Install MySQL Automatically On Ubuntu

If you need to complete an unattended installation or scripted install of MySQL On Ubuntu Linux you can do so easily by setting the necessary variable with debconf-set-selections. Typically when you install MySQL on Ubuntu it will pop up a window and ask for you to enter a password even when you have specified -y with apt-get install. Below are the commands necessary to set the password variable which then allow you to automatically install MySQL on Ubuntu.

Set MySQL Install Variable On Ubuntu Linux:

echo mysql-server mysql-server/root_password select PASSWORD | debconf-set-selections
echo mysql-server mysql-server/root_password_again select PASSWORD | debconf-set-selections

You simply add the above lines to your shell script or run the above commands from an Ubuntu terminal window. Make sure to change PASSWORD on each line to whatever you want the MySQL password to be. Once you have run the above commands you can install mysql-server which will also install mysql-server-core without any interaction as shown in the below example.

Install MySQL Automatically On Ubuntu:

root@ubuntu-dev:~# apt-get -y install mysql-server
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
mysql-server-5.5 mysql-server-core-5.5
Suggested packages:
tinyca
Recommended packages:
libhtml-template-perl
The following NEW packages will be installed:
mysql-server mysql-server-5.5 mysql-server-core-5.5
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 0 to remove and 40 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/14.9 MB of archives.
After this operation, 52.9 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Preconfiguring packages ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-server-core-5.5.
(Reading database ... 71643 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking mysql-server-core-5.5 (from .../mysql-server-core-5.5_5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-server-5.5.
Unpacking mysql-server-5.5 (from .../mysql-server-5.5_5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_amd64.deb) ...
Selecting previously unselected package mysql-server.
Unpacking mysql-server (from .../mysql-server_5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1_all.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
fopen: Permission denied
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Setting up mysql-server-core-5.5 (5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ...
Setting up mysql-server-5.5 (5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ...
121208 5:25:51 [Note] Plugin 'FEDERATED' is disabled.
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.3.4
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda.
121208 5:25:51 InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start
121208 5:25:52 InnoDB: 1.1.8 started; log sequence number 1595675
121208 5:25:52 InnoDB: Starting shutdown...
121208 5:25:52 InnoDB: Shutdown completed; log sequence number 1595675
mysql start/running, process 8468
Setting up mysql-server (5.5.24-0ubuntu0.12.04.1) ...
root@ubuntu-dev:~#

You should now be able to login to MySQL using the below syntax and after enter is clicked the password that was set using the debconf-set-selections command above.