What user should own /usr/local/mysql on Mac?

Looks valid to me. This is what my mysql folder looks like:

drwxr-xr-x  17 root    wheel    578 May  7  2010 .
drwxr-xr-x   8 root    wheel    272 Jun 11  2010 ..
-rw-r--r--   1 root    wheel  17987 May  7  2010 COPYING
-rw-r--r--   1 root    wheel   5139 May  7  2010 EXCEPTIONS-CLIENT
-rw-r--r--   1 root    wheel   9339 May  7  2010 INSTALL-BINARY
-rw-r--r--   1 root    wheel  62989 May  7  2010 README
drwxr-xr-x  46 root    wheel   1564 May  7  2010 bin
drwxr-x---  15 _mysql  wheel    510 Jan 21 08:15 data
drwxr-xr-x   4 root    wheel    136 May  7  2010 docs
drwxr-xr-x  34 root    wheel   1156 May  7  2010 include
drwxr-xr-x  22 root    wheel    748 Jun  3  2010 lib
drwxr-xr-x   4 root    wheel    136 May  7  2010 man
drwxr-xr-x  15 root    wheel    510 May  7  2010 mysql-test
drwxr-xr-x   3 root    wheel    102 May  7  2010 scripts
drwxr-xr-x  35 root    wheel   1190 May  7  2010 share
drwxr-xr-x  29 root    wheel    986 May  7  2010 sql-bench
drwxr-xr-x  16 root    wheel    544 May  7  2010 support-files

How did you install MySQL it if it didn't hook everything up correctly itself?

EDIT: and this is the general flavor of the data folder:

drwxr-x---  15 _mysql  wheel       510 Jan 24 08:15 .
drwxr-xr-x  17 root    wheel       578 May  7  2010 ..
-rw-rw----   1 _mysql  wheel    158773 Jan 24 08:16 $USER.local.err
-rw-rw----   1 _mysql  wheel         4 Jan 24 08:15 $USER.local.pid
drwx------   6 _mysql  wheel       204 Jun 16  2010 $SOME_DB_NAME1
drwx------   6 _mysql  wheel       204 Jun  8  2010 $SOME_DB_NAME2
drwx------  15 _mysql  wheel       510 Jan 18 11:23 $SOME_DB_NAME3
drwx------  12 _mysql  wheel       408 Jan 20 14:40 $SOME_DB_NAME4
-rw-rw----   1 _mysql  wheel   5242880 Jan 24 08:15 ib_logfile0
-rw-rw----   1 _mysql  wheel   5242880 Jan 24 08:15 ib_logfile1
-rw-rw----   1 _mysql  wheel  18874368 Jan 21 17:31 ibdata1
drwx------  85 _mysql  wheel      2890 Jun  3  2010 $SOME_DB_NAME5
drwx------  85 _mysql  wheel      2890 Jun  3  2010 $SOME_DB_NAME6
drwxr-x---  71 _mysql  wheel      2414 Jun  3  2010 mysql
drwx------  21 _mysql  wheel       714 Aug 31 17:27 $SOME_DB_NAME7

I don't run Homebrew on my machine, so I don't know if this is of much help as far as that goes.


I had the exact same problem and MattDiPasquale’s answer worked for me. I had to keep running mysqld all the time to ensure MySQL was running properly. When I looked at MySQL in the System Preferences I realised I had the same error.