Install MySQL on Arch Linux

Step 1 – Install and secure

pacman -S --noconfirm mysql
mysqld --initialize --user=mysql
systemctl enable --now mysqld
mysql_secure_installation

Step 2 – Connect

mysql -u root -p

Step 3 – Create database and user

CREATE DATABASE appdb CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 COLLATE utf8mb4_unicode_ci;
CREATE USER 'appuser'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'StrongPass123!';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON appdb.* TO 'appuser'@'localhost';
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Key /etc/mysql/my.cnf settings

[mysqld]
innodb_buffer_pool_size = 1G
slow_query_log          = 1
slow_query_log_file     = /var/log/mysql/slow.log
long_query_time         = 1
log_bin                 = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin
binlog_expire_logs_seconds = 604800