Do you want to install MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS? In this quick tutorial, I show you exactly how to do it in five minutes or less.

This tutorial assumes you don’t have MySQL or MariaDB installed. If you do, it’s necessary to uninstall them or follow a slightly more complicated upgrade process (not covered here).

Step 1: Install MySQL APT Repository

Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, also known as Xenial, comes with a choice of MySQL 5.7 and MariaDB 10.0.

If you want to use MySQL 8.0, you need to install the MySQL/Oracle Apt repository first:

The MySQL APT repository installation package allows you to pick what MySQL version you want to install, as well as if you want access to Preview Versions. Let’s leave them all as default:

Installing MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu

Step 2: Update repository configuration and install MySQL Server

Note: Do not forget to run “apt-get update”, otherwise you can get an old version of MySQL from Ubuntu repository installed.

The installation process asks you to set a password for the root user:

Installing MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu 1

I recommend you set a root password for increased security. If you do not set a password for the root account, “auth_socket” authentication is enabled. This ensures only the operating system’s “root” user can connect to MySQL Server without a password.

Next, the installation script asks you whether to use Strong Password Encryption or Legacy Authentication:

Installing MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu 2

While using strong passwords is recommend for security purposes, not all applications and drivers support this new authentication method. Going with Legacy Authentication is a safer choice

All Done

You should have MySQL 8.0 Server running. You can test it by connecting to it with a command line client:

Installing MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu 3

As you can see, it takes just a few simple steps to install MySQL 8.0 on Ubuntu 16.04 LTS. Go ahead give it a try!

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4 Comments
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Dan

Short, clear, and right on target. Now that’s documentation!
Thanks Peter!

-1
steve

Thank you so much! It saved my day!

0
Makabata Jeremia Mokgolobotho

Hi, does anyone know how to get the MySQL Workbench tool for version 8?

0
Leib

Hi, very clear.
Could you also provide instructions how to upgrade from 5.7 to 8.0

Tried just to follow this instructions but got this error by the end.
Errors were encountered while processing:
mysql-community-server
mysql-server
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

3