Option Files and Login Paths

The option files and groups that MariaDB Shell reads at startup, the options that control them, and how MariaDB Shell uses the ~/.mylogin.cnf file.

Like the other MariaDB clients, MariaDB Shell reads default options from my.cnf-style option files when it starts. You can keep the connection settings that you use every day, such as the user, the socket, or the TLS files, in an option file instead of typing them each time.

Files

On Linux and macOS, MariaDB Shell reads the following files, in this order. Files that don't exist are skipped.

1. /etc/my.cnf
2. /etc/mysql/my.cnf
3. my.cnf in the directory named by the MARIADB_HOME environment variable or, if that is unset, by MYSQL_HOME
4. The file named by --defaults-extra-file
5. ~/.my.cnf

On Windows, MariaDB Shell looks for my.ini and my.cnf in the Windows directory, in C:\, and in the installation directory.

To see the list for your build, run mariadb-shell --help. The end of the output names the files and the groups.

The usual option-file syntax applies, including the !include and !includedir directives.

Groups

MariaDB Shell reads options from three groups:

Group	Purpose
[mariadb-shell]	Options for MariaDB Shell only.
[mysqlsh]	Options written for MySQL Shell. MariaDB Shell reads this group so that existing files keep working.
[client]	Options shared by all MariaDB and MySQL clients.

Other client groups, such as [mysql], [mariadb-client], and [client-server], are ignored.

The groups don't have a priority over each other. MariaDB Shell applies the options in the order in which they appear, file by file, and a later setting overrides an earlier one. If ~/.my.cnf sets port in [client] after [mariadb-shell], the [client] value wins. To give a MariaDB Shell setting the last word, put the [mariadb-shell] group at the end of the file.

~/.my.cnf

[client]
user = dba
socket = /run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

[mariadb-shell]
ssl-mode = VERIFY_IDENTITY
ssl-ca = /etc/mysql/certs/ca.pem
connect-timeout = 5000

With this file, mariadb-shell --sql connects to the local server through the socket as dba, and mariadb-shell -h db1.example.com --sql connects to db1.example.com over TCP with the same account and TLS settings.

What an Option File Can Contain

MariaDB Shell treats each option from a file like a command-line option of the same name, so you can use any option that mariadb-shell --help lists, not only the connection options. For example, sql or py selects the startup mode. Underscores in option names are converted to dashes, so ssl_ca and ssl-ca are equivalent.

warning

An option that MariaDB Shell doesn't know stops the startup, even in the shared [client] group:

While processing defaults options:
mariadb-shell: unknown option --default-character-set

To keep an option in [client] for other clients, prefix it with loose-, as in loose-default-character-set = utf8mb4. MariaDB Shell then ignores it.

When an option file supplies connection settings, and nothing else picks the session type, MariaDB Shell opens a classic session with them at startup.

Precedence

Options from files have the lowest priority. Any option on the command line, including the parts of a URI, overrides the value from a file. A password from an option file is used only if the command line supplies no password and doesn't request a prompt with -p.

For the precedence of the command-line options among themselves, see Connection URIs and Options.

Controlling Which Files Are Read

The following options change which files MariaDB Shell reads. They must come before any other option on the command line.

Option	Description
--no-defaults	Don't read any option file.
--defaults-file=<file>	Read only the given file.
--defaults-extra-file=<file>	Read the given file after the system-wide files and before ~/.my.cnf.
--defaults-group-suffix=<suffix>	Also read the groups whose names end with the suffix, such as [client_prod] and [mariadb-shell_prod] for --defaults-group-suffix=_prod.
--print-defaults	Print the options that MariaDB Shell would take from the option files, and exit.

Group suffixes let you keep the settings for several environments in one file:

~/.my.cnf

[client]
user = dba

[client_prod]
host = db1.example.com
ssl-mode = VERIFY_IDENTITY

[client_test]
host = test-db.example.com

mariadb-shell --defaults-group-suffix=_prod --sql

To check what the files contribute, use --print-defaults. MariaDB Shell masks any password in the output as --password=*****.

$ mariadb-shell --defaults-group-suffix=_prod --print-defaults
mariadb-shell would have been started with the following arguments:
--user=dba --host=db1.example.com --ssl-mode=VERIFY_IDENTITY

Login Paths

MariaDB Shell doesn't support the --login-path option. Although mariadb-shell --help lists it among the option-file options, the shell rejects it at startup with unknown option --login-path. To switch between sets of connection settings, use --defaults-group-suffix or --defaults-file.

The file ~/.mylogin.cnf has a different role in MariaDB Shell: on Linux, it is where the default credential store keeps the passwords that you save. MariaDB Shell reads and writes the file itself, in the format that MySQL's mysql_config_editor uses, so it needs no external tool. The connection settings in that file aren't applied at startup. See Credential Store and Credential Helpers.

warning

The passwords in ~/.mylogin.cnf are obfuscated, not encrypted: anyone who can read the file can recover them. Keep the file readable only by you.