MySQL : Can’t open and lock privilege tables

By | September 4, 2011

Trying to import a MySQL dump and/or starting mysqld return the following error :

[ERROR] bdb:  fatal region error detected; run recovery
[ERROR] Fatal error: Can’t open and lock privilege tables: Table ‘host’ is read only

Probably the MySQL database directory does not have the right privileges. The permission scheme should look like this :

MySQL directory = 755 own by mysql and group mysql
Database directory = 700 own by mysql and group mysql
Database directory tables = 660 own by mysql and group mysql