Mac OS X - MySQL Workbench - Error Opening Configuration File my.cnf

November 21, 2011 - 10:22pm - by admin

By default, the OS X installation does not use a my.cnf, and MySQL just uses the default values.

To set up your own my.cnf, you could just create a file straight in /etc, or do the following (excuse me if I say anything which is obvious to you, but this may help complete OS X beginners who are not familiar with the Unix command line):

Log in to OS X using an administrator-level account (to keep things simple lower down)

Open Terminal (in Utilities folder under Applications folder)

cd /usr/local/mysql/support-files/

sudo cp my-huge.cnf /etc/my.cnf

and enter your admin password when prompted. You could do this from a non-admin account by using the su command, but that's probably a bit scary for some people ;)

You will now have a copy of my.cnf in /etc (just in case you don't know, that means the etc folder directly under the root folder, not under MySQL's install folder)

You can edit it with a text-editor such as TextWrangler by using File->Open Hidden, or if you are happy to use the command line, use:

cd /etc

sudo nano my.cnf

To exit without saving, press CTRL+X, to Save then exit it's: CTRL+O then CTRL+X

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