July 2026 – The Centauri Files

MySQL 9.7, the latest LTS version, was released on April 21, 2026. It’s too new to be available from the various Linux distribution repositories where MySQL 8.4, the previous LTS version, is the current offering. If you want to use MySQL 9.7, you’ll need to install it from the Oracle repositories. But there are problems. As my testing was done on AlmaLinux, these issues apply to RHEL-based distributions. However, Debian/Ubuntu users should take note and be ready for possible speed bumps.

Oracle didn’t release a new repo package for MySQL 9.7. Instead, they updated the existing MySQL 8.4 repo package to add MySQL 9.7. When you go to the download page for the MySQL Community Server Yum Repository, you’ll find the repo packages are all mysql84-community-release RPMs. There is no mention that the repo package will install MySQL 9.7.

Whether on Linux or Windows, it’s imperative that MySQL databases be regularly backed up to prevent data loss. And any data loss is much more likely to be from human error than a system failure. But the installers for MySQL and MariaDB do not touch on database backups beyond installing the mysqldump utility. Information to be found for backing up MySQL databases pertains mostly to Linux, and the plethora of backup scripts available for Linux are generally not suitable on Windows.

To fill this gap, I created the PS-BackupMySQL package. It provides the PowerShell script Backup-MySqlDatabases to back up all user databases and the mysql system database. (Other system databases are dynamically created and do not need to be backed up.) It’s designed to be run interactively or from a Windows scheduled task to back up databases on a regular schedule. And since databases that are backed up may eventually need to be restored, the script Restore-MySqlDatabases is provided to restore databases – one, many, or all – from the backup files. Also included are Create-MySqlBackupUser which simplifies creating a backup user with only those privileges needed to back up the databases and Create-MySqlBackupTask to create a Windows scheduled task to back up the databases.

Adventures in System Administration

Month: July 2026

MySQL 9.7 Installation Issues

PS-BackupMySQL: MySQL/MariaDB Backup for Windows