ProxySQL is a free and open source high performance, high availability, database protocol aware proxy for MySQL. You can think of it as a Load Balancer which understands MySQL protocol providing end-to-end MySQL connection handling, real-time statistics and database traffic inspection. In this short guide we will be looking at how you can install ProxySQL on Amazon Linux 2023.

Features of ProxySQL:

• Zero-downtime Changes: Dynamically configure everything in-memory, persist to disk and push to runtime, all with zero-downtime.
• Database Firewall: ProxySQL acts as a gatekeeper between the application and the database, allowing DBAs to safeguard the database from malicious activity or problematic application deployments.
• Advanced Query Rules: Solve your query routing problems with ProxySQL’s rich query rule definitions to efficiently distribute and cache your data to maximize your database service efficiency.
• Data Sharding & Transformation: Scale out by sharding your database across multiple servers based on schema, table or user. Implement advanced query rules to rewrite your data on-the-fly for transformations or data masking.
• Failover Detection: ProxySQL automatically detects replication topology changes by continuously monitoring the database backends and re-routing traffic to healthy nodes as the topology changes.
• Application Layer proxy: ProxySQL is more than a load balancer, it understands the MySQL protocol providing end-to-end MySQL connection handling, real-time statistics and database traffic inspection.

Here is a list of backends supported by ProxySQL:

• Amazon (AWS) Aurora & RDS
• ClickHouse
• Galera Cluster
• MySQL / MariaDB Server
• Oracle MySQL InnoDB Cluster & Group Replication
• Oracle NDB Cluster
• Percona Server & XtraDB Cluster
• SQLite (embedded)

Install ProxySQL on Amazon Linux 2023

ProxySQL packages are available in the repository for Debian and Red Hat based Linux distributions. But first add the package repository to your local system.

Amazon Linux 2023:

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/proxysql.repo > /dev/null <<'EOF'
[proxysql_repo]
name=ProxySQL repository
baseurl=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-3.0.x/centos/9
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-3.0.x/repo_pub_key
EOF

Amazon Linux 2:

sudo tee /etc/yum.repos.d/proxysql.repo > /dev/null <<'EOF'
[proxysql_repo]
name=ProxySQL repository
baseurl=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-3.0.x/centos/7
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-3.0.x/repo_pub_key
EOF

Update YUM package index to confirm the repository is working:

$ sudo yum makecache
Amazon Linux 2023 repository                                                                                                                                                              2.2 kB/s | 3.6 kB     00:01
Amazon Linux 2023 Kernel Livepatch repository                                                                                                                                             456  B/s | 2.9 kB     00:06
ProxySQL repository                                                                                                                                                                       2.2 kB/s | 3.0 kB     00:01
Metadata cache created.

Install ProxySQL package on Amazon Linux 2023 Linux by running the commands below.

sudo yum install proxysql

Review dependency tree and agree to the installation prompt:

Last metadata expiration check: 0:00:41 ago on Mon Jan 12 20:15:16 2026.
Dependencies resolved.
==========================================================================================================================================================================================================================
 Package                                             Architecture                                      Version                                             Repository                                                Size
==========================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Installing:
 proxysql                                            x86_64                                            3.0.4-1                                             proxysql_repo                                             38 M

Transaction Summary
==========================================================================================================================================================================================================================
Install  1 Package

Total download size: 38 M
Installed size: 142 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y

Also import GPG key when prompted:

Importing GPG key 0x8217C97E:
 Userid     : "ProxySQL Package Builder <[email protected]>"
 Fingerprint: 653F 85BB 3825 6DF8 A962 06C3 E8CA 2E8D 8217 C97E
 From       : https://repo.proxysql.com/ProxySQL/proxysql-3.0.x/repo_pub_key
Is this ok [y/N]: y

After installation the service is not started. The freedom is all yours.

systemctl enable --now proxysql

To start the service use the command.

$ systemctl status proxysql
● proxysql.service - High Performance Advanced Proxy for MySQL
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/proxysql.service; enabled; preset: disabled)
     Active: active (running) since Mon 2026-01-12 20:17:42 EAT; 8s ago
    Process: 43155 ExecStart=/usr/bin/proxysql --idle-threads -c /etc/proxysql.cnf $PROXYSQL_OPTS (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
   Main PID: 43157 (proxysql)
      Tasks: 36 (limit: 4643)
     Memory: 18.5M
        CPU: 333ms
     CGroup: /system.slice/proxysql.service
             ├─43157 /usr/bin/proxysql --idle-threads -c /etc/proxysql.cnf
             └─43158 /usr/bin/proxysql --idle-threads -c /etc/proxysql.cnf
...

Visit the Configuring ProxySQL page to get you started with ProxySQL configuration.