How to stop mysql from running at boot time?

Currently, my MySQL server starts on every server boot. For a couple reasons, this is undesirable behavior. Is there a way to disable this behavior?

Since 15.04 you can simply do:

sudo systemctl disable mysql

To prevent mysql from starting on boot:

1. Open the terminal: Ctrl+Alt+T

2. Open the mysql.conf file: nano /etc/init/mysql.conf

3. Comment out the start on line near the top of the file, the start on might be spread across two lines, so comment out both. (comment adding # at the beginning)

If you want to manually start mysql, use the following command:

service mysql start

Taken liberally from here.

In Ubuntu 18.04, sudo systemctl disable mysql will prevent mysql-server from autostarting on boot.

For linux, there are 3 main init systems: Systemd, Upstart and SysV. Although nearly all Linux systems run on Systemd. The other two init systems might also co-exist in your system.

For Systemd, use command sudo systemctl disable mysql;
For Upstart, use echo manual >> /etc/init/mysql.override;
For SysV, run the following command sudo update-rc.d mysql disable

If you'd like to find which init system is running on your server, please read this answer.

Things have changed quite a bit in Ubuntu now. I think from version 11 onwards. MySQL is handled by Upstart while Apache still uses traditional SysV init scripts

For MySQL, you can use the new override feature in Upstart to modify the starting behaviour:

sudo echo "manual" >> /etc/init/mysql.override

For more info, see the section "Disabling a Job from Automatically Starting" in the Upstart Cookbook.

As Apache still uses the traditional SysV init scripts you can use

sudo update-rc.d -f apache2 remove

to remove the links from /etc/rcX.d or, alternatively use

sudo update-rc.d apache2 disable

which "disables" the script by changing it from a start script to a stop script. This is reversible by

sudo update-rc.d apache2 enable

Most of this information I got from here: https://askubuntu.com/a/40077/24678

There are two Guis I can think of. From Applications -> Ubuntu Software Center search for "boot up manager". After installing you will find it in the System -> Administration -> BootUP-Manager. Another is Webmin. Webmin uses your browser. After installing point your browser to https://localhost:10000/ Look for services and work it from there.