Stephan Wiesand wrote:
> works for me (SL 5.2, x86_64, same mysql-server as yours).

[sorry for preivous reply that didn't go to the list]

I did my homework and found out that useradd fails:

[root@goliasx33 ~]# /usr/sbin/useradd -M -o -r -d /var/lib/mysql -s 
/bin/bash -c "MySQL Server" -u 27 mysql ; echo $?
useradd: group mysql exists - if you want to add this user to that 
group, use -g.
9

Indeed, group "mysql" somehow got defined in our LDAP tree :(.

Sorry for noise and thanks for your reactions.

Cheers,
-jkt