# ssh root@X.Y.Z.A
root@X.Y.Z.A's password:

The programs included with the Debian GNU/Linux system are free software;
the exact distribution terms for each program are described in the
individual files in /usr/share/doc/*/copyright.

Debian GNU/Linux comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent
permitted by applicable law.
Last login: Thu Oct 27 13:36:09 2016

root@debian:~# dpkg -l | grep -i mysql
root@debian:~# dpkg -l | grep -i maria
root@debian:~# ls -al /etc/mysql*
ls: cannot access /etc/mysql*: No such file or directory

Next I changed gai.conf to prefer ipv4 (commented out a precedence line).  Either Debian archive or Linode ipv6 is very slow for updates.

root@debian:~# vi /etc/gai.conf

Docs say to set a FQDN, so I edited these files and then rebooted in the Linode CP (there are other ways but I'm lazy):

root@debian:~# vi /etc/hosts
root@debian:~# vi /etc/hostname

After reboot, logged in again.  Docs say to apt-get update && apt-get upgrade:

root@debian:~# apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

I'll spare you all the output.  Got a new kernel so rebooted in the Linode CP again.

After reboot, let's check again to make sure mysql didn't sneak in:

root@debian:~# dpkg -l | grep mysql
root@debian:~# dpkg -l | grep maria
root@debian:~# ls -al /etc/mysql*
ls: cannot access /etc/mysql*: No such file or directory

Now we'll install virtualmin.  I checked hostname -f and am getting a FQDN now.

root@debian:~# wget http://software.virtualroot@debian:~# vi /etc/hostname
root@debian:~# time sh ./install.sh

Again, I'll spare you the output...except to note that mysql was installed by virtualmin:

INFO - Installing dependencies using command: /usr/bin/apt-get --config-file apt.conf.noninteractive -y --force-yes install bsdutils postfix postfix-pcre webmin usermin ruby libxml-simple-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl unzip zip libfcgi-dev bind9 spamassassin spamc procmail procmail-wrapper libnet-ssleay-perl libpg-perl libdbd-pg-perl libdbd-mysql-perl quota iptables openssl python mailman subversion ruby irb rdoc ri mysql-server mysql-client mysql-common postgresql postgresql-client awstats webalizer dovecot-common dovecot-imapd dovecot-pop3d proftpd libcrypt-ssleay-perl awstats clamav-base clamav-daemon clamav clamav-freshclam clamav-docs clamav-testfiles libapache2-mod-fcgid apache2-suexec-custom scponly apache2 apache2-doc libapache2-svn libsasl2-2 libsasl2-modules sasl2-bin php-pear php5 php5-cgi libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql ntpdate
...in progress, please wait...

Virtualmin installed:

INFO - /usr/bin/apt-get --config-file apt.conf.noninteractive -y --force-yes install bsdutils postfix postfix-pcre webmin usermin ruby libxml-simple-perl libcrypt-ssleay-perl unzip zip libfcgi-dev bind9 spamassassin spamc procmail procmail-wrapper libnet-ssleay-perl libpg-perl libdbd-pg-perl libdbd-mysql-perl quota iptables openssl python mailman subversion ruby irb rdoc ri mysql-server mysql-client mysql-common postgresql postgresql-client awstats webalizer dovecot-common dovecot-imapd dovecot-pop3d proftpd libcrypt-ssleay-perl awstats clamav-base clamav-daemon clamav clamav-freshclam clamav-docs clamav-testfiles libapache2-mod-fcgid apache2-suexec-custom scponly apache2 apache2-doc libapache2-svn libsasl2-2 libsasl2-modules sasl2-bin php-pear php5 php5-cgi libapache2-mod-php5 php5-mysql ntpdate: Succeeded.
INFO - Updating SpamAssassin rules...
INFO - Rule updates done

real	5m45.069s
user	1m59.357s
sys	0m53.863s

Now we have mysql:

root@debian:~# dpkg -l | grep -i mysql
ii  libdbd-mysql-perl              4.028-2+deb8u2              amd64        Perl5 database interface to the MySQL database
ii  libmysqlclient18:amd64         5.5.54-0+deb8u1             amd64        MySQL database client library
ii  mysql-client                   5.5.54-0+deb8u1             all          MySQL database client (metapackage depending on the latest version)
ii  mysql-client-5.5               5.5.54-0+deb8u1             amd64        MySQL database client binaries
ii  mysql-common                   5.5.54-0+deb8u1             all          MySQL database common files, e.g. /etc/mysql/my.cnf
ii  mysql-server                   5.5.54-0+deb8u1             all          MySQL database server (metapackage depending on the latest version)
ii  mysql-server-5.5               5.5.54-0+deb8u1             amd64        MySQL database server binaries and system database setup
ii  mysql-server-core-5.5          5.5.54-0+deb8u1             amd64        MySQL database server binaries
ii  php5-mysql                     5.6.30+dfsg-0+deb8u1        amd64        MySQL module for php5
root@debian:~# ls -al /etc/mysql*
total 24
drwxr-xr-x   3 root root 4096 Feb 17 14:58 .
drwxr-xr-x 110 root root 4096 Feb 17 14:58 ..
drwxr-xr-x   2 root root 4096 Feb 17 14:55 conf.d
-rw-------   1 root root  333 Feb 17 14:55 debian.cnf
-rwxr-xr-x   1 root root 1220 Jan 19 10:29 debian-start
-rw-r--r--   1 root root  882 Feb 17 14:58 my.cnf

Opened my browser and went to this VM's port 10000 on https.  Walked through Post-Installation Wizard.

When I got to "Set MySQL password" I got:

DBI connect failed : Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: NO)