mySQL Fails to start, CentOS 5

[capei]

Hello everyone

I've been desparately searching the internet for help in trying to install mySQL on my CentOS 5 VPS. In trying to install most software, I need mySQL, and for some reason I cannot get it to start. I've tried installing it, removing it and reinstalling it with these commands:

yum install php-mysql mysql mysql-server
/sbin/chkconfig --levels 235 mysqld on
/etc/init.d/mysqld start

but the following error message still appears:

[root_at_server01 mysql]#  /etc/init.d/mysqld start                            Timeout error occurred trying to start MySQL Daemon.
Starting MySQL:                                            [FAILED]

I tried editing the my.cnf file (I don't know what this is or how exactly to configure it, but I've researched and still don't know how).
The my.cnf file is:

[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
user=mysql
# Default to using old password format for compatibility with mysql 3.x
# clients (those using the mysqlclient10 compatibility package).
old_passwords=1

# To allow mysqld to connect to a MySQL Cluster management daemon, uncomment
# these lines and adjust the connectstring as needed.
#ndbcluster
#ndb-connectstring="nodeid=4;host=localhost:1186"

# //[mysqld_safe]
# //log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
# //pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

[ndbd]
# If you are running a MySQL Cluster storage daemon (ndbd) on this machine,
# adjust its connection to the management daemon here.
# Note: ndbd init script requires this to include nodeid!
# //connect-string="nodeid=2;host=localhost:1186"

[ndb_mgm]
# connection string for MySQL Cluster management tool
# //connect-string="host=localhost:1186"

socket = /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
pid-file = /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.pid
datadir = /var/lib/mysql
basdir = /var/lib/mysql

Note: I added the last 4 lines thinking it may help, but now I notice duplicates. I don't know how to configure this file, so help would be greatly appreciated!

I checked the log file with

vi /var/log/mysqld.log

but the log file has no contents in it (it's empty)

I am running as root user and no luck, and no idea where to go from here.

I really appreciate any help that anyone can give --- if there's a command you want me to run and post the results, I'll do it!!

Thanks alot!

[elija]

The first thing I would do is get rid of the lines you added as they didn't help

The only time I have seen this error was when my /var partition filled up.

You can see disk space by running

df -h

and if you have a separate and nearly full /var partition you can find out what is taking up the space by running

cd /var
du -sch *

[capei]

Hi elija,

I removed the appended lines from the my.cnf file, no luck.

Also, I ran the disk space command and it doesn't seem that the space is the issue:

[root_at_server01 ~]# cd /var/
[root_at_server01 var]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/simfs             30G  840M   30G   3% /
none                  128M  4.0K  128M   1% /dev
[root_at_server01 var]# du -sch *
35M     cache
4.0K    db
16K     empty
4.0K    ftp
4.0K    games
41M     lib
4.0K    local
20K     lock
21M     log
0       mail
80K     named
4.0K    nis
4.0K    opt
4.0K    preserve
76K     run
6.6M    spool
4.0K    tmp
19M     www
4.0K    yp
121M    total

Any other possibilities or suggestions?

Thanks again!

[capei]

Actually, I was able to install Kloxo by swiping the operating system and starting fresh. Thanks.

I will repost if I encounter other problems