How to install MySQL on Ubuntu and create a database (step-by-step)

MySQL is still the most widely used relational database in web applications — Laravel, Django, Rails and Node.js all have first-class support. But the default Ubuntu install leaves loose ends: a root user without a strong password, no application database, and a network configuration that either blocks legitimate connections or exposes port 3306 to the world.

This guide covers the full path on an Ubuntu 24.04 LTS VPS: installing the official packages, basic hardening with mysql_secure_installation, creating a dedicated database for your application, creating a user with the minimum required permissions, and validating the connection. Target persona: a developer who needs a working local MySQL to run their application in staging or small production.

Estimated execution time: 15 to 20 minutes, counting service restarts and the application connection test.

Prerequisites

Before you start, confirm that your VPS meets the minimum below. If you do not have the server set up yet, the tutorial assumes working SSH access as a user with sudo.

If you still need to decide between running everything on one VPS or splitting the database onto a dedicated server, the rule of thumb is: up to ~5k active users/day, MySQL and the application on the same VPS saves network latency and simplifies deployment. Above that, split into dedicated instances.

Installing MySQL Server

Ubuntu 24.04 already ships MySQL 8.0 in the official repositories — no external PPA needed. This section covers installing the packages, first service start, and verifying that the daemon came up correctly.

sudo apt update

sudo apt install -y mysql-server

sudo systemctl status mysql

sudo systemctl enable mysql

Initial hardening with mysql_secure_installation

Fresh MySQL ships with several insecure defaults to ease first use: a public test database, anonymous users, root reachable remotely. The mysql_secure_installation script fixes all of that in one go.

sudo mysql_secure_installation

Creating the database and the application user

Never use the root user for your application connections. The right approach is to create a dedicated database and a user with permissions restricted to that database only — so a compromise of the application does not become a compromise of the entire MySQL.

sudo mysql

CREATE DATABASE my_app
  CHARACTER SET utf8mb4
  COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;

CREATE USER 'app_user'@'localhost'
  IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPasswordHere123!@#';

GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON my_app.*
  TO 'app_user'@'localhost';

FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

EXIT;

Verifying the setup

Before pointing the application at the database, validate everything from the CLI. If it fails here, it will fail there too — this saves debugging time.

mysql -u app_user -p my_app

CREATE TABLE health_check (
  id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
  checked_at DATETIME DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

INSERT INTO health_check () VALUES ();
SELECT * FROM health_check;

DROP TABLE health_check;
EXIT;

Configuring access from the application

With the database and user created, update your application’s configuration file. The examples below cover the most common formats.

For Laravel (.env):

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=127.0.0.1
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=my_app
DB_USERNAME=app_user
DB_PASSWORD=StrongPasswordHere123!@#

For Node.js with mysql2:

DATABASE_URL=mysql://app_user:StrongPasswordHere123!%40%[email protected]:3306/my_app

Note the URL-encoding in the password: ! becomes %21, @ becomes %40, # becomes %23. Forgetting this results in a confusing authentication error.

Troubleshooting

Error “Access denied for user ‘app_user’@‘localhost’”

The password you typed does not match the stored hash. Common causes:

• Special character not escaped in .env (use double quotes around the password).
• The user was created with @'127.0.0.1' but the application connects as localhost (which uses the socket) — or the other way around. Create one user per host you need.
• Password was changed via SET PASSWORD instead of ALTER USER, which in some versions keeps the old hash.

Quick fix:

ALTER USER 'app_user'@'localhost'
  IDENTIFIED BY 'NewPassword';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

MySQL does not accept remote connections

By default MySQL 8 only listens on 127.0.0.1. To accept connections from other VMs on the same private network, edit /etc/mysql/mysql.conf.d/mysqld.cnf:

bind-address = 0.0.0.0

Restart the service and open the port in the firewall only for the authorized IPs:

sudo systemctl restart mysql
sudo ufw allow from 10.0.0.0/24 to any port 3306

Never open 3306 to 0.0.0.0/0 without TLS configured.

”Too many connections”

The default max_connections is 151. For applications with a large pool, bump it in mysqld.cnf:

max_connections = 500

Each connection uses ~12 MB of RAM — size it against your VPS before pushing this number up.

Next steps

With MySQL up and running, consider:

• Automated backups: schedule mysqldump in a daily cron and replicate the .sql to external storage (S3, Backblaze B2). Without off-site backup, a corrupted disk wipes everything.
• Monitoring: install mysqltuner (sudo apt install mysqltuner) and run it after 24h of usage for tuning recommendations based on real workload.
• TLS for remote connections: if you are going to expose 3306 to another VPS, set up certificates — MySQL 8 supports TLS natively.
• Read-only replication: for read-heavy applications, configure a secondary replica and route SELECTs to it.
• Dedicated VPS for the database: as your application grows, splitting MySQL onto a dedicated Hostini VPS with NVMe SSDs and snapshot backups reduces I/O contention between the app and the database.