Preparations for setting up a database server

Before we get started with setting up our database server, there are a few odds and ends to get out of the way. As we go through this chapter, we'll set up a basic database server using MariaDB. I'm sure more than a few of my readers are familiar with MySQL. MySQL is a tried and true solution that is still in use in many data centers today, and that will probably continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. There's a good chance that a popular website or two that you regularly visit utilizes it on the backend. So, you may be wondering then, why not go over that instead of MariaDB?

There are two reasons why this book will focus on MariaDB. First, the majority of the Linux community is migrating over to it (more on that later), and it's also a drop-in replacement for MySQL. This means that any databases or scripts you've already written for MySQL will most likely work just fine with MariaDB, barring...