find my.cnf file location

How to Find my.cnf File Location in MySQL

my.cnf file is the main configuration file for MySQL database server. It contains many parameters and settings required to run your MySQL database smoothly. Often database administrators need to edit my.cnf file to customize their database installation. In this article, we will learn how to find my.cnf file location in MySQL. This is typically an issue faced by many database administrators and developers, whether they are beginners or experienced.


How to Find my.cnf File Location in MySQL

Generally, my.cnf file is located at these five locations depending on your OS and type of installation

  • /etc/my.cnf
  • /etc/mysql/my.cnf
  • $MYSQL_HOME/my.cnf
  • [datadir]/my.cnf
  • ~/.my.cnf

Typically, there should be only one of these files on your system. But if there are multiple files, then MySQL will load each of them one by one any the values of one file will be overridden by that of the next one. You can run the following command to determine the default location of my.cnf for your database.

$ mysql --help | grep /my.cnf

You will see output similar to one listed below.

Default options are read from the following files in the given order: /etc/my.cnf /etc/mysql/my.cnf ~/.my.cnf

Here are couple of alternative commands to determine file location of my.cnf

$ mysqladmin --help

OR
$ mysqld --help --verbose

Depending on the OS where MySQL is installed, it can be at any of the following locations.

Default locations for Linux:
/etc/my.cnf
/etc/mysql/my.cnf
/usr/etc/my.cnf
~/.my.cnf

Default locations for Windows:
C:\Windows\my.ini
C:\Windows\my.cnf
C:\my.ini
C:\my.cnf
C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.5\my.ini
C:\Program Files\MySQL\MySQL Server 5.5\my.cnf

If you are unable to find my.cnf at any of the above locations, try the following command.

$ find / -name my.cnf

In this article, we have learnt how to find my.cnf file location in both Linux and Windows. You can use the same commands in MacOS’ terminal also.

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