Knowledge Base

Changing MySQL datadir Path

If you run out of space on the server while using Cpanel WHM or other panels, moving the MySQL folder/files to another disk space and using them from the new location can help you gain more space on the disk.

A backup must be taken for any problems that may occur in MySQL.

mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > /home/databasebackups_$(date +%F_%R).sql.gz

service mysql stop
mkdir /home/new_mysql
mv /var/lib/mysql /home/new_mysql
chown -R mysql:mysql /home/new_mysql/mysql
ln -s /home/new_mysql/mysql /var/lib/mysql
Now we can start the service by adding this new path to the mysql settings file.

nano /etc/my.cnf
datadir=/home/new_mysql/mysql/

Then we restart the service with the following command.

service mysql start

service mysql status

You can check the datadir path from the output using the above command.