27 :
--
$ mysql_install_db --datadir=/home/mysql/data --basedir=/usr --keep-my-cnf
FATAL ERROR: Could not find my-default.cnf

If you compiled from source, you need to run 'make install' to
copy the software into the correct location ready for operation.

If you are using a binary release, you must either be at the top
level of the extracted archive, or pass the --basedir option
pointing to that location.
--
Indeed a my-defaut.cnf file exists in the package at /usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.6/examples/my-default.cnf which is not parsed by the find_in_basedir function of mysql_install_db perl script :
my $cfg_template= find_in_basedir($opt,"file","my-default.$cnfext",
                                  ".", "share","share/mysql","support-files");

This file is supposed to exist in /usr/share/mysql which is not in mysql-server-5.6 package release 5.6.27-0ubuntu0.14.04.1
Regards,
Tom.

[Robie Basak (racb)]

Thanks Tom and Krzysztof, this report is helpful.

[Robie Basak (racb)]

This has been fixed in mysql-server-core-5.7 in 16.04 onwards. my-default.cnf is shipped now. I don't think we intend to fix this in 14.04, as the workaround is trivial.