Import data from MySQL

MySQL is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS).

This page shows you how to import data into your Timescale Cloud service from database running on MySQL version 8 or earlier.

Prerequisites

Before you import your data:

Install Docker on your migration machine.
This machine needs sufficient space to store the buffered changes that occur while your data is being copied. This space is proportional to the amount of new uncompressed data being written to the Timescale Cloud service during migration. A general rule of thumb is between 100GB and 500GB.

For faster data transfer, best practice is for your source database, target service, and the system running the data import are in the same region .

To import data from a MySQL database:

Setup the connection string for your target service
This variable hold the connection information for the target Timescale Cloud service.
In Terminal on the source machine, set the following:
```
export TARGET=postgres://tsdbadmin:<PASSWORD>@<HOST>:<PORT>/tsdb?sslmode=require
```
You find the connection information for your Timescale Cloud service in the configuration file you downloaded when you created the service.
Setup the connection string for your source database
```
SOURCE="mysql://<mysql_username>:<mysql_password>@<mysql_host>:<mysql_port>/<mysql_database>?sslmode=require"
```
where:
- <mysql_username>: your MySQL username
- <mysql_password>: Your MySQL password
- <mysql_host>: the MySQL server hostname or IP address
- <mysql_port>: the MySQL server port, the default is 3306
- <mysql_database>: the name of your MySQL database

Import your data

On your data import machine, run the following command:


docker run -it ghcr.io/dimitri/pgloader:latest pgloader 
--no-ssl-cert-verification \
"$SOURCE" \
"$TARGET"

And that is it, you have imported your data from MySQL.