/etc/my.cnf - What I am missing?

I am getting following error:

error: Found option without preceding group in config file: /etc/my.cnf at line: 1
Fatal error in defaults handling. Program aborted

here is my /etc/my.cnf file:

[root@host backup]#cat /etc/my.cnf
max_allowed_packet=100M
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
user=mysql
# Default to using old password format for compatibility with mysql 3.x
# clients (those using the mysqlclient10 compatibility package).
old_passwords=1

[mysqld_safe]
log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

[mysqldump]
max_allowed_packet=100M

Solution 1:

Add [mysqld] as a first line of your my.cnf-file.