how to recover after power outage

[Michael Powell]

John Almberg wrote:

[snip]
> 
> Okay, so the machine is back online and I can log in again.
> 
> The hardware is only 18 months old or so... good quality stuff, so
> hopefully nothing is physically damaged. We'll see...
> 
> Unfortunately, mysql isn't working at the moment... will make a
> backup of data (I have the previous night's backup, of course, but
> would like the latest, if possible.) Then will try to figure out
> what's working and what's not.
> 

Check the machine-hostname.err file when you manually try and start MySQL. 
Provided that you have mysql_enable="YES" in /etc/rc.conf you should be able 
to manually attempt to start with /usr/local/etc/rc.d/mysql-server start (it 
seems to work reliably when you type out the entire command path-wise).

Note that if somehow permissions on the my.cnf file got changed MySQL won't 
start if my.cnf is world writable. Check for stale PID and sockets. Normally 
these shouldn't be a problem as a startup will just overwrite them. Check 
these to eliminate any wonkiness, e.g. some permission change isn't allowing 
for MySQL to wipe the old ones.

The whateverthehostname.err log and possibly /var/log/messages might give 
some clue for what's going on. If the database files are corrupt just clean 
them out and replace with a backup done with dump. Ensure the /var/db/mysql 
tree is chowned mysql:mysql. If you had to install/reinstall from ports the 
install should have created the appropriate uid/gid accounts. Check and see 
if these are missing. 

At any rate I wish you the best of luck. Now that you can SSH in you can 
probably fix it up.

-Mike