[debian-mysql] Bug#588217: Mysql failing to start: The problem is mysql requires the loopback interface to be up

[Bas Wijnen]

I encountered this problem while installing mysql. Since there was no
answer here, I investigated. On my machine, with strace mysqld, this is
the relevant result:

bind(10, {sa_family=AF_INET, sin_port=htons(3306),
sin_addr=inet_addr("127.0.0.1")}, 16) = -1 EADDRNOTAVAIL (Cannot assign
requested address)

This is caused by my network setup being broken, in particular address
127.0.0.1 is not assigned to any of my network interfaces (in other
words, interface lo is not up). This means the socket cannot bind to it,
thus causing this error.

To fix it, add to /etc/network/interfaces:

auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

and reboot the computer, or run
ifup lo

After that, it should work. It did for me anyway. :-)