Technology Tales

Securing MySQL in Fedora

Ubuntu users must be spoilt because any MySQL installation asks you for a root password, a very good thing in my opinion. With Fedora, it just pops the thing on there with you needing to set up a service and setting the root password yourself; if I remember correctly, I think that openSUSE does the same thing. For the service management, I needed to grab system-config-services from the repositories because my Live CD installation left off a lot of stuff, OpenOffice and GIMP even. The following command line recipe addressed the service manager omission:

su -- # Change to root, entering password when asked
yum -y install system-config-services # Installs the thing without a yes/no prompt
exit # Return to normal user shell

Thereafter, the Services item from the menus at System > Administration was pressed into service and the MySQL service enabled and started. The next step was to lock down root so the following sequence was used:

mysql # Enter MySQL prompt; no need for user or password because it still is unsecured!
UPDATE mysql.user SET Password=PASSWORD(‘MyNewPass’) WHERE User=’root’;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
quit # Exit the mysql prompt, leaving the bare mysql command unusable

For those occasions when password problems keep you of the MySQL shell, you’ll find password resetting advice on the MySQL website but I didn’t need to go the whole hog here. MySQL Administrator might be another option for this type of thing. That thought never struck me while I was using it to set up less privileged users and allowing them access to the system. For a while, I was well stymied in my attempts to access the MySQL using any of those extra accounts until I got the idea of associating them with a host, another thing that is not needed in Ubuntu if my experience is any guide. All in all, Fedora may make you work a little extra to get things like thing done but I am not complaining if it makes you understand a little more about what is going on in the background, something that is never a disadvantage.

Command Line Software Management

One of the nice things about a Debian-based Linux distribution is that it is easy to pull a piece of software onto your system from a repository using either apt-get or aptitude. Some may prefer to have a GUI but I find that the command line offers certain extra transparency that stops the “what’s it doing?” type of question. that’s never to say that the GUI-based approach hasn’t a place and I only go using it when seeking out a piece of software without knowing its aptitude-ready name. Interestingly, there are signs that Canonical may be playing with the idea of making Ubuntu’s Software Centre a full application management tool with updates and upgrades getting added to the current searching, installation and removal facilities. That well may be but it’s going to take a lot of effort to get me away from the command line altogether.

Fedora and openSUSE have their software management commands too in the shape of yum and zypper, respectively. The recent flurry of new operating system releases has had me experimenting with both of those distros on a real test machine. As might be expected, the usual battery of installation, removal and update activities are well served and I have been playing with software searching using yum too. What has yet to mature is in-situ distribution upgrading à la Ubuntu. In principle, it is possible but I got a black screen when I tried moving from openSUSE 11.1 to 11.2 within VirtualBox using instructions on the openSUSE website. Not wanting to wait, I reached for a Live CD instead and that worked a treat on both virtual and real machines. Being in an experiment turn of mind, I attempted the same to get from Fedora 11 to the beta release of its version 12. A spot of repository trouble got me using a Live CD in its place. You can perform an in-situ upgrade from a full Fedora DVD but the only option is system replacement when you have a Live CD. Once installation is out of the way, YAST can be ignored in favour of zypper and yum is good enough that Fedora’s GUI-using alternative can be ignored. It’s nice to see good transparent ideas taking hold elsewhere and may make migration between distros much easier too.

Service management in Ubuntu 9.10

The final release of Ubuntu 9.10 is due out today but there is minor item that seems to have disappeared from the System>Administration menu, in the release candidate at least: Services. While some reader may put me right, I can’t seem to find it anywhere else. Luckily, there is a solution in the form of the GNOME Boot-Up Manager or BUM as it is known sometimes. It is always handy to have a graphical means of restarting services and BUM suffices for the purpose. Restarting Apache from the command line is all well and good but the GUI approach has its place too.