mysqld ambiguous error message

Problem

mysqld fails to start.

Errors

# /etc/init.d/mysql start
 * Checking mysqld configuration for mysql ...
2015-06-29 15:22:32 0 [ERROR] /usr/sbin/mysqld: ambiguous option '--log=/var/log/mysql/mysql.log' (log-bin, log_slave_updates)
2015-06-29 15:22:32 0 [ERROR] Aborting

2015-06-29 15:22:32 0 [Note] Binlog end
* mysql config check failed                              
* ERROR: mysql failed to start                 [ !! ]

solution

Root cause is the use of a deprecated my.cnf configuration option. In this case it was the log setting.

Change the following old config line

log = /var/log/mysql/mysql.log

to

general-log = /var/log/mysql/mysql.log

restart mysqld