How to Install MariaDB on CentOS 8

MariaDB is an open-source relational database management system and a drop replacement of MySQL DB server. It is a fork of MySQL and managed by the original MySQL developers. MariaDB is a multi-user, multi-threaded SQL database server. In this article you will learn how to install and secure MariaDB on CentOS 8 server.

Install MariaDB on CentOS 8#

MariaDB 10.3 version is available in the CentOS 8 repositories while writing this article so we will install it.

You should login using root or user with sudo privileges to install MariaDB 10.3 on CentOS 8 system. Run the below command to install:

sudo dnf install @mariadb

It will install MariaDB server and all dependencies.

You should start MariaDB service and enable it for automatically start on boot using below command:

sudo systemctl enable --now mariadb

You can verify that MariaDB server is running or not by typing:

sudo systemctl status mariadb

It should show output as given below:

● mariadb.service - MariaDB 10.3 database server
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/mariadb.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: active (running) since Sun 2020-02-02 20:15:06 UTC; 15s ago
...

Securing MariaDB#

You can increase the security of MariaDB server by running default script named mysql_secure_installation. Which performs security-related operations and remove anonymous user, restrict remote root access and remove test databases. Run the below command:

sudo mysql_secure_installation

At first, it will prompt you to enter root user password. Next, it will ask you weather you want to change or set password for root. Press y and hit Enter key. After that it will prompt series of questions, Press y and hit Enter to accept the defaults for all the subsequent questions.

It’s done! You have installed and secured MariaDB on your CentOS 8 server, and you can use it.

Connect to MariaDB from the command line#

You can connect MariaDB server through the terminal as the root account by typing:

mysql -u root -p

It will prompt you to enter root user password, Enter root user password. On successful it will show output as following:

Welcome to the MariaDB monitor.  Commands end with ; or \g.
Your MariaDB connection id is 18
Server version: 10.3.11-MariaDB MariaDB Server

Copyright (c) 2000, 2018, Oracle, MariaDB Corporation Ab and others.

Type 'help;' or '\h' for help. Type '\c' to clear the current input statement.

MariaDB [(none)]>

Conclusion#

You have successfully installed and secured MariaDB on a CentOS 8 server, and connect to MariaDB server using command line.

If you have specific requirement of MySQL instead of MariaDB, read How to Install MySQL on CentOS 8 tutorial.

If you have any question, feel free to comment below.