257 Testing the Server Alternatively, add the  bin  directory to your  PATH  environment variable setting. That enables your shell (command interpreter) to find MySQL programs properly, so that you can run a program by typing only its name, not its path name. See Section 4.2.9, “Setting Environment Variables” . Use  mysqladmin  to verify that the server is running. The following commands provide simple tests to check whether the server is up and responding to connections: If you cannot connect to the server, specify a  -u root  option to connect as  root . If you have assigned a password for the  root  account already, you’ll also need to specify  -p  on the command line and enter the password when prompted. For example: The output from  mysqladmin version  varies slightly depending on your platform and version of MySQL, but should be similar to that shown here: To see what else you can do with  mysqladmin , invoke it with the  --help  option. Verify that you can shut down the server (include a  -p  option if the  root  account has a password already): shell>  bin/mysqladmin -u root shutdown Verify that you can start the server again. Do this by using  mysqld_safe  or by invoking  mysqld  directly. For example: shell>  bin/mysqld_safe --user=mysql & Run some simple tests to verify that you can retrieve information from the server. The output should be similar to that shown here. If  mysqld_safe  fails, see Section 2.10.2.1, “Troubleshooting Problems Starting the MySQL Server” . Use  mysqlshow  to see what databases exist: shell>  bin/mysqlshow +--------------------+ | Databases | +--------------------+ | information_schema | | mysql | | performance_schema | | sys | shell>  bin/mysqladmin version mysqladmin Ver 14.12 Distrib 8.0.25, for pc-linux-gnu on i686 ... Server version 8.0.25 Protocol version 10 Connection Localhost via UNIX socket UNIX socket /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock Uptime: 14 days 5 hours 5 min 21 sec Threads: 1 Questions: 366 Slow queries: 0 Opens: 0 Flush tables: 1 Open tables: 19 Queries per second avg: 0.000 shell>  bin/mysqladmin -u root -p version Enter password:  (enter root password here) shell>  bin/mysqladmin version shell>  bin/mysqladmin variables