How to set-up MySQL for Python on Ubuntu

This is just for my own reference as I always forget the dependencies for setting up MySQL on a new machine.

Installation

Starting with a vanilla Lucid install¹, install pip and upgrade to the latest version:

apt-get install python-pip
pip install -U pip

Next, install the required development packages:

apt-get install python-dev libmysqlclient-dev

then

pip install MySQL-python

should complete successfully.

Symptoms of missing headers

Without libmysqlclient-dev, you’ll see something like this:

Downloading/unpacking MySQL-python
Running setup.py egg_info for package MySQL-python
    sh: mysql_config: not found
    Traceback (most recent call last):
    File "<string>", line 14, in <module>
    File "/home/vagrant/build/MySQL-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>
        metadata, options = get_config()
    File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config
        libs = mysql_config("libs_r")
    File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config
        raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))
    EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    sh: mysql_config: not found

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<string>", line 14, in <module>

File "/home/vagrant/build/MySQL-python/setup.py", line 15, in <module>

    metadata, options = get_config()

File "setup_posix.py", line 43, in get_config

    libs = mysql_config("libs_r")

File "setup_posix.py", line 24, in mysql_config

    raise EnvironmentError("%s not found" % (mysql_config.path,))

EnvironmentError: mysql_config not found

Without python-dev, you’ll see something that ends with the following:

...

    _mysql.c:2620: error: expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or '__attribute__' before '_mysql_ResultObject_Type'

_mysql.c:2706: error: expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or '__attribute__' before '_mysql_methods'

_mysql.c:2778: error: expected '=', ',', ';', 'asm' or '__attribute__' before '*' token

_mysql.c:2810: warning: return type defaults to 'int'

_mysql.c: In function 'DL_EXPORT':

_mysql.c:2810: error: expected declaration specifiers before 'init_mysql'

_mysql.c:2888: error: expected '{' at end of input

error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

----------------------------------------
Command /usr/bin/python -c "import setuptools;__file__='/home/vagrant/build/MySQL-python/setup.py';exec(compile(open(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" install --single-version-externally-managed --record /tmp/pip-dPF1DK-record/install-record.txt failed with error code 1
Storing complete log in /home/vagrant/.pip/pip.log

Tested using the Lucid32 Vagrant box: http://files.vagrantup.com/lucid32.box ↩︎