MariaDB fails to start on RHEL 6

Question

Installing MariaDB in RHEL6 and starting the server with service start mysql gives the error

131007 02:56:13 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from /var/lib/mysql
131007 02:56:13 mysqld_safe WSREP: Running position recovery with --log_error=                                 --pid-file=/var/lib/mysql/hostname.pid
131007 02:56:15 mysqld_safe WSREP: Failed to recover position: 

How can I fix this.

Answer 1

This is a selinux error. From the instructions supplied on the MariaDB website, the only supported configuration is to disable selinux.

Answer 2

If you are in an environment where disabling SELinux is not an option, you can instead just remove the mysql module which is causing the problem using:

semodule -r mysql