I often get asked how to set up and use SSL with MySQL, especially on Windows – I think largely because the manual step-by-step is more geared towards Linux users (though this “how-to” is valid for all – anyone can copy/paste the commands after changing the paths).

So I’ve compiled a concise, yet comprehensive, how-to that I wanted to share with everyone out there who wants to set this up quickly and efficiently.

And for those who haven’t done it, setting up SSL can often seem intimidating, so I want to dispell that myth while I’m at it, and show you how quick and easy it can be to set up SSL for MySQL.

For one, I should mention that I’m using a version where SSL is ‘available’, just ‘DISABLED’ (some versions can be compiled w/out ssl support – so those would not work):

mysql> show global …

In this article I will describe how to test the plain and the encrypted SMTP/POP3/IMAP and HTTP protocols with telnet and the openssl s_client command.

list of references

For a complete list of available commands for the used protocols check the RFCs please:

• RFC – Post Office Protocol – Version 3
• RFC – Simple Mail Transfer Protocol
• RFC – INTERNET MESSAGE ACCESS PROTOCOL – VERSION 4rev1
• RFC – Hypertext Transfer Protocol — HTTP/1.1

SMTP sending mail

In the first example I will open a telnet connection to a SMTP Server on …

I found myself with some spare time the other day and decided that my current mysql backup strategy is not the best in the world. The mysql server is a virtual machine in a Brisbane datacenter and it's backed up via a script that calls mysqldump on each installed database and dumps the content to (compressed) files. These files then get sucked down via rdiff-backup.

This is fine in principle, but does mean it's possible for me to lose 24 hours worth of data due to an accidental '--; DROP table students.

A more ideal way would be for the remote sql server to replicate to a local one, on which I can run mysqldump more often without affecting web site performance. (Replication would replicate the DROP table statement too.. :-)

With a bit of a confluence of attending three days of OpenQuery mysql training and needing to regenerate all ssl keys, I thought I should …