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Ruby+MySQL on Ubuntu

without comments

This post goes through installing and configuring Ruby and Ruby on Rails for MySQL. The first step requires updating the Ubuntu OS:

sudo apt-get update

Interestingly, I found that the man-db service had inadvertently stopped. It raised the following error:

E: dpkg was interrupted, you must manually run 'sudo dpkg --configure -a' to correct the problem.

You run this command to find the problem with the dpkg utility:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

It returned:

Setting up man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
Updating database of manual pages ...
man-db.service is a disabled or a static unit not running, not starting it.

The following command started the man-db service:

sudo systemctl start man-db.service

Next, you install the prerequisite packages with this command:

sudo apt-get install -y git-core zlib1g-dev build-essential libssl-dev libreadline-dev libyaml-dev libsqlite3-dev sqlite3 libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libcurl4-openssl-dev software-properties-common libffi-dev

Use the cd command to change to the student home directory. Clone the asdf as the multiple runtime version manager with this command:

git clone https://github.com/excid3/asdf.git ~/.asdf

The following is the output of the git clone command:

Cloning into '/home/student/.asdf'...
remote: Enumerating objects: 8756, done.
remote: Counting objects: 100% (829/829), done.
remote: Compressing objects: 100% (476/476), done.
remote: Total 8756 (delta 428), reused 657 (delta 334), pack-reused 7927
Receiving objects: 100% (8756/8756), 3.10 MiB | 4.29 MiB/s, done.
Resolving deltas: 100% (5148/5148), done.

Next, you fix your .bashrc file by adding the following components:

echo '. "$HOME/.asdf/asdf.sh"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo '. "$HOME/.asdf/completions/asdf.bash"' >> ~/.bashrc
echo 'legacy_version_file = yes' >> ~/.asdfrc
echo 'export EDITOR="code --wait"' >> ~/.bashrc

Source the modifies shell, which you can do like this:

exec $SHELL

or, like:

. ${HOME}/.bashrc

Add the following asdf plug-ins:

asdf plugin add ruby
asdf plugin add nodejs

Install Ruby with the following command:

asdf install ruby 3.3.0

Install Ruby Global with this syntax:

asdf global ruby 3.3.0

Update the Ruby Gems with this command:

gem update --system

You can confirm your Ruby install with two commands. First, use the which utility to check the Ruby install:

which -a ruby

It should return:

/home/student/.asdf/shims/ruby

Then, check the Ruby version:

ruby -v

It should return:

ruby 3.3.0 (2023-12-25 revision 5124f9ac75) [x86_64-linux]

Assuming you’ve installed and configured MySQL 8 on Ubuntu, you need this additional library to support the necessary Ruby Gem:

sudo apt-get install -y libmysqlclient-dev

Now, you can install the current MySQL Ruby Gem:

gem install mysql2

You can now write a mysql_connection.rb program to verify a connection to the MySQL 8 database, like:

# Include Ruby Gem libraries.
require 'rubygems'
require 'mysql2'
 
begin
  # Create new database connection.
  db = Mysql2::Client.new( :host     => 'localhost' \
                         , :username => 'student'   \
                         , :password => 'student'   \
                         , :database => 'studentdb')
 
  # Create a result set.
  stmt = db.query('SELECT version() AS version')
 
  # Read through the result set hash.
  stmt.each do | row |
    puts "#{row['version']}"
  end
  # Release the result set resources.
  stmt.free
 
rescue Mysql2::Error => e
  # Print the error.
  puts "ERROR #{e.errno} (#{e.sqlstate}): #{e.error}"
  puts "Can't connect to the MySQL database specified."
  # Signal an error.
  exit 1
 
ensure
  # Close the connection when it is open.
  db.close if db
end

Call the program with this syntax:

ruby mysql_connection.rb

It should return:

Connected to the MySQL database server.

You can verify the version with this mysql_version.rb program:

# Include Ruby Gem libraries.
require 'rubygems'
require 'mysql2'
 
begin
  # Create new database connection.
  db = Mysql2::Client.new( :host     => 'localhost' \
                         , :username => 'student'   \
                         , :password => 'student'   \
                         , :database => 'studentdb')
 
  # Create a result set.
  rs = db.query('SELECT version() AS version')
 
  # Read through the result set hash.
  rs.each do | row |
    puts "#{row['version']}"
  end
 
  # Release the result set resources.
  rs.free
 
rescue Mysql2::Error => e
  # Print the error.
  puts "ERROR #{e.errno} (#{e.sqlstate}): #{e.error}"
  puts "Can't connect to the MySQL database specified."
  # Signal an error.
  exit 1
 
ensure
  # Close the connection when it is open.
  db.close if db
end

On Ubuntu, it should return:

8.0.35-0ubuntu0.22.04.1

If you don’t know anything about the mysql2 Ruby Gem, you should read the documentation. It’s very concise and requires a basic understanding of Ruby programming. The two specific pages who may want to check for the next examples are:

The mysql_version.rb version uses the known string literal for columns or column aliases returned by the SQL statement, which becomes the stmt (or statement) in the program. The next program eliminates the need to enumerate with the text-based columns from the query by using the Statement#fields array values by use of a numeric index. The numeric index returns the field names from the Statement#fields class to use in as the name for values in the Result#fields value found in the row variable of the for loop.

# Include Ruby Gem libraries.
require 'rubygems'
require 'mysql2'
 
# Begin block.
begin
  # Create a new connection resource.
  db = Mysql2::Client.new( :host     => 'localhost' \
                         , :username => 'student'   \
                         , :password => 'student'   \
                         , :database => 'studentdb')
 
  # Create a result set.
  stmt = db.query("SELECT   DISTINCT i.item_title, ra.rating " +       \
                  "FROM     item i INNER JOIN rating_agency ra " +     \
                  "ON       i.item_rating_id = ra.rating_agency_id " + \
                  "WHERE    ra.rating_agency = 'MPAA'" +               \
                  "ORDER BY 1")
 
  # Read through the result set hash.
  stmt.each do | row |
    out = ""
    i = 0
    while i < stmt.fields.count()
      # Check when not last column and use the:
      #   - Hash returned by the result set for the value, and
      #   - String array value returned by the statement object
      #     as the name value of the hash by leveraging its 
      #     numeric index.
      if i < stmt.fields.count() - 1
        out += "#{row[stmt.fields[i]]}"
        out += ", "
      else
        out += "#{row[stmt.fields[i]]}"
      end
      i += 1
    end
    puts "#{out}"
  end
 
  # Release the result set resources.
  stmt.free
 
rescue Mysql2::Error => e
  # Print the error.
  puts "ERROR #{e.errno} (#{e.sqlstate}): #{e.error}"
  puts "Can't connect to MySQL database specified."
  # Signal an error.
  exit 1
 
ensure
  # Close the connection when it is open.
  db.close if db
end

It returns the select two columns from the query:

A Man for All Seasons, G
Around the World in 80 Days, G
Beau Geste, PG
Brave Heart, R
Camelot, G
Casino Royale, PG-13
...
Tomorrow Never Dies, PG-13
Tora! Tora! Tora!, G
Tron, PG

The following mysql_query_params.rb Ruby example accepts a single argument to leverage a wild card query in MySQL:

require 'rubygems'
require 'mysql2'
 
# Input external arguments.
arguments = ARGV
 
# Check for one input parameter and substitute an empty string
# when one isn't found.
if arguments.length == 1
  argument = arguments[0]
else
  argument = ""
end
 
# Begin block.
begin
  # Create a new connection resource.
  db = Mysql2::Client.new( :host     => 'localhost' \
                         , :username => 'student'   \
                         , :password => 'student'   \
                         , :database => 'studentdb')
 
  # Create a result set.
  stmt = db.prepare("SELECT   DISTINCT i.item_title, ra.rating " +       \
                    "FROM     item i INNER JOIN rating_agency ra " +     \
                    "ON       i.item_rating_id = ra.rating_agency_id " + \
                    "WHERE    ra.rating_agency = 'MPAA'" +               \
                    "AND      i.item_title LIKE CONCAT(?,'%')" +         \
                    "ORDER BY 1")
 
  # Bind the variable into the query.
  rs = stmt.execute(argument)
 
  # Read through the result set hash.
  rs.each do | row |
    out = ""
    i = 0
    while i < rs.fields.count()
      # Check when not last column and use the:
      #   - Hash returned by the result set for the value, and
      #   - String array value returned by the statement object
      #     as the name value of the hash by leveraging its 
      #     numeric index.
      if i < rs.fields.count() - 1
        out += "#{row[rs.fields[i]]}"
        out += ", "
      else
        out += "#{row[rs.fields[i]]}"
      end
      i += 1
    end
    puts "#{out}"
  end
 
  # Release the result set resources.
  rs.free
 
rescue Mysql2::Error => e
  # Print the error.
  puts "ERROR #{e.errno} (#{e.sqlstate}): #{e.error}"
  puts "Can't connect to MySQL database specified."
  # Signal an error.
  exit 1
 
ensure
  # Close the connection when it is open.
  db.close if db
end

If you call the mysql_query_params.rb program with this syntax:

ruby mysql_aquery_params.rb Harry

It’ll return the following from the studentdb database:

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, PG
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1, PG-13
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2, PG-13
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, PG-13
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, PG
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, PG-13
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, PG
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, PG

After that, you should install Rails (check for current version beyond 1/2024). Install Ruby Global with this syntax:

gem install rails -v 7.1.3

Check the version installed:

rails -v

It should return:

Rails 7.1.3

Run this command to enable Rails for MySQL 8:

rails new myapp -d mysql

If you want to configure a username and password for MySQL, edit the config/database.yml file.

As always, I hope this helps somebody looking for step-by-step guide.

Written by maclochlainn

February 3rd, 2024 at 4:57 pm

Ubuntu, Perl & MySQL

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Configuring Perl to work with MySQL is straight forward. While Perl is installed generally, you may need to install the libdbd-mysql-perl library.

You install it as a sudoer user with this syntax:

sudo apt install -y libdbd-mysql-perl

You can find the Perl version with the following version.pl program:

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Print the version.
print "Perl ".$]."\n";

The first line lets you call the program without prefacing the program name with perl. The first line invokes a subshell of perl by default. You just need to ensure the file has read and execute privileges to run by using the

chmod 755 version.pl

You call it with this:

./version.pl

It prints:

Perl 5.034000

The following static_query.pl Perl program uses the Perl DBI library to query and return a data set based on a static query.

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Use the DBI library.
use DBI;
use strict;
use warnings;
 
# Create a connection.
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=studentdb;host=localhost:3306"
                      ,"student","student",{'RaiseError' => 1});
 
# Create SQL statement.
my $sql = "SELECT i.item_title
           ,      ra.rating
           ,      cl.common_lookup_meaning
           FROM   item i INNER JOIN common_lookup cl
           ON     i.item_type = cl.common_lookup_id INNER JOIN rating_agency ra
           ON     i.item_rating_id = ra.rating_agency_id
           WHERE  i.item_title LIKE 'Harry%'
           AND    cl.common_lookup_type = 'BLU-RAY'";
 
# Prepare SQL statement.
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
 
# Execute statement and read result set.
$sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;
 
# Read through returned rows, assign elements explicitly to match SELECT-list.
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
  my $item_title = $row[0];
  my $rating = $row[1];
  my $lookup_meaning = $row[2];
  print "$item_title, $rating, $lookup_meaning\n";
}
 
# Close resources.
$sth->finish();

It returns the following rows from the sample database:

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, PG, Blu-ray
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, PG, Blu-ray
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, PG, Blu-ray
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, PG-13, Blu-ray

The following dynamic_query.pl Perl program uses the Perl DBI library to prepare a query, bind a local variable into the query, and return a data set based on a dynamic query.

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#!/usr/bin/perl -w
 
# Use the DBI library.
use DBI;
use strict;
use warnings;
 
# Mimic a function parameter by using a local variable.
my $item_title_in = 'Star';
 
# Create a connection.
my $dbh = DBI->connect("DBI:mysql:database=studentdb;host=localhost:3306"
                      ,"student","student",{'RaiseError' => 1});
 
# Create SQL statement.
my $sql = "SELECT i.item_title
           ,      ra.rating
           ,      cl.common_lookup_meaning
           FROM   item i INNER JOIN common_lookup cl
           ON     i.item_type = cl.common_lookup_id INNER JOIN rating_agency ra
           ON     i.item_rating_id = ra.rating_agency_id
           WHERE  i.item_title LIKE CONCAT(?,'%')
           AND    cl.common_lookup_type = 'BLU-RAY'";
 
# Prepare SQL statement.
my $sth = $dbh->prepare($sql);
 
# Bind a variable to first parameter in the query string.
$sth->bind_param(1, $item_title_in);
 
# Execute statement and read result set.
$sth->execute() or die $DBI::errstr;
 
# Read through returned rows, assign elements explicitly to match SELECT-list.
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
  my $item_title = $row[0];
  my $rating = $row[1];
  my $lookup_meaning = $row[2];
  print "$item_title, $rating, $lookup_meaning\n";
}
 
# Close resources.
$sth->finish();

It returns the following rows from the sample database:

Star Wars II, PG, Blu-ray

You can replace lines 34 through 40 with the following to read any number of columns into a comma-delimited row return:

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# Read through returned rows, assign elements explicitly to match SELECT-list.
while (my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array()) {
 
  # Read through a dynamic column list for column separated display.
  my $result = '';
  foreach(@row) {
    if (length($result) == 0) {
      $result = $_; }
    else {
      $result .= ", " . $_; }
  } 
 
  # Print comma-separted values by row.
  print $result . "\n"
}

It returns the following rows from the sample database:

Star Wars II, PG, Blu-ray

As always, I hope this helps the reader solve a problem.

Written by maclochlainn

January 8th, 2024 at 10:37 pm

MySQL on Ubuntu

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Fresh install of Ubuntu on my MacBook Pro i7 because Apple said the OS X was no longer upgradable. Time to install and configure MySQL Server. These are the steps to install MySQL on the Ubuntu Desktop.

Installation

  1. Update the Ubuntu OS by checking for, inspecting, and upgrading any available updates with the following commands:

    sudo apt update
    sudo apt list
    sudo apt upgrade
  2. Check for available MySQL Server packages with this command:

    apt-cache search binaries

    It should return:

    mysql-server - MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
    mysql-server-8.0 - MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
    mysql-server-core-8.0 - MySQL database server binaries
    default-mysql-server - MySQL database server binaries and system database setup (metapackage)
    default-mysql-server-core - MySQL database server binaries (metapackage)
    mariadb-server-10.6 - MariaDB database core server binaries
    mariadb-server-core-10.6 - MariaDB database core server files
  3. Check for more details on the MySQL packages with this command:

    apt info -a mysql-server-8.0
  4. Install MySQL Server packages with this command:

    sudo apt install mysql-server-8.0
  5. Start the MySQL Server service with this command:

    sudo systemctl start mysql.service
  6. Before you can run the mysql_secure_installation script, you must set the root password. If you skip this step the mysql_secure_installation script will enter an infinite loop and lock your terminal session. Log in to the mysql monitor with the following command:

    sudo mysql

    Enter a password with the following command (password is an insecure example):

    ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'C4nGet1n!';

    Quit the mysql monitor session:

    quit;
  7. Run the mysql_secure_installation script with this command:

    sudo mysql_secure_installation

    Here’s the typical output from running the mysql_secure_installation script:

    Securing the MySQL server deployment.
     
    Enter password for user root: 
     
    VALIDATE PASSWORD COMPONENT can be used to test passwords
    and improve security. It checks the strength of password
    and allows the users to set only those passwords which are
    secure enough. Would you like to setup VALIDATE PASSWORD component?
     
    Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No: Y
     
    There are three levels of password validation policy:
     
    LOW    Length >= 8
    MEDIUM Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, and special characters
    STRONG Length >= 8, numeric, mixed case, special characters and dictionary file
     
    Please enter 0 = LOW, 1 = MEDIUM and 2 = STRONG: 2
    Using existing password for root.
     
    Estimated strength of the password: 100 
    Change the password for root ? ((Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : N
     
     ... skipping.
    By default, a MySQL installation has an anonymous user,
    allowing anyone to log into MySQL without having to have
    a user account created for them. This is intended only for
    testing, and to make the installation go a bit smoother.
    You should remove them before moving into a production
    environment.
     
    Remove anonymous users? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
    Success.
     
    Normally, root should only be allowed to connect from
    'localhost'. This ensures that someone cannot guess at
    the root password from the network.
     
    Disallow root login remotely? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
    Success.
     
    By default, MySQL comes with a database named 'test' that
    anyone can access. This is also intended only for testing,
    and should be removed before moving into a production
    environment.
     
     
    Remove test database and access to it? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
     - Dropping test database...
    Success.
     
     - Removing privileges on test database...
    Success.
     
    Reloading the privilege tables will ensure that all changes
    made so far will take effect immediately.
     
    Reload privilege tables now? (Press y|Y for Yes, any other key for No) : Y
    Success.
     
    All done!

Configuration

The next step is configuration. It requires setting up the sample sakila and studentdb database. The syntax has changed from prior releases. Here are the new three steps:

  1. Grant the root user the privilege to grant to others, which root does not have by default. You use the following syntax as the MySQL root user:

    mysql> GRANT ALL ON *.* TO 'root'@'localhost';
  2. Download the sakila database, which you can download from this site. Click on the sakila database’s TGZ download.

    When you download the sakila zip file it creates a sakila-db folder in the /home/student/Downloads directory. Copy the sakila-db folder into the /home/student/Data/sakila directory. Then, change to the /home/student/Data/sakila/sakila-db directory, connect to mysql as the root user, and run the following command:

    mysql> SOURCE /home/student/Data/sakila/sakila-db/sakila-schema.sql
    mysql> SOURCE /home/student/Data/sakila/sakila-db/sakila-data.sql
  3. Create the studentdb database with the following command as the MySQL root user:

    mysql> CREATE DATABASE studentdb;
  4. Create the user with a clear English password and grant the user student full privileges on the sakila and studentdb databases:

    mysql> CREATE USER 'student'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY 'Stud3nt!';
    mysql> GRANT ALL ON studentdb.* TO 'student'@'localhost';
    mysql> GRANT ALL ON sakila.* TO 'student'@'localhost';

You can now connect to a sandboxed sakila database with the student user’s credentials, like:

mysql -ustudent -p -Dsakila

or, you can now connect to a sandboxed studentdb database with the student user’s credentials, like:

mysql -ustudent -p -Dstudentdb

MySQL Workbench Installation

sudo snap install mysql-workbench-community

You have now configure the MySQL Server 8.0.

Written by maclochlainn

May 23rd, 2023 at 4:18 pm

MySQL @SQL_MODE

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Installing MySQL Workbench 8 on Windows, we discovered that the default configuration no longer sets ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY as part of the default SQL_MODE parameter value. While I’ve written a stored function to set the SQL_MODE parameter value for a session, some students didn’t understand that such a call is only valid in the scope of a connection to the database server. They felt the function didn’t work because they didn’t understand the difference between connecting to the MySQL CLI and clicking the lightening bolt in MySQL Workbench.

So, here are the instructions to reset the default SQL_MODE parameter value for Windows. You need to edit the setting in the my.ini file, which is in the C:\ProgramData\MySQL\MySQL Server 8.0 directory. The default installation will have the following:

# Set the SQL mode to strict
sql-mode="STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION"

You need to change it to the following in an editor with Administrative privileges:

# Set the SQL mode to strict
sql-mode="STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION,ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY"

Then, you need to connect to the services by launching services.msc from the command prompt. In the list of services find MYSQL80 service and restart it. You can verify it by connecting to the MySQL 8.0.* server and running the following SQL query:

SELECT @@SQL_MODE:

That’s how you convert Windows to use only traditional group by behaviors in SQL. As always, I hope this helps those looking for a solution.

Written by maclochlainn

February 13th, 2023 at 12:55 pm

Updating SQL_MODE

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This is an update for MySQL 8 Stored PSM to add the ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY mode to the global SQL_MODE variable when it’s not set during a session. Here’s the code:

/* Drop procedure conditionally on whether it exists already. */
DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS set_full_group_by;
 
/* Reset delimter to allow semicolons to terminate statements. */
DELIMITER $$
 
/* Create a procedure to verify and set connection parameter. */
CREATE PROCEDURE set_full_group_by()
  LANGUAGE SQL
  NOT DETERMINISTIC
  SQL SECURITY DEFINER
  COMMENT 'Set connection parameter when not set.'
BEGIN
 
  /* Check whether full group by is set in the connection and
     if unset, set it in the scope of the connection. */
  IF EXISTS
    (SELECT TRUE
     WHERE NOT REGEXP_LIKE(@@SESSION.SQL_MODE,'ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY'))
  THEN
    SET @@GLOBAL.SQL_MODE := CONCAT(@@SESSION.sql_mode,',ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY');
  END IF;
END;
$$
 
/* Reset the default delimiter. */
DELIMITER ;

You can call the set_full_group_by procedure with the CALL command:

CALL set_full_group_by();

You can see the SQL_MODE variable with the following query:

SELECT @@GLOBAL.SQL_MODE;

It’ll return:

+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| @@GLOBAL.SQL_MODE                                             |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
| ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY,STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION |
+---------------------------------------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

As always, I hope this helps those looking to solve this type of problem.

Written by maclochlainn

January 13th, 2023 at 12:06 am

GROUP BY Quirk

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It’s always interesting to see how others teach SQL courses. It can be revealing as to whether they understand SQL or only understand a dialect of SQL. In this case, one of my old students was taking a graduate course in SQL and the teacher was using MySQL. The teacher made an issue of using ANSI SQL:1999 or SQL3 and asked the following question, which I suspect is a quiz bank question from a textbook:

“How would you get all students’ names and for each student the number of courses that the
student has registered for?”

They referenced the MySQL 5.7 documentation for the GROUP BY and SQL:1999 as if MySQL implemented the ANSI SQL:1999 specification defined the standard. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry because they were referring to MySQL 5.7 when we’re all using MySQL 8 and anybody who’s worked in more than MySQL knows that the behavior for a GROUP BY in MySQL can work without listing the necessary non-aggregated columns in the SELECT-list.

For example, their working solution, which is from the instructor and the author of their MySQL textbook the correct perspective of ANSI:1999 behavior. It doesn’t matter that their solution is actually based on ANSI:1992 not ANSI:1999 because it will only succeed because of a quirk of MySQL:

SELECT   a.studentname
,        COUNT(b.courseid)
FROM     students a INNER JOIN registeredcourses b
ON       a.studentid = b.studentid
GROUP BY a.studentid;

While it works in MySQL, it doesn’t work because it conforms to an ANSI standard. It works in MySQL, notwithstanding that standard because it violates the standard.

In Oracle, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server, it raises an exception. For example, Oracle raises the following exception:

SELECT   a.studentname
         *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00979: not a GROUP BY expression

The correct way to write the GROUP BY is:

SELECT   a.studentname
,        COUNT(b.courseid)
FROM     students a INNER JOIN registeredcourses b
ON       a.studentid = b.studentid INNER JOIN courses c
ON       b.courseid = c.courseid
GROUP BY a.studentname;

Then, it would return:

Student Name                   Course IDs
------------------------------ ----------
Montgomery Scott                        1
Leonard McCoy                           2
James Tiberus Kirk                      3

For reference, here’s a complete test case for MySQL:

/* Drop table conditionally. */
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS students;
 
/* Create table. */
CREATE TABLE students
( studentID    int unsigned primary key auto_increment
, studentName  varchar(30));
 
/* Drop table conditionally. */
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS courses;
 
/* Create table. */
CREATE TABLE courses
( courseid    int unsigned primary key auto_increment
, coursename  varchar(40));
 
/* Drop table conditionally. */
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS registeredcourses;
 
/* Create table. */
CREATE TABLE registeredcourses
( courseid    int unsigned
, studentid   int unsigned );
 
/* Insert into students. */
INSERT INTO students
( studentName )
VALUES
 ('James Tiberus Kirk')
,('Leonard McCoy')
,('Montgomery Scott');
 
/* Insert into courses. */
INSERT INTO courses
( coursename )
VALUES
 ('English Literature')
,('Physics')
,('English Composition')
,('Botany')
,('Mechanical Engineering');
 
/* Insert into registeredcourses. */
INSERT INTO registeredcourses
( studentid
, courseid )
VALUES
 (1,1)
,(1,3)
,(1,4)
,(2,2)
,(2,5)
,(3,4); 
 
/* Check global sql_mode to ensure only_full_group_by is set. */
SELECT @@GLOBAL.SQL_MODE;
 
/* Query with a column not found in the SELECT-list. */
SELECT   a.studentname
,        COUNT(b.courseid)
FROM     students a INNER JOIN registeredcourses b
ON       a.studentid = b.studentid
GROUP BY a.studentid;
 
/* Query consistent with ANSI SQL:1992 */
SELECT   a.studentname
,        COUNT(b.courseid)
FROM     students a INNER JOIN registeredcourses b
ON       a.studentid = b.studentid INNER JOIN courses c
ON       b.courseid = c.courseid
GROUP BY a.studentname;

and, another complete test case for Oracle:

/* Drop tabhe unconditionallly. */
DROP TABLE students;
 
/* Create table. */
CREATE TABLE students
( studentID    NUMBER PRIMARY KEY
, studentName  VARCHAR(30));
 
/* Drop table unconditionally. */
DROP TABLE courses;
 
/* Create table. */
CREATE TABLE courses
( courseid    NUMBER PRIMARY KEY
, coursename  VARCHAR(40));
 
/* Drop table unconditionally. */
DROP TABLE registeredcourses;
 
/* Create table. */
CREATE TABLE registeredcourses
( courseid    NUMBER
, studentid   NUMBER );
 
/* Insert values in student. */
INSERT INTO students ( studentid, studentName ) VALUES (1,'James Tiberus Kirk');
INSERT INTO students ( studentid, studentName ) VALUES (2,'Leonard McCoy');
INSERT INTO students ( studentid, studentName ) VALUES (3,'Montgomery Scott');
 
/* Insert values in courses. */
INSERT INTO courses ( courseid, coursename ) VALUES (1,'English Literature');
INSERT INTO courses ( courseid, coursename ) VALUES (2,'Physics');
INSERT INTO courses ( courseid, coursename ) VALUES (3,'English Composition');
INSERT INTO courses ( courseid, coursename ) VALUES (4,'Botany');
INSERT INTO courses ( courseid, coursename ) VALUES (5,'Mechanical Engineering');
 
/* Insert values into registeredcourses. */
INSERT INTO registeredcourses ( studentid, courseid ) VALUES (1,1);
INSERT INTO registeredcourses ( studentid, courseid ) VALUES (1,3);
INSERT INTO registeredcourses ( studentid, courseid ) VALUES (1,4);
INSERT INTO registeredcourses ( studentid, courseid ) VALUES (2,2);
INSERT INTO registeredcourses ( studentid, courseid ) VALUES (2,5);
INSERT INTO registeredcourses ( studentid, courseid ) VALUES (3,4); 
 
/* Non-ANSI SQL GROUP BY statement. */
SELECT   a.studentname
,        COUNT(b.courseid)
FROM     students a INNER JOIN registeredcourses b
ON       a.studentid = b.studentid
GROUP BY a.studentid;
 
/* ANSI SQL GROUP BY statement. */
SELECT   a.studentname AS "Student Name"
,        COUNT(b.courseid) AS "Course IDs"
FROM     students a INNER JOIN registeredcourses b
ON       a.studentid = b.studentid INNER JOIN courses c
ON       b.courseid = c.courseid
GROUP BY a.studentname;

I hope this helps those learning the correct way to write SQL.

Written by maclochlainn

January 12th, 2023 at 11:30 pm

MySQL PNG Files

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LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl/PHP/Python) Architecture is very flexible. All the components can be positioned on the same server or different servers. The servers are divided into two types. The types are known as the Application or database tiers. Generally, the application tier holds the Apache Server, any Apache Modules, and local copies of Server Side Includes (SSI) programs.

In many development environments, you also deploy the client to the same machine. This means a single machine runs the database server, the application server, and the browser. The lab for this section assumes these configurations.

Before you test an installation, you should make sure that you’ve started the database and Apache server. In an Oracle LAMP configuration (known as an OLAP – Oracle, Linux, Apache, Perl/PHP/Python), you must start both the Oracle Listener and database. MySQL starts the listener when you start the database. You must also start the Apache Server. The Apache Server also starts an Apache Listener, which listens for incoming HTTP/HTTPS requests. It listens on Port 80 unless you override that setting in the httpd.conf file.

The URI reaches the server and is redirected to an Apache Module based on configuration information found in the httpd.conf file. Spawned or child processes of the Apache Module then read programs into memory from the file system and run them. If you’ve uploaded a file the locally stored program can move it from a secure cache location to another local area for processing. The started programs can run independently or include other files as libraries, and they can communicate to the database server.

Working though PHP test cases against the MySQL database for my AlmaLinux installation and configuration, I discovered that the php-gd library weren’t installed by default. I had to add it to get my PHP programs to upload and display PNG files.

The log file for applying the php-gd packages:

The balance of this page demonstrates how to upload, store, and manage Text (Character Large Data Streams) and BLOBs (Binary Large Objects). It provides MySQL equivalent instructions to those for manaing LOBs in an Oracle database. As covered in Chapter 8 in my Oracle Database 11g PL/SQL Programming book.

Before you begin these steps, you should have already installed Zend Server Community Edition. If you haven’t done so, please click here for instructions.

If you find any problems, please let me know. I’ll be happy to fix them.

Written by maclochlainn

December 28th, 2022 at 10:59 pm

AlmaLinux Install & Configuration

without comments

This is a collection of blog posts for installing and configuring AlmaLinux with the Oracle, PostgreSQL, MySQL databases and several programming languages. Sample programs show how to connect PHP and Python to the MySQL database.

I used Oracle Database 11g XE in this instance to keep the footprint as small as possible. It required a few tricks and discovering the missing library that caused folks grief eleven years ago. I build another with a current Oracle Database XE after the new year.

If you see something that I missed or you’d like me to add, let me know. As time allows, I’ll try to do that. Naturally, the post will get updates as things are added later.

AlmaLinux MySQL Workbench

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AlmaLinux doesn’t natively support MySQL Workbench but these notes will help you install it. The great news is that MySQL Workbench works perfectly once you’ve installed all the dependent libraries. It’ll look like the following:

Disclaimer of sorts:

AlmaLinux is an open-source, community-driven project that intends to fill the gap left by the demise of the CentOS stable release. AlmaLinux is a 1:1 binary compatible fork of RHEL® 9 and it is built by the AlmaLinux OS Foundation as a standalone, completely free OS. The AlmaLinux OS Foundation will support future RHEL® releases by updating AlmaLinux. Ongoing development efforts are governed by the members of the community.

You can download MySQL Workbench from the following website:

https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/workbench

When you open this page, select the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 9 / Oracle Linux 9 (x86, 64-bit), RPM Package from the dropdown menu. Then, click the Download button. You may be prompted for your credentials or to create new credentials, but you can skip that by clicking on the No thanks, just start my download link.

When the download completes, open a terminal session as the student user. Navigate to the Downloads directory with the following command:

cd $HOME/Downloads

List the files in the $HOME/Downloads directory and you should see:

mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

As the sudoer user or root, run the following command (naturally, exclude sudo if you’re the root user):

sudo dnf install -y mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

It will most likely fail with an error message like this:

Last metadata expiration check: 2:50:04 ago on Thu 17 Nov 2022 09:33:15 AM EST.
Error: 
 Problem: conflicting requests
  - nothing provides gtkmm30-devel needed by mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.src
  - nothing provides libzip-devel needed by mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.src
  - nothing provides proj-devel needed by mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.src
  - nothing provides swig >= 3.0 needed by mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.src
(try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages or '--nobest' to use not only best candidate packages)

AlmaLinux doesn’t install these prerequisite packages. You’ll need to resolve these dependencies by installing them in the right order and groups before you can run the MySQL Workbench packages.

You can discover missing packages at the pkgs.org website. You need to resolve all four prerequisites before installing MySQL Workbench.

  1. Let’s start with the gtkmm30-devel package, which has eight separate dependencies. Assuming you’re still in your $HOME/Downloads directory, you can run the following command to get the gtkmm30-devel for AlmaLinux 9:

    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

    It downloads the following package:

    gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

    If you attempt to run it, the gtkmm30-devel package raises the following errors:

    sudo dnf install -y gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
    Last metadata expiration check: 0:41:13 ago on Thu 17 Nov 2022 02:39:59 PM EST.
    Error: 
     Problem: conflicting requests
      - nothing provides pkgconfig(atkmm-1.6) >= 2.24.2 needed by gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64
      - nothing provides pkgconfig(cairomm-1.0) >= 1.12.0 needed by gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64
      - nothing provides pkgconfig(giomm-2.4) >= 2.54.0 needed by gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64
      - nothing provides pkgconfig(pangomm-1.4) >= 1.12.0 needed by gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64
    (try to add '--skip-broken' to skip uninstallable packages or '--nobest' to use not only best candidate packages)

    While you only get four errors, there are more packages required. You need to use the wget utility to download these packages. I would recommend you create a temporary gtkmm30 subdirectory inside your $HOME/Downloads directory and change to that directory before downloading these files.

    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/atkmm-devel-2.28.2-2.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/cairomm-devel-1.14.2-10.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/AppStream/x86_64/os/Packages/gdk-pixbuf2-devel-2.42.6-2.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/glibmm24-devel-2.66.1-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/AppStream/x86_64/os/Packages/gtk3-devel-3.24.31-2.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/pangomm-devel-2.46.1-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/libsigc++20-devel-2.10.7-2.el9.x86_64.rpm

    You need to run these as a set of prerequisites, so from your gtkmm30 subdirectory use the following dnf command as the sudoer user:

    sudo dnf install -y *.rpm

    The log file for this is:

    Now return to your $HOME/Downloads directory and run the following command. You’ll notice that it installs and upgrades many more packages than you might expect.

    sudo dnf install -y gtkmm30-devel-3.24.5-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

    The log file for this is:

    All that done and you’ve only got the first of four dependencies resovled.

  2. Next, start with the libzip-devel package, which has a couple dependencies. Assuming you’re still in your $HOME/Downloads directory, you can run the following command to get the libzip-devel and its prerequisite packages for AlmaLinux 9:

    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/libzip-devel-1.7.3-7.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/AppStream/x86_64/os/Packages/cmake-filesystem-3.20.2-7.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/AppStream/x86_64/os/Packages/libzip-1.7.3-7.el9.x86_64.rpm

    You can run the prerequisites with the following command:

    sudo dnf install -y cmake*.rpm libzip-1.7.3*.rpm

    Now, you can run the libzip-devel package with this syntax:

    sudo dnf install -y libzip-devel*.rpm

    Having resolved the two dependencies, you can install the compression development kit. This completes the second step.

  3. Next, you need to apply the proj_devel package for AlmaLinux 9:

    wget https://download-ib01.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/9/Everything/x86_64/Packages/p/proj-devel-8.2.0-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

    Now, you can run the proj-devel package with this syntax:

    sudo dnf install -y proj-devel-8.2.0-1.el9.x86_64.rpm
  4. Next, you need to apply the swig packages for AlmaLinux 9:

    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/swig-4.0.2-8.el9.x86_64.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/swig-doc-4.0.2-8.el9.noarch.rpm
    wget https://repo.almalinux.org/almalinux/9/CRB/x86_64/os/Packages/swig-gdb-4.0.2-8.el9.x86_64.rpm
    sudo dnf install -y swig*.rpm
  5. Next, you need to apply the mysql-community-workbench packages for AlmaLinux 9. The download instructions where provided above. You apply the packages with the following command.

    sudo dnf install -y mysql-workbench-community-8.0.31-1.el9.x86_64.rpm

After applying the dependent and mysql-community-workbench packages, you can launch MySQL Workbench by clicking the Activities symbol in the upper left hand corner. That displays the nine-dots for Show Applications icon. Click the Show Applications icon and choose the MySQL Workbench icon to launch MySQL Workbench.

You’ll be prompted with the following dialog. Just click Don’t show this message again checkbox and the OK button to launch MySQL Workbench.

As always, I hope this helps those looking to solve a real problem.

Written by maclochlainn

November 20th, 2022 at 11:31 pm

AlmaLinux LAMP

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After installing and configuring MySQL 8.0.30, I installed the Apache Web Server, PHP and the MySQLi packages. Here are the step-by-step instructions after installing and configuring the MySQL Server and provisioning a student user and the sakila and studentdb databases (blog for those steps). After installing the major components, I completed the HTTPS configuration steps for Apache 2.

The installation steps are:

  1. Install the Apache packages as the sudoer user with this command:

    sudo dnf install -y httpd
  2. Enable Apache as the sudoer user with this command:

    chkconfig httpd on

    This returns the following completion message:

    Note: Forwarding request to 'systemctl enable httpd.service'.
    Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/httpd.service → /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service.

    A quick Linux syntax note in the event you want to confirm the link or link target later. You can use the following syntax as a sudoer user to find the link:

    ls `find /etc -type l | grep httpd.service 2>/dev/null`

    and the following syntax as a sudoer user to find the link’s target:

    readlink `find /etc -type l | grep httpd.service 2>/dev/null`
  3. You still need to start the Apache service unless you reboot the operating system as the sudoer user with this command:

    apachectl start
  4. At this point, you need to check the firewall settings because Apache can’t even read localhost at this point. If you’re new to these firewall commands, you should consider reviewing Korbin Brown’s tutorial. As the sudoer user check the Apache available services with this command:

    firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-services

    It should return:

    cockpit dhcpv6-client ssh

    Add the following services and ports with these commands:

    firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port 80/tcp --permanent
    firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port 443/tcp --permanent
    firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-port 8080/tcp --permanent
    firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=http --permanent
    firewall-cmd --zone=public --add-service=https --permanent

    Check the open ports with the following command:

    firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-ports

    It should return:

    80/tcp 443/tcp 8080/tcp

    Check the open services with the following command:

    firewall-cmd --zone=public --list-services

    It should return:

    cockpit dhcpv6-client http https ssh
  5. Create the hello.htm file in the /var/www/html directory as the root user:

    Restart the Apache service as the sudoer user:

    apache restart

    <html>
    <body>
    Hello World!
    </body>
    </html>

    Then, you can launch the Firefox browser and type the following:

    localhost/hello.htm

    It should print “Hello World!” in the browser.

  6. Install the php package as the sudoer user with the following command:

    sudo dnf install -y php

    Create the info.php file in the /var/www/html directory as the root user:

    <?php
      phpinfo();
    ?>

    apache restart

    Then, you can launch the Firefox browser and type the following:

    localhost/info.php

    It should return the following in the browser.

  7. Install the php_mysqli package as the sudoer user with the following command:

    dnf install -y php-mysqli

    Create the mysqli_check.php file in the /var/www/html directory as the root user:

    <html>
    <header>
    <title>Static Query Object Sample</title>
    </header>
    <body>
    <?php
      if (!function_exists('mysqli_init') && !extension_loaded('mysqli')) {
        print 'mysqli not installed.'; }
      else {
        print 'mysqli installed.'; }
      if (!function_exists('pdo_init') && !extension_loaded('pdo')) {
        print '<p>pdo not installed.</p>'; }
      else {
        print '<p>pdo installed.</p>'; }
    ?>
    </script>
    </body>
    </html>

    apache restart

    Then, you can launch the Firefox browser and type the following:

    localhost/mysqli_check.php

    It should print the following in the browser.

    mysqli installed.
     
    pdo installed.
  8. Check if the mod_ssl module is installed. You can use the following command::

    rpm -qa | grep mod_ssl

    Assuming it’s not installed, you install it like this:

    dnf install -y mod_ssl

    Recheck after installing mod_ssl with the following command::

    rpm -qa | grep mod_ssl

    It should print:

    mod_ssl-2.4.51-7.el9_0.x86_64
  9. AlmaLinux and Apache require you to resolve the ServerName values and the public and private keys. Run this command on AlmaLinux to begin verifying and configuring the ServerName values and the public and private keys:

    httpd -M | grep ssl

    Assuming a new installation consistent with were MySQL and Apache were just configured, you should get the following message:

    AH00558: httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using localhost.localdomain. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
     ssl_module (shared)

    Recheck the failure for more detail with this command:

    sudo systemctl status httpd.service -l --no-pager

    It should print:

    ● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server
         Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
        Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service.d
                 └─php-fpm.conf
         Active: active (running) since Sun 2022-11-13 22:39:07 EST; 1h 37min ago
           Docs: man:httpd.service(8)
       Main PID: 1351 (httpd)
         Status: "Total requests: 0; Idle/Busy workers 100/0;Requests/sec: 0; Bytes served/sec:   0 B/sec"
          Tasks: 213 (limit: 23280)
         Memory: 43.1M
            CPU: 2.733s
         CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
                 ├─1351 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                 ├─1443 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                 ├─1452 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                 ├─1456 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                 └─1459 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
     
    Nov 13 22:39:06 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server...
    Nov 13 22:39:07 localhost.localdomain httpd[1351]: AH00558: httpd: Could not reliably determine the server's fully qualified domain name, using localhost.localdomain. Set the 'ServerName' directive globally to suppress this message
    Nov 13 22:39:07 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.
    Nov 13 22:39:07 localhost.localdomain httpd[1351]: Server configured, listening on: port 80

    It takes the next set of steps to fix the ServerName values.

    • Generically, on Linux you need to find the files to modify. You can use the following command from within the /etc directory to find the configuration files in the /etc directory that include ServerName in them. Their values will be proceeded by a # symbol because they’re comments by default.

      find /etc -type f | xargs grep -i ServerName

      It should return the following:

      ./httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf:#ServerName www.example.com:443
      ./httpd/conf/httpd.conf:# ServerName gives the name and port that the server uses to identify itself.
      ./httpd/conf/httpd.conf:#ServerName www.example.com:80
      ./dnsmasq.conf:# tftp_servername (the third option to dhcp-boot) and in that
    • Add the following line to the ssl.conf file as the root user:

      ServerName localhost:443
    • Add the following line to the httpd.conf file as the root user:

      ServerName localhost:443
    • After adding the two values, restart Apache with the following command:

      sudo apachectl restart
    • Rerun the systemctl command to get the status of the httpd service with this command:

      sudo systemctl status httpd.service -l --no-pager

      It should print:

      ● httpd.service - The Apache HTTP Server
           Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
          Drop-In: /usr/lib/systemd/system/httpd.service.d
                   └─php-fpm.conf
           Active: active (running) since Mon 2022-11-14 00:37:03 EST; 3min 23s ago
             Docs: man:httpd.service(8)
         Main PID: 53596 (httpd)
           Status: "Total requests: 0; Idle/Busy workers 100/0;Requests/sec: 0; Bytes served/sec:   0 B/sec"
            Tasks: 213 (limit: 23280)
           Memory: 34.0M
              CPU: 183ms
           CGroup: /system.slice/httpd.service
                   ├─53596 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                   ├─53597 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                   ├─53598 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                   ├─53599 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
                   └─53600 /usr/sbin/httpd -DFOREGROUND
       
      Nov 14 00:37:03 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Starting The Apache HTTP Server...
      Nov 14 00:37:03 localhost.localdomain systemd[1]: Started The Apache HTTP Server.
      Nov 14 00:37:03 localhost.localdomain httpd[53596]: Server configured, listening on: port 443, port 80
  10. Your next step requires setting up an SSL Certificate. Consistent with the design to build a standalone test system that uses a DHCP assigned IP address to resolve a localhost server name, you require the following two tasks to create an openssl self-signed certificate.

    • On the new instance, you create a private subdirectory with this command:

      sudo mkdir /etc/ssl/private

    • Then, you can build a self-signed certificate with this command:
      sudo openssl req -x509 -nodes -days 365 -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout /etc/ssl/private/apache-selfsigned.key -out /etc/ssl/certs/apache-selfsigned.crt

      The openssl command will prompt you for these values to create a private key:

      You are about to be asked to enter information that will be incorporated
      into your certificate request.
      What you are about to enter is what is called a Distinguished Name or a DN.
      There are quite a few fields but you can leave some blank
      For some fields there will be a default value,
      If you enter '.', the field will be left blank.
      -----
      Country Name (2 letter code) [XX]:
      State or Province Name (full name) []:
      Locality Name (eg, city) [Default City]:
      Organization Name (eg, company) [Default Company Ltd]:
      Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:
      Common Name (eg, your name or your server's hostname) []:
      Email Address []:
  11. Your last step requires three tasks to configure Apache to use SSL.

    • You need to create the following sites-available directory with the following command as the root user:

      mkdir /etc/httpd/sites-available

    • Add the following localhost.conf/etc/httpd/sites-available directory:
      <VirtualHost *:443>
         ServerName localhost
         DocumentRoot /var/www/html
       
         SSLEngine on
         SSLCertificateFile /etc/ssl/certs/localhost.crt
         SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/ssl/private/apache-selfsigned.key
      </VirtualHost>

    • Restart Apache with the following command:

      sudo apachectl restart
  12. After configuring everything, let’s test our self-signed HTTPS skunkworks. Launch the default Firefox browser and enter the following URL, which uses the mysql_check.php file from step #7:

    https://localhost/mysqli_check.php

    It will raise a warning message about a potential security risk, which is caused by our self-signed certificate. Click the Advanced… button and will see the option to Accept the Risk and Continue. If you want to use the self-signed and contained AlmaLinux LAMP stack for developer testing, accept the risk.

    Having assumed the risk, the confirmation of the configuration will be displayed as follows:

As always, I hope this helps those looking to install MySQL, PHP, on AlmaLinux.

Written by maclochlainn

October 30th, 2022 at 11:16 pm