ProxySQL MySQL MySQL · DBA · Setup

ProxySQL — Installation Guide

Step-by-step installation of ProxySQL on RHEL, CentOS, Rocky Linux, Ubuntu and Debian. Includes service setup and verification.

Installation Overview

ProxySQL can be installed on major Linux distributions. It is available via official repositories provided by the ProxySQL team. Below are installation steps for RHEL/CentOS, Ubuntu/Debian, and manual binary installation.

Install on RHEL / CentOS / Rocky Linux

1Add ProxySQL Repository

BASH — Add Repo (RHEL/CentOS)

cat > /etc/yum.repos.d/proxysql.repo << EOF
[proxysql_repo]
name=ProxySQL YUM repository
baseurl=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-2.x.x/centos/\$releasever
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/repo_pub_key
EOF

2Install ProxySQL

BASH — Install

yum install proxysql -y

3Enable and Start

BASH — Start Service

systemctl enable proxysql
systemctl start proxysql
systemctl status proxysql

Install on Ubuntu / Debian

1Add Repository

BASH — Add Repo (Ubuntu/Debian)

apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends lsb-release wget apt-transport-https gnupg
wget -nv -O /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/proxysql-2.x.x-repo.gpg \
  https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-2.x.x/$(lsb_release -sc)/conf/proxysql-2.x.x-repo.gpg
echo "deb https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-2.x.x/$(lsb_release -sc)/ ./" | \
  tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/proxysql.list

2Install

BASH — Install

apt-get update
apt-get install proxysql -y

3Start Service

BASH — Start Service

systemctl enable proxysql
systemctl start proxysql
systemctl status proxysql

Install Specific Version

To install a specific version, download the RPM or DEB package directly:

BASH — Manual Install

# RHEL/CentOS
wget https://github.com/sysown/proxysql/releases/download/v2.5.5/proxysql-2.5.5-1-centos7.x86_64.rpm
rpm -ivh proxysql-2.5.5-1-centos7.x86_64.rpm

# Ubuntu
wget https://github.com/sysown/proxysql/releases/download/v2.5.5/proxysql_2.5.5-ubuntu20_amd64.deb
dpkg -i proxysql_2.5.5-ubuntu20_amd64.deb

Verify Installation

BASH — Verify

# Check version
proxysql --version

# Check service status
systemctl status proxysql

# Check listening ports
ss -tlnp | grep proxysql

# Connect to admin interface
mysql -u admin -padmin -h 127.0.0.1 -P 6032 --prompt="ProxySQL Admin> "

💡 Note: Default Admin credentials: username = admin, password = admin. Change these immediately in production.

Important File Locations

File / Directory	Purpose
/etc/proxysql.cnf	Main configuration file
/var/lib/proxysql/proxysql.db	SQLite database (persistent config)
/var/lib/proxysql/proxysql_errorlog	Error log file
/tmp/proxysql.log	Runtime log
/usr/bin/proxysql	ProxySQL binary

Start / Stop / Restart Commands

BASH — Service Management

systemctl start proxysql
systemctl stop proxysql
systemctl restart proxysql
systemctl reload proxysql
systemctl status proxysql

⚠ Warning: If you modify /etc/proxysql.cnf directly and restart ProxySQL, it will only read the file if the SQLite database does not exist. Always use the Admin interface to make changes.