In order to install MariaDB on Mac OS X, we must first install Xcode from the Mac App Store. Once that is installed, we need to install and configure brew. The complete set of instructions for how to do this are on the brew website, http://brew.sh/, but the basic command is:

ruby -e \
  "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/go/install)"

After installing brew, we will run the following doctor command to make sure that everything is set up properly:

brew doctor

When the doctor command finds an issue, and it might find several, it will print out a suggested fix for each one. To ensure that brew is happy, we need to follow the instructions until the doctor command gives us the following message:

Your system is ready to brew.

Let's get started by following the ensuing steps:

The brew installer works like a Linux package manager. Many open source software packages can be installed with it, including MariaDB.

The brew installer does not set a password for the root user, so the first thing that we should do after getting MariaDB running on Mac OS X is to run the mysql_secure_installation script. For more information, refer to the Securing MariaDB with mysql_secure_installation recipe in Chapter 13, MariaDB Security.