You may observe a notification on WHM as illustrated in the screenshot below, indicating that the following databases will reach their End of Life status in the coming year:
MariaDB® 10.1 on October 17, 2020.
MySQL® 5.6 on February 5, 2021.
cPanel, L.L.C. will discontinue support for systems operating MariaDB 10.1 or MySQL 5.6 once they reach End of Life status. System administrators who do not upgrade their servers to supported versions of these databases risk missing critical security patches and may face compatibility issues with other software components. Additionally, your servers will forfeit new features and security enhancements available in the latest cPanel & WHM versions.
This article aims to demonstrate how to upgrade your MySQL with just a few clicks through the WHM interface. While upgrading MySQL via the command line (SSH) is still an option, it is more complex compared to using the WHM graphical interface and EasyApache.
How to Upgrade Your MySQL
- Log into WHM, navigate to “SQL Services“, and select “MySQL/MariaDB Upgrade“.
- Select the version of MySQL or MariaDB you wish to upgrade to. In this article, we will be upgrading MySQL from 5.6 to 5.7.
- Click Next. A new interface will appear with warning messages regarding the upgrade process. The warnings may vary across different servers, so review them carefully, check the boxes to acknowledge that you understand the potential risks, and then click “Continue“.
- Select the type of upgrade you would like to perform:
Unattended Upgrade — This option automatically rebuilds Apache and PHP using the last saved defaults. It also updates Ruby Gems and rebuilds Apache and PHP.
Interactive Upgrade — This option guides you through the upgrade process. It includes updating Ruby Gems, upgrading MySQL or MariaDB, and rebuilding Apache and PHP.
The upgrade will commence, and the upgrade process interface will appear. Once it completes, the green bar at the top will remain green, confirming that the upgrade is successful.
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