How should I tackle --secure-file-priv in MySQL?

Question

I am learning MySQL and tried using a LOAD DATA clause. When I used it as below:

LOAD DATA INFILE \"text.txt\" INTO table mytable;

Answer 1

If you're running on Ubuntu, you may also need to configure Apparmor to allow MySQL to write to your folder, e.g. here's my configuration:

Add this line to file /etc/apparmor.d/usr.sbin.mysqld :

/var/lib/mysql-files/* rw

Then add these 2 config lines to /etc/mysql/my.cnf sections:

[client]
loose-local-infile = 1

[mysqld]
secure-file-priv = ""

Here's my SQL:

select id from blahs into outfile '/var/lib/mysql-files/blahs';

It worked for me. Good luck!

Answer 2

On Ubuntu 14 and Mysql 5.5.53 this setting seems to be enabled by default. To disable it you need to add secure-file-priv = "" to your my.cnf file under the mysqld config group. eg:-

[mysqld]
secure-file-priv = ""

Answer 3

This thread has been viewed 570k times at the time of this post. Honestly when did MySQL become our over protective unreasonable mom? What a time consuming attempt at security - which really only serves to shackle us!

After many searches and many attempts everything failed. My solution:

What worked for me was:

1. Import the .csv file via PhpMyAdmin import on older box (if large do at cmd line)
2. Generate a .sql file.
3. Download .sql file.
4. Import .sql file via MySQL Workbench.