MariaDB

What it is

MariaDB is a database server: it keeps information in tables and hands it back when a program asks for it. WordPress stores everything you write in it, from posts and pages to user accounts and settings. MariaDB works with software made for MySQL, including WordPress.

History

Michael "Monty" Widenius, the creator of MySQL, started MariaDB in 2009 with other original MySQL developers. Oracle was buying MySQL along with Sun Microsystems, and they wanted to be sure the database stayed open source. MariaDB is named after his younger daughter, Maria, as MySQL is named after his other daughter, My. Since 2012 the non-profit MariaDB Foundation has kept the project open and independent of any one company.

Sources: Wikipedia: MariaDB; MariaDB Foundation: About

What Nextweb does with it

WordPress installs MariaDB by this name, so pkg install wordpress brings it in. It can also be installed on its own with the command above.

When you deploy a WordPress site, Nextweb starts MariaDB as the mariadb service, which every WordPress site shares, and creates the site's database and database user. MariaDB keeps running as a service: Nextweb starts it before the sites, starts it again if it stops unexpectedly, and stops it when Nextweb stops. service mariadb status reports on it. How a deploy works has the details.

Before you start

It runs on Linux x64. Other platforms don't have a MariaDB package yet.

Versions

Published is the date the file was uploaded to Nextweb's download server.