OK so at some point I borked my mysql 4.1.20 installation on my x86_64 system. Possibly relevant: I have enabled the centosplus repository in yum.conf because I needed a package from there. I have not upgraded mysql from there. Everything was working, then "something" aparrently happened, and now mysql won't start. The logs say: 061031 11:37:38 mysqld started 061031 11:37:38 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Permission denied 061031 11:37:38 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock ? 061031 11:37:38 [ERROR] Aborting 061031 11:37:38 [Note] /usr/libexec/mysqld: Shutdown complete Now the naive would presume that there is a permissions problem on /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock, right? Certainly the web suggests that this is the problem. [root at urquell2 ~]# ls -ld /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock /var/lib/mysql ls: /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock: No such file or directory drwxrwxr-x 4 mysql mysql 4096 Oct 31 11:39 /var/lib/mysql Or maybe I'm trying to run mysql as the wrong user? [root at urquell2 ~]# cat /etc/my.cnf [mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock # Default to using old password format for compatibility with mysql 3.x # clients (those using the mysqlclient10 compatibility package). old_passwords=1 [mysql.server] user=mysql basedir=/var/lib [mysqld_safe] err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid ...so clearly mysql is trying to tell me something but can't use the right words to describe the problem. In the highly unlikely event that someone knows what mysql is trying to say, can they tell me how I might fix this problem? But more likely I would like to reinstall the RPMs since something is broke, right? Well that isn't so simple either. [root at urquell2 ~]# rpm -e mysql error: "mysql" specifies multiple packages [root at urquell2 ~]# rpm -qa | grep mysql-4 mysql-4.1.20-1.RHEL4.1 mysql-4.1.20-1.RHEL4.1 [root at urquell2 ~]# rpm -e mysql-4.1.20-1.RHEL4.1 error: "mysql-4.1.20-1.RHEL4.1" specifies multiple packages We are not even getting to the dependancy hell this will involve. So how do I fix this problem? I'd rather not pave the system and start from scratch, but honestly if I'd done that the moment that this problem manifested, I'd probably be up and running again by now. -- /\oo/\ / /()\ \ David Mackintosh | Public Key: dave at xdroop.com | http://www.xdroop.com/dave/gpg.html $ gpg --recv-keys --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net 4C032504 Mystery attachment? http://wiki.xdroop.com/space/GPG -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 189 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20061031/0511ecef/attachment-0003.sig>