MySQL Reference Manual

Appendix E. Environment Variables

Here is a list of all the environment variables that are used directly or indirectly by MySQL. Most of these can also be found in other places in this manual.

Note that any options on the command-line will take precedence over values specified in configuration files and environment variables, and values in configuration files take precedence over values in environment variables.

In many cases it’s preferable to use a configure file instead of environment variables to modify the behavior of MySQL. See Section 4.1.2.

Variable	Description
CCX	Set this to your C++ compiler when running configure.
CC	Set this to your C compiler when running configure.
CFLAGS	Flags for your C compiler when running configure.
CXXFLAGS	Flags for your C++ compiler when running configure.
DBI_USER	The default username for Perl DBI.
DBI_TRACE	Used when tracing Perl DBI.
HOME	The default path for the mysql history file is $HOME/.mysql_history.
LD_RUN_PATH	Used to specify where your libmysqlclient.so is.
MYSQL_DEBUG	Debug-trace options when debugging.
MYSQL_HISTFILE	The path to the mysql history file.
MYSQL_HOST	Default hostname used by the mysql command-line prompt.
MYSQL_PWD	The default password when connecting to mysqld. Note that use of this is insecure!
MYSQL_TCP_PORT	The default TCP/IP port.
MYSQL_UNIX_PORT	The default socket; used for connections to localhost.
PATH	Used by the shell to find the MySQL programs.
TMPDIR	The directory where temporary tables/files are created.
TZ	This should be set to your local time zone. See Section A.4.6.
UMASK_DIR	The user-directory creation mask when creating directories. Note that this is ANDed with UMASK!
UMASK	The user-file creation mask when creating files.
USER	The default user on Windows to use when connecting to mysqld.