"I remember meeting Giuseppe Maxia (aka The Data Charmer), probably the most famous Italian MySQL enthusiast and hacker, back at what must have been the first MySQL Conference. At the time I’d seen him on mailing lists and knew he gave talks from time to time, but I had no idea of the useful software he’d be creating. This week, I’d like give you a tour of one of his projects: MySQL Sandbox.
"I think of it as a sort of virtual server manager for MySQL instances. In fact, the one-line intro on the project web site hints at that:
"Quick painless install of side MySQL server in isolation. MySQL Sandbox is a tool for installing one or more MySQL servers in isolation, without affecting other servers.
"Isolation tends to be the hardest thing to get right (aside from the automation itself) when trying to bring up multiple MySQL instances on a single machine. There are a lot of hard-coded default paths (and port numbers) that will cause you headaches unless your track down all the references and override the relevant settings. MySQL Sandbox takes care of all that work, giving you any number of totally isolated MySQL servers with their own data directory, port number, and socket. The severs can all be the same version, different versions, or a mix. It’s even possible to create several servers quickly and setup a replication topology to play with as well."
