After my linode rebooted for the recent security update, mysql is not running. When I try to enter mysql from the shell I get:

ERROR 2002 (HY000): Can't connect to local MySQL server through socket '/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock'

When I try to restart the service I get:

stop: Unknown instance

I'm running Ubuntu 12.04.

Does this look familiar to anybody?

Thanks in advance.

Is there anything mysql related in /var/log/syslog or /var/lib/mysql/*.log ?

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No. Syslog has some entries related to my mail server being unable to connect to the database, but /var/log/mysql.err and /var/log/mysql.log are empty (there aren't any .log files in /var/lib/mysql).

ETA: Okay, running sudo mysqld from the shell has got me back up. One of my virtual hosts running laravel still isn't working (I assumed that was the database too, but apparently not), but I don't have to fix that tonight.

ETA 2: Nope, the Laravel site is back up now, too. Presumably there was a caching issue that made it appear to still be down right after I started mysqld.