How to install MariaDB 10 on CentOS 7 / RHEL 7

MariaDB Server has grown substantially in the past 6 years, so in February 2020 we’ve provided a refresh of this topic. You can find it here. If you are looking to upgrade to RHEL 8, you may enjoy our blog, “How to install MariaDB Server on RHEL 8 / CentOS 8“.

Installing MariaDB became very easy on the latest CentOS /RHEL Linux version 7. During initial setup MariaDB has a tick in the graphical setup environment which enables MariaDB and replaces MySQL.

During installation the section

allows enabling a MariaDB server.

If you prefer the command line the installation can be performed with:

shell> yum install mariadb-server

MariaDB is shipped untuned and not protected with MariaDB version 5.5.35. No basic optimizations in the configuration file have been set and the root user has no password. An update will install the version 5.5.37. (The latest version of MariaDB October 2014 is Version 5.5.39).

shell> yum update

It is important to secure the server. MariaDB is shipped with a script to harden the system accordingly using a user dialog. It is highly recommended to use this script before creating and populating the databases.

shell> mysql_secure_installation

Install the latest Version 10 is an easy step since MariaDB’s repository configuration wizard https://downloads.mariadb.org/mariadb/repositories has now the latest CentOS/RHEL version available.

Before installing 10.0 it is important to perform a backup and remove the existing 5.5 version

shell> yum remove mariadb-server mariadb-libs

Create the repository settings using the link and follow the steps

shell> /etc/init.d/mysql start
shell> mysql_upgrade

You are now running the latest 10.0 version!