====== How to downgrade MySQL|MariaDB to an older version ======

===== Preliminary considerations =====

Downgrading your MySQL|MariaDB server to an older version is not always a good  thing, specially if you or your customers used some features which are not available in the version to which you want downgrade. Therefore, this action must be carefully considered.

==== Downgrading ====

To downgrade to an older MySQL|MariaDB server version you must in order:

  - Backup your current /var/lib/mysql directory
  - Execute the following SQL query (SET GLOBAL innodb_fast_shutdown = 0;)
  - Stop your MySQL|MariaDB server
  - Remove any Debian flag file (//rm /var/lib/mysql/debian-*//)
  - Remove the InnoDB log files* (//rm ib_logfile*//)

* Only needed in some cases (eg. when downgrading from MariaDB 10)

Once the steps above are done, you can run the i-MSCP installer as follow

  # perl imscp-autoinstall -dar sql

and choose the MySQL|MariaDB server version to which you want downgrade.