MySQL LOAD_FILE returns NULL

Question

I want to get SQL LOAD_FILE function to work and have read every single question/answer + documentation about this, but here is what's been happening.

When I want to LOAD_FILE from my home directory:

mysql> SELECT LOAD_FILE('/home/myuser/somefile.txt');
+----------------------------+
| LOAD_FILE('/home/myuser/somefile.txt') |
+----------------------------+
| NULL                       |
+----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

So after getting this, I thought maybe the problem is that MySQL cannot access my home directory. And I tried running this, which worked fine:

SELECT LOAD_FILE('/etc/mysql/my.cnf');

Then SELECT LOAD_FILE('/etc/passwd'); worked fine as well.

So I said gotcha, it's a file/folder read/ownership permission problem. So, I moved my file into /etc/mysql/ but then it still didn't work. I've tried chown mysql:mysql somefile.txt but still, I had no luck:

mysql> SELECT LOAD_FILE('/etc/mysql/somefile.txt');
+----------------------------+
| LOAD_FILE('/etc/mysql/somefile.txt') |
+----------------------------+
| NULL                       |
+----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

P.S. 1. All files are readable by all user groups, so no need to chmod. But I've even tried chmod 777 if you'd like to ask. 2. I checked, secure-file-priv variable is not set up in MySQL, so no, LOAD_FILE is not restricted to any path.

Any ideas what might be the problem here?

Answer 1

I found out that it has to do with AppArmor. I disabled AppArmor for MySQL and it worked. For people having the same problem, please read here: http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/ubuntu-linux-howto-disable-apparmor-commands/