Mac OS X 10.5 Server comes with the MySQL pre-installed. However, the database server doesn't ship with the client version of OS X 10.5 Leopard, which most of us Mac users run. Here are the notes I took, putting MySQL 5.1 on a 2 GHz Intel Core Duo based iMac (none 64 bit) running OS X 10.5.2 (Client)

Installing MySQL 5.1 on OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Client

Download the pre-compiled module package in form of a diskimage (dmg), available at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql/ For the 2 GHz Intel Core Duo based iMac, I downloaded the 32-bit version mysql-5.1.23-rc-osx10.5-x86.dmg. Newer Macs, featuring a Core-2-Duo processor should work best with the 64-bit version.
Open (double-click) the dmg file, followed by running (double-click) the mysql-5.1.23-rc-osx10.5-x86.pkg package installer.

The package installer will install the mysql into /usr/local/mysql-5.1.23-rc-osx10.5-x86 and also create this shortcut /usr/local/mysql/

Installing the Preferences Pane won't do us any good, it does not work anymore with OS X 10.5. Instead, the launchd mysql.plist file needs to be created and stored in /Library/LaunchDaemons/ and also given ownership to root:

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/mysql.plist

mysql.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>GroupName</key> <string>mysql</string> <key>KeepAlive</key> <true/> <key>Label</key> <string>com.mysql.mysqld</string> <key>Program</key> <string>/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe</string> <key>UserName</key> <string>mysql</string> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <true/> </dict> </plist>

This command line can now be used to start MySQL:

sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/mysql.plist

and to stop it:

sudo launchctl stop mysql
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/mysql.plist