How to replace MySQL with Percona Server on RHEL or CentOS

You can safely replace MySQL with Percona Server without lossing any data. In order to do it, please follow the instructions bellow

  1. Install Percona repository
yum install https://www.percona.com/redir/downloads/percona-release/redhat/latest/percona-release-0.1-3.noarch.rpm
  1. Remove MySQL packages
yum remove mysql mysql-server mysql-libs
  1. Install Percona package Percona-Server-server-56 (or the latest version Percona-Server-server-57)
yum install Percona-Server-server-56
  1. Start Percona Server
service mysql start
  1. Set Percona Server to auto-start
chkconfig mysql on

Please note that you might also need to update php-mysqlnd package if you are using remi

yum install php-mysqlnd phpmyadmin --enablerepo=remi
mv /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf.rpmsave /etc/httpd/conf.d/phpMyAdmin.conf
service httpd restart