[chef] Re: Re: mysql-server fails on first restart within install

[Matthew Todd < >]

Thanks again for your help, Bryan --

On Aug 7, 2009, at 8:26 PM, Bryan McLellan wrote:

> My first thought is the /etc/mysql/debian.cnf file that contains a
> username/password that debian uses in it's init scripts. I'd look at
> that and try to connect with that user,  then chec to see if there are
> values for this in your debconf database, compare to the preseed
> values.

Yup, once the restart fails on install, I can /etc/init.d/mysql  
start, then mysql -u debian-sys-maint -p<the password from /etc/mysql/ 
debian.cnf> just fine.

> also, try 'dpkg -P --force-depends mysql-common' before the chef run.

Yes, I've been rolling back to a clean VMware snapshot each time.


But!

I may have had a breakthrough:

Continuing with the resource limits theory, I've been poking around  
with chpst in the shell.

Running the following command, which has the same chpst memory limit  
as the chef-client runit service, MySQL server FAILS to create the  
initial InnoDB tables:

	chpst -m 262144000 sh -c '/usr/bin/env  
DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive apt-get -q -y install mysql-server'

If I remove the "-m 262144000", however, it SUCCEEDS.

Strangely, though, doubling the memory limit to 524288000 (512M),  
1048576000 (1G), and 2097152000 (2G) doesn't help: MySQL server still  
FAILS to restart.

(And when I use "chpst -d ..." rather than "-m" (just limiting the  
data segment), it SUCCEEDS.)


So, for now, I've draconically removed the chpst -m memory limit from  
chef-client's runit script -- and mysql-server installs just fine.  
Long-term, though, I feel a little uneasy, since I'm sure that limit  
was there for a reason.


Could someone out there confirm that the initial chpst command,  
above, also fails for you?

And would anyone be able to provide more chpst insight, either a more  
elegant solution than wholesale removing the -m, or a theory as to  
why 2G of memory weren't enough for MySQL to create a database?


Cheers!  -- Matthew