Using Liquibase with MySQL
MySQL is a fast, multi-user SQL database service. MySQL Server is intended for mission-critical, heavy-load production systems as well as for embedding into mass-deployed software.
Note: For more information, see the MySQL documentation page.
Supported versions
- 5.5 – community tested
- 5.6 – community and Test Harness tested
- 5.7 – officially certified (V4.2+) and tested with Test Harness
- 8.0 – officially certified (V4.2+) and tested with Test Harness
Prerequisites
- Install Liquibase.
- Create a Liquibase project folder to store all Liquibase files.
- Create a new Liquibase properties file or use the
liquibase.properties
file included in the installation package. For more information, see Specifying Properties in a Connection Profile.
Install drivers
To use Liquibase and MySQL, you need to have the JDBC driver JAR file.
liquibase/lib
directory.
If you use Maven, you also need to download the driver JAR file and configure your Maven pom.xml
file to use the local copy of the driver. For more information, see Configuring Liquibase Attributes in your Maven POM File. For example:
<dependency>
<groupId>mysql</groupId>
<artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
<version>8.0.21</version>
</dependency>
Test your connection
For Liquibase and MySQL to work, you need to:
- Ensure your MySQL is configured:
- Specify the database URL in your
liquibase.properties
file or as a parameter to the command in the CLI. See the following:
-
Create a text file called changelog (
.xml
,.sql
,.json
, or.yaml
) in your project directory and add a changeset.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<databaseChangeLog
xmlns="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns:ext="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext"
xmlns:pro="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog
http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-latest.xsd
http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog-ext http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/dbchangelog/dbchangelog-ext.xsd
http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro http://www.liquibase.org/xml/ns/pro/liquibase-pro-latest.xsd">
<changeSet id="1" author="Liquibase">
<createTable tableName="test_table">
<column name="test_id" type="int">
<constraints primaryKey="true"/>
</column>
<column name="test_column" type="varchar"/>
</createTable>
</changeSet>
</databaseChangeLog>

-- liquibase formatted sql
-- changeset liquibase:1
CREATE TABLE test_table (test_id INT, test_column VARCHAR, PRIMARY KEY (test_id))
Tip: Formatted SQL changelogs generated from Liquibase versions before 4.2 might cause issues because of the lack of space after a double dash ( -- ). To fix this, add a space after the double dash. For example: -- liquibase formatted sql
instead of --liquibase formatted sql
and -- changeset myname:create-table
instead of --changeset myname:create-table

databaseChangeLog:
- changeSet:
id: 1
author: Liquibase
changes:
- createTable:
columns:
- column:
name: test_column
type: INT
constraints:
primaryKey: true
nullable: false
tableName: test_table

{
"databaseChangeLog": [
{
"changeSet": {
"id": "1",
"author": "Liquibase",
"changes": [
{
"createTable": {
"columns": [
{
"column":
{
"name": "test_column",
"type": "INT",
"constraints":
{
"primaryKey": true,
"nullable": false
}
}
}]
,
"tableName": "test_table"
}
}]
}
}]
}
- Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful. You can pass arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.
- Inspect the SQL with the update-sql command. Then make changes to your database with the update command.
liquibase --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml> status
liquibase --changelog-file=<changelog.xml> update-sql
liquibase --changelog-file=<changelog.xml> update
From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the table you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.
MySQL Server
- Ensure your MySQL is configured. You can check the status by running:
- The
sudo service mysql status
command for Linux. - The
net start MySQL
orservices.msc
command for Windows. Theservices.msc
command will open a new window and display the list of services available on your system. Find MySQL and check the status column. You can also runmysql -u root -p
to see if MySQL works.
- The
- Specify the database URL in your
liquibase.properties
file:
url: jdbc:mysql://<servername>:<port>/<dbname>
Tip: To apply a Liquibase Pro key to your project, add the following property to the Liquibase properties file: liquibaseProLicenseKey: <paste code here>
MySQL on AWS RDS
-
Check the connection by using the
mysql
command-line client and running the following:
mysql -h <endpoint> -P 3306 -u <mymasteruser> -p
Note: The alternative way is to connect with the SSL certificate.
You can find the connection information in the AWS Management Console:
- Open the Amazon RDS console
- Select Databases and choose the needed database
- Select Connectivity & security. You will see all information under Endpoint & Port.
To find the connection information using the AWS CLI and RDS API, refer to the Connecting to a DB instance running the MySQL database engine documentation.
-
Specify the database URL in the
liquibase.properties
file as follows:
url: jdbc:mysql://<endpoint>:<port>/<dbname>
Example: url:jdbc:mysql://mydb.123456789012.us-east-1.rds.amazonaws.com:3306/myTestDB?autoReconnect=true&useSSL=false

