MySQL Bugs: #27038: Administrator for OS X does not allow user to specify alternate my.cnf location

Bug #27038	Administrator for OS X does not allow user to specify alternate my.cnf location
Submitted:	11 Mar 2007 23:29	Modified:	12 Feb 2009 16:44
Reporter:	Francis Ries	Email Updates:
Status:	Unsupported	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Administrator	Severity:	S4 (Feature request)
Version:	1.2.10ga	OS:	MacOS (Mac OS X (10.4.8))
Assigned to:		CPU Architecture:	Any
Tags:	my.cnf, Options

Description:
I'm running an instance of mySQL 5.0.27 in the standard /usr/local/mysql location to support a number of databases on my laptop.  I use a my.cnf file in %basedir location (/usr/local/mysql) because if I put it in the default location (/etc/my.cnf), it affects the operation of embedded mySQL instances running within applications I use on my laptop (Abode Acrobat 8.0 Organizer).  I'd like to point mySQL Administrator at the my.cnf file in /usr/local/mysql, but I'm not given the option.  When I select "Options", I am told:

Configuration File Not Found
The my.cnf file could not be located at /etc/my.cnf
Click "Create" to initialize a new one or "Cancel".

and given only two choices, : "Create" or "Cancel".  Based on other entries for mySQL Administrator (Bug #22500) in on Bugs.mySQL.com, I understand that mySQL for other OSs (linux, etc)  allow the specification of an alternate location for my.cnf.  Surely this functionality should also be incorporated into mySQL Administrator for OS X.

How to repeat:
1) Ensure that my.cnf does not exist in /etc... but does exist in /usr/local/mysql
2) Open MySQL Administrator.
3) Select "Options".
4) Observe dialog box that does not allow user to specify my.cnf location.

Suggested fix:
Incorporate functionality to allow users to specify altnernate my.cnf file location.

Thank you for the report.

Verified as described.

as a workaround you can create a symbolic link (ln -s) localed at default location pointing to the actual file location

But if I add a symlink to /etc, then won't other instances of mySQL on my system (such as the one embedded in Acrobat 8) also use the symlink and find and load the my.cnf in /usr/local/mysql?  This is the situation I'm trying to avoid, as the settings that I have in the my.cnf for my development database (/usr/local/mysql) end up breaking the embedded mySQL instance, disabling some of the functionality in Acrobat.  

On the other hand, if the mySQL database service doesn't follow symlinks when looking for my.cnf, then my immediate problem is more or less solved...

Many thanks for writing a bug report.
We are on the way to implement the whole functionality of MySQL Administrator into MySQL Workbench.
Unfortunately you are using an unsupported platform.

For more details about supported platforms please read here:

http://www.mysql.com/support/supportedplatforms/tools.html