UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

My dedicated server is VERY old (running Apache/1.3.37 (Unix) PHP/4.4.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510).


We have a script that runs and manages our customer database. Early in the morning last Friday, it was working fine and processed data as usual. Later in the day, we got this error:
Cannot connect to MySQL: Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/tmp/mysql.sock' (111)


We contacted support (which is minimal since its a dedicated server) and they told us:
"The server is compromised and the operating system would need to be re-imaged. me clients have been reluctant to upgrade for various reasons, and now we're in a situation where the known vulnerabilities are being exploited. The issue with the server is that MySQL is broken and is missing critical system files."


When we went in via Putty to retrieve the database, the folder that I believe it should be in was empty (I should add that they did a reboot)


Is the data lost? Is there a way to retrieve it? Unfortunately, the last full backup I ran on it was a year ago. While that's better than nothing, I'm hoping there is something that can be done to get the current copy.

To make sure, I would check if mysql is still installed or maybe currently just not started.
You can call the mysql client and check where the DB files should reside:

Code:

mysql -u<yourusernameinhere> -p -e 'show variables where variable_name = "datadir"'

It should hopefully return the path where you can have a look into, if the files are still there.
When your DB is still there and you get your app online again, you should think about having backups more often and really update your environment soon!


Added Info:
- I am not sure if your support checked all this, together with if mysql can be started, if the DB can be connected and tables and data are there or not.
- There are companies, that offer to rescue data, but I am not sure about the costs and I assume that it can only be done if the parts on the disk have not been overwritten.

It looks like the directory with the data is somehow gone - perhaps when MySQL got corrupted and compromised, it just deleted the data (although that seems strange to me). In the database directory, there are a few subdirectories for scripts that I no longer use. But the one that was currently in use is missing, and nobody has a backup.

If there is a way to recover a directory or files in a case like this, I'd be happy to hear it. I do have a few inquiries out to people who do recovery, but I suspect that will be too cost prohibitive.