Thanks. I keep forgetting to add a kill level, since if you do that, as you pointed out, you can do some "damage" you have to try to correct later. After doing hard-kills, it's really a good idea to reboot to make sure all your services come back. It's possible to screw things up even in Unix, when you use kill.
So, to summarize slightly:
the first thing to do is check to see if MySQl is running ... (several ways to do that were given).
The next thing is to try to kill it if it is, since it's doing something unexpected. The Key here, is that the history of this incident included an upgrade where the installers didn't know MySQL was already installed. This can cause the mysql.sock file to "disapper" either physically, or in assumed location.
Next, if the above is successful, restarting MySQL with the 'safe' option is the best.
IMHO: from experience bringing the servers up and down with and without new software installs, it's always a good idea to make sure the server reboots the way you expect it to while you are thinking about it. That way, if you reboot, and mysql doesn't start running automatically, it's on your mind to fix it.
The only problems/surprises I've had have been when I rebooted for some reason (sometimes over 6 or 8 months apart) and things don't work right. That's a lot of time to try to remember all the changes you made.
It's just a CYA gesture when you make changes to the boot-sequence such as adding or updating services or background processes, to make sure they all come back as expected, and haven't gone away.
I realize my experience is somewhat limited compared to the trial-by-fire you've been getting, but have hit my share of problems and worked out solutions that let me sleep at night :) Also, I have little RAQ experience, although now that SUN is selling them, I might get more. And, I do try to make the footnote when my experience is on Solaris and might not port to Linux or BSD.
Anyway, to some it might appear we are arguing.... (I'm really sensitive to this lately, perhaps too sensitive, adolescents change your views of life greatly), but much of what we learned comes from experience, and trying to put all that experience into a few short steps or a sequence people can follow that will always work, is difficult to impossible.
So, readers of this thread should take all the suggestions into consideration, and keep notes of what works on their system.
Unlike windows, *nix doesn't give you many reasons, chances or opportunities to suffer through a reboot :) That is both good and bad... since it's not uncommon for a year to go by between reboots, and all of a sudden your finely tuned system isn't working the way it was before.
(Heck, my last reboot I took my ISP's sub-net down, <G>.... I had a bad IP on my machine that was hijacking a load of traffic.... It was 7+ months between reboots. No one was looking for that!)
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