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. For more information, see the MySQL documentation page.

Verified database versions

MySQL Server

• 8.4
• 8.0
• 5.7

AWS Aurora – MySQL

• 8.0
• 5.7

AWS RDS – MySQL

• 8.0
• 5.7

Azure Database for MySQL

• 8.0
• 5.7

Google Cloud SQL – MySQL

• 8.0

Prerequisites

1. Download and Install Liquibase on your machine.
2. Ensure Java is installed: Liquibase requires Java to run. If you used the Liquibase Installer, Java is included automatically. Otherwise, you must install Java manually.
3. If you use Liquibase Pro, or a Liquibase Pro extension, confirm that you have a valid license key. For more information, see How to Apply Your Liquibase Pro License Key

Install drivers

CLI users

To use Liquibase and MySQL, you need the JDBC driver JAR file (Maven download).

To use the Liquibase CLI, place your JAR file(s) in the $LIQUIBASE_HOME/lib directory.

Tip: $LIQUIBASE_HOME is an environment variable that points to the location of the directory where Liquibase is installed on your machine. You can set environment variables using your operating system's shell. The location of $LIQUIBASE_HOME will depend on where Liquibase was installed on your machine.

Maven users

To use Liquibase with Maven, include the driver JAR(s) as a dependency in your pom.xml file. Using this information, Maven automatically downloads the driver JAR from Maven Central when you build your project.

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.mysql</groupId>
    <artifactId>mysql-connector-j</artifactId>
    <version>9.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Configure connection

1. Ensure your MySQL is configured:
• MySQL Server
• MySQL on AWS RDS
2. Specify the database URL in the liquibase.properties file (defaults file), along with other properties you want to set a default value for. Liquibase does not parse the URL. You can either specify the full database connection string or specify the URL using your database's standard connection format:
• MySQL Server
• MySQL on AWS RDS

Test connection

1. Create a text file called changelog (.sql, .yaml, .json, or .xml) in your project directory and add a changeset.

   If you already created a changelog using the init project command, you can use that instead of creating a new file. When adding onto an existing changelog, be sure to only add the changeset and to not duplicate the changelog header.

• SQL example
• YAML example
• JSON example
• XML example

--liquibase formatted sql

--changeset your.name:1
CREATE TABLE test_table (test_id INT NOT NULL, test_column INT, PRIMARY KEY (test_id) NOT ENFORCED)

Tip: Formatted SQL changelogs generated from Liquibase versions before 4.2.0 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: your.name
       changes:
       - createTable:
           tableName: test_table
           columns:
           - column:
               name: test_id
               type: INT
               constraints:
                   primaryKey:  true
                   nullable:  false
           - column:
               name: test_column
               type: INT

{
  "databaseChangeLog": [
    {
      "changeSet": {
        "id": "1",
        "author": "your.name",
        "changes": [
          {
            "createTable": {
              "tableName": "test_table",
              "columns": [
                {
                  "column": {
                    "name": "test_id",
                    "type": "INT",
                    "constraints": {
                      "primaryKey": true,
                      "nullable": false
                    }
                  }
                },
                {
                  "column": {
                    "name": "test_column",
                    "type": "INT"
                  }
                }
              ]
            }
          }
        ]
      }
    }
  ]
}

<?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="your.name">
        <createTable tableName="test_table">
            <column name="test_id" type="int">
                <constraints primaryKey="true" nullable="false" />
            </column>
            <column name="test_column" type="int"/>
        </createTable>
    </changeSet>

</databaseChangeLog>

2. Navigate to your project folder in the CLI and run the Liquibase status command to see whether the connection is successful:

liquibase status --username=test --password=test --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

Note: You can specify arguments in the CLI or keep them in the Liquibase properties file.

If your connection is successful, you'll see a message like this:

4 changesets have not been applied to <your_connection_url>
Liquibase command 'status' was executed successfully. 

3. Inspect the deployment SQL with the update-sql command:

liquibase update-sql --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If the SQL that Liquibase generates isn't what you expect, you should review your changelog file and make any necessary adjustments.

4. Then execute these changes to your database with the update command:

liquibase update --changelog-file=<changelog.xml>

If your update is successful, Liquibase runs each changeset and displays a summary message ending with:

Liquibase: Update has been successful.
Liquibase command 'update' was executed successfully.

5. From a database UI tool, ensure that your database contains the test_table object you added along with the DATABASECHANGELOG table and DATABASECHANGELOGLOCK table.

Now you're ready to start deploying database changes with Liquibase!

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 or services.msc command for Windows. The services.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 run mysql -u root -p to see if MySQL works.

• 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: licenseKey: <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 <mymainuser> -p

Note: The alternative way is to connect with the SSL certificate.

You can find the connection information in the AWS Management Console:

1. Open the Amazon RDS console
2. Select Databases and choose the needed database
3. 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

Other

You can also use Liquibase on MySQL with Amazon Aurora, Azure Database, and Google Cloud SQL.

Type handling

When you run a command like generate-changelog or snapshot-reference, Liquibase maps data from your database onto the Liquibase output, like the data type of a column.

By default, Boolean types in MySQL map to TINYINT(1):

• In Liquibase 4.23.2 and earlier, Liquibase maps Boolean types to BIT by default.
• In Liquibase 4.24.0 and 4.25.0, Liquibase maps Boolean types to TINYINT(1) by default.
• In Liquibase 4.25.1, Liquibase maps Boolean types to TINYINT (without length) by default.
• In Liquibase 4.26.0 and later, Liquibase maps Boolean types to TINYINT(1) by default.

For more information, see Liquibase Data Type Handling.

Related links

• MySQL documentation page
• Change Types
• Concepts
• Liquibase Commands
• Workflows