Migration of MySQL 5.0.x to 5.5.32-0.9.1 fails with unknown option --skip-locking

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP3
Subscription Management Tool 11 SP3

Situation

When upgrading from SLE11SP2 to SP3 on a system running SMT11, the following error may get encountered when migrating the MySQL database from version 5.0.x to 5.5.32-0.9.1:

testsmt:~ # rcmysql restart
Restarting service MySQL 
Shutting down service MySQL      done
Will update MySQL now, if you encounter any problems, please read following
file:
        /usr/share/doc/packages/mysql/README.SuSE
Log files inconsistency, please merge following files manually:
        /var/lib/mysql/mysqld.log
        /var/log/mysqld.log
Running protected MySQL... 
error: /var/tmp/mysql-protected.gDATed/mysql.sock file didn't appeared... 
       Try checking "/var/log/mysql/mysqld-upgrade-run.log"... 

/var/log/mysql/mysqld-upgrade-run.log:
130904 12:27:47 mysqld_safe mysqld from pid file
/var/tmp/mysql-protected.ZYrZ6l/mysqld.pid ended
130904 12:28:42 mysqld_safe Starting mysqld daemon with databases from
/var/lib/mysql
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: The InnoDB memory heap is disabled
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: Mutexes and rw_locks use GCC atomic builtins
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: Compressed tables use zlib 1.2.7
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: Using Linux native AIO
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: Initializing buffer pool, size = 128.0M
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: Completed initialization of buffer pool
130904 12:28:42 InnoDB: highest supported file format is Barracuda.
130904 12:28:42  InnoDB: Waiting for the background threads to start
130904 12:28:43 InnoDB: 5.5.32 started; log sequence number 1606200
130904 12:28:43 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: unknown option '--skip-locking'
130904 12:28:43 [ERROR] Aborting

Resolution

Edit /etc/my.cnf and change the entry

skip-locking

skip-external-locking

After the change, please run

rcmysql restart

Cause

Option skip-locking is deprecated in MySQL 5.5.x.

Disclaimer

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