How to set sql_mode in my.cnf in MySQL 8?

Question

I'm running MySQL 8.0.11 community version. I need to set sql_mode to exclude ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY in my.cnf so that it's restart safe. I tried the following variants:

sql_mode= STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION
sql_mode = "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION"
sql-mode = STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION
sql-mode = "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION"

They all fail in the same manner whether the variable is named 'sql_mode' or 'sql-mode':

mysqld --verbose --help | grep "sql[-_]mode"
2018-06-19T15:22:51.667734Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-011071] [Server] /usr/sbin/mysqld: Error while setting value 'STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION' to 'sql_mode'
    --sql-mode=name     Syntax: sql-mode=mode[,mode[,mode...]]. See the manual
2018-06-19T15:22:51.675498Z 0 [ERROR] [MY-010119] [Server] Aborting

sql-mode

It would seem that mysqld process my.cnf and converts 'sql_mode' or 'sql-mode' to 'sql_mode', which then it rejects!

The question is how to get around this?

Answer 1

The SQL mode NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER was removed in MySQL 8.0, and it's no longer recognized.

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html#mysql-nutshell-deprecations says:

The following features related to account management are removed:

• Using GRANT to create users. Instead, use CREATE USER. Following this practice makes the NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER SQL mode immaterial for GRANT statements, so it too is removed.

Change your sql_mode to "STRICT_TRANS_TABLES,NO_ZERO_IN_DATE,NO_ZERO_DATE,ERROR_FOR_DIVISION_BY_ZERO,NO_ENGINE_SUBSTITUTION". I tested this on my sandbox instance of 8.0.11 and it worked.

Either spelling of sql-mode or sql_mode are both fine.

Using quotes or omitting quotes are both fine.