Starting and stopping mysql server. Shorten and make automatic Currently I start and stop mysql with the following command



sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start




sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop


It is quite a long command to remember.  How can I set it up so that I can start and stop it with a single command.  Something like.

sudo mysql-server start


I am thinking I would need to crete a symbolic link somewhere for this to work?  Also one last option; how can I make it so that it runs on bootup by default?
Just create an alias in your ~/.bash_profile or ~/.profile file.

Check with ls -la0 ~/ if one of the files already exist, else create one with:

touch ~/.bash_profile


After opening .bash_profile with nano ~/.bash_profile add the lines:

alias iwanttostartmysqlwithareallyshortcommand='sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start'
alias iwanttostopmysqlwithareallyshortcommand='sudo /usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server stop'


write the file to disk with ctrlO and exit nano with ctrlX.

Then enter:

source .bash_profile


In the future you just have to enter 

iwanttostartmysqlwithareallyshortcommand


or

iwanttostopmysqlwithareallyshortcommand


to start or stop mysql after entering your password.

A shorter alias like iwanttostartmysqlnow works also. Even really, really short ones are possible like stm (= start mysql) or spm (= stop mysql). They mustn't collide with other aliases or valid commands though. The shortest I have found - and easy to remember - are 1 to start and 0 to stop mysql. ;-)



To answer your second question:

If you have installed the latest MySQL from Oracle a launch daemon should have been installed in /Library/LaunchDaemons already.

If you have installed another mysql package (e.g. homebrew) you may use the example here and adapt it.

Slightly modified example:

&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;plist version="1.0"&gt;
  &lt;dict&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;RunAtLoad&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;true/&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;Label&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;string&gt;com.mysql.mysqld&lt;/string&gt;
    &lt;key&gt;ProgramArguments&lt;/key&gt;
    &lt;array&gt;
    &lt;string&gt;/usr/local/mysql/support-files/mysql.server start&lt;/string&gt;
    &lt;/array&gt;
  &lt;/dict&gt;
&lt;/plist&gt;


Save the XML as a file named /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist

Adjust the file permissions using the Apple recommended owner "root", owning group "wheel", and file permissions "644"

sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist
sudo chmod 644 /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist


Enable this new MySQL service with:

sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.mysql.mysql.plist