The Ultimate Guide to High Availability with MariaDB
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Differences in MariaDB in Debian (and Ubuntu)

Contents

  1. Option File Locations
  2. System Variables
  3. Options
  4. TLS
  5. Authentication
  6. See Also
  7. More Information

The .deb packages provided by MariaDB Foundation's and MariaDB Corporation's repositories are not identical to the official .deb packages provided by Debian's and Ubuntu's default repositories.

The packages provided by MariaDB Foundation's and MariaDB Corporation's repositories are generated using the Debian packaging in MariaDB's official source code. The Debian packaging scripts are specifically in the debian/ directory.

The packages provided by Debian's and Ubuntu's default repositories are generated using the Debian packaging in Debian's mirror of MariaDB's source code, which contains some custom changes. The source tree can be found here:

As a consequence, MariaDB behaves a bit differently if it is installed from Debian's and Ubuntu's default repositories.

Option File Locations

  • The option file located at /etc/mysql/my.cnf is handled by the update-alternatives mechanism when the mysql-common package is installed. It is a symbolic link that references either mysql.cnf or mariadb.cnf depending on whether MySQL or MariaDB is installed. Most of the MariaDB option files are therefore actually located in /etc/mysql/mariadb.d/.

System Variables

Since MariaDB 11.6 there is no system variable difference from the Standard MariaDB.

VariableMariaDB in DebianStandard MariaDBNotes
character_set_serverutf8mb4latin1 (for <= MariaDB 11.5)MariaDB 11.6 also defaults to utf8mb4 hence no difference for this version and greater
collation_serverutf8mb4_general_ci (for < MariaDB 11.5.2)latin1_swedish_cicharacter_set_collations has dominant effect hence removal from Debian default settings

Options

OptionMariaDB in DebianStandard MariaDBNotes
plugin-load-addauth_socket.so-Before MariaDB 10.4.3, MariaDB did not enable the unix_socket authentication plugin by default.This is default in Debian, allowing passwordless login.

TLS

  • MariaDB binaries from .deb packages provided by Debian's and Ubuntu's default repositories are linked with a different TLS library than MariaDB binaries from .deb packages provided by MariaDB Foundation's and MariaDB Corporation's repositories.
  • MariaDB Server binaries:
    • In MariaDB 10.4.6 and later, MariaDB Server is statically linked with the bundled wolfSSL libraries in .deb packages provided by Debian's and Ubuntu's default repositories.
    • In MariaDB 10.4.5 and before, MariaDB Server is statically linked with the bundled yaSSL libraries in .deb packages provided by Debian's and Ubuntu's default repositories.
    • In contrast, MariaDB Server is dynamically linked with the system's OpenSSL libraries in .deb packages provided by MariaDB Foundation and MariaDB Corporation.

Authentication

  • The unix_socket authentication plugin is installed by default in new installations that use the .deb packages provided by Debian's default repositories in Debian 9 and later and Ubuntu's default repositories in Ubuntu 15.10 and later.
  • The root@localhost created by mariadb-install-db will also be created to authenticate via the unix_socket authentication plugin in these builds.

See Also

More Information

For details, check out the Debian and Ubuntu official repositories:

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