MySQL secure-file-priv Enabled

[bgant]

The e-mail below documents that XC MST stopped working due to a MySQL security update in Ubuntu 14.04. The package update modified the /etc/mysql/my.cnf config to enable the "secure-file-priv" feature.

I recommend modifying MST to work with the new default enabled security feature. Rather than use the folder /var/lib/tomcat6/MST-instances/MetadataServicesToolkit, perhaps we can use the default /var/lib/mysql-files/ folder.

Also, we should avoid hard-coding any version numbers in directories. Especially considering that Tomcat 6.x is End-of-Life on December 31st, 2016: https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-60-eol.html

Brandon

Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2016 1:38 PM
Subject: [Changecontrol] xc-mst.carli.illinios.edu: mysql parameter change

I noticed that the MST was not performing its nightly updates. The MST application was failing to load data into mysql. Apparently during the last upgrade on October 30th, mysql must have been changed its default behavior. Previously the parameter secure-file-priv was disabled by default; now, apparently, it is set to /var/lib/mysql-files/. That means that the mysql server only allows input files to reside in that directory. But since the MST application puts its files in /var/lib/tomcat6/MST-instances/MetadataServicesToolkit, this was causing the application to crash (see error message below).

I've added the following parameter to /etc/mysql/my.cnf disable this feature (and subsequently restarted mysql and tomcat6):

secure-file-priv = ""