Hi folks, have been directed here from stackoverflow here, am reposting the question and adding my.cnf at the end of a post. so far in my 10+ years experience with linux, all the permission problems I've ever encountered, have been successfully solved with chmod -R 777 /path/where/the/problem/has/occured (every lie has a grain of truth in it :) This time the trick doesn't work, so I'm turning to you for help. I'm compiling mysql server from scratch with zc.buildout (www . buildout . org). I do launch it by executing /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe, this works. The thing is that i'll be launching this from within supervisor (supervisord . org) script, and when used on the deployment server, it'll need it to be launched with root permissions(so that nginx server, launched with the same script, would have access to 80 port). The problem is that sudo /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/bin/mysqld_safe, fails, generating the error, posted bellow, in mysql error log (apache and nginx works as expected). http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/216045 suggests, that "there are two errors: A missing table and a file system that mysqld doesn't have access to". Mysqldatadir and all the mysql server binary files has 777 permissions, talbe mysql.plugin does exist and has 777 permissions (why Can't open the mysql.plugin table?), "sudo touch mysql_datadir/tmp/file" does create file (why Can't create/write to file /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/tmp/ib4e9Huz?). chgrp -R mysql mysql_datadir and adding "root, toinbis, mysql" users to mysql group ( cat /etc/group | grep mysql outputs mysql:x:124:root,toinbis,mysql) has no effect - when i launch it as a casual user, it starts, when as a root - it fails. Does mysql server, even started as root, tries to operate as other, let's say, 'mysql' user? but even in that case, adding mysql user to mysql group and making all the mysql_datadirs files belong to mysql group should make things work smoothly. I do know that it might be a better idea to simply to launch one the nginx as root and mysql - as just a user, but this error irritated me enough so to devote enough energy so not to only "make things work", but to also make things work exactly as i wanted it initially, so to have a proof of concept that it's possible. and this is the generated error: 091213 20:02:55 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Table 'plugin' is read only 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Can't open the mysql.plugin table. Please run mysql_upgrade to create it. /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Can't create/write to file '/home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/tmp/ib4e9Huz' (Errcode: 13) 091213 20:02:55 InnoDB: Error: unable to create temporary file; errno: 13 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' init function returned error. 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed. 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Can't start server : Bind on unix socket: Permission denied 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Do you already have another mysqld server running on socket: /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock ? 091213 20:02:55 [ERROR] Aborting 091213 20:02:55 [Note] /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql/libexec/mysqld: Shutdown complete 091213 20:02:55 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.pid ended My my.cnf (the basedir and datadir(including tempdir) have chmod -R 777 permissions) : [client] socket = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock port = 8002 [mysqld_safe] socket = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock nice = 0 [mysqld] # # * Basic Settings # socket = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.sock port = 8002 pid-file = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/var/pids/mysql.pid basedir = /home/toinbis/.../parts/mysql datadir = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir tmpdir = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/tmp skip-external-locking bind-address = 127.0.0.1 log-error =/home/toinbis/.../runtime/logs/mysql_errorlog # # * Fine Tuning # key_buffer = 16M max_allowed_packet = 32M thread_stack = 128K thread_cache_size = 8 myisam-recover = BACKUP #max_connections = 100 #table_cache = 64 #thread_concurrency = 10 # # * Query Cache Configuration # query_cache_limit = 1M query_cache_size = 16M # # * Logging and Replication # # Both location gets rotated by the cronjob. # Be aware that this log type is a performance killer. #log = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/logs/mysql_logs/mysql.log # # Error logging goes to syslog. This is a Debian improvement :) # # Here you can see queries with especially long duration #log_slow_queries = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/logs/mysql_logs/mysql-slow.log #long_query_time = 2 #log-queries-not-using-indexes # # The following can be used as easy to replay backup logs or for replication. #server-id = 1 #log_bin = /home/toinbis/.../runtime/mysql_datadir/mysql-bin.log #binlog_format = ROW #read_only = 0 #expire_logs_days = 10 #max_binlog_size = 100M #sync_binlog = 1 #binlog_do_db = include_database_name #binlog_ignore_db = include_database_name # # * InnoDB # innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend innodb_buffer_pool_size=64M innodb_log_file_size=16M innodb_log_buffer_size=8M innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit=1 innodb_file_per_table innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog=1 [mysqldump] quick quote-names max_allowed_packet = 32M [mysql] #no-auto-rehash # faster start of mysql but no tab completion [isamchk] key_buffer = 16M Any ideas much appreciated! regards, to P.S. sorry for messy hyperlinks, it's my first post and anti-spam feature of SF doesn't allow to post them properly :)