[ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB

[ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' init function returned error.
[ERROR] Plugin 'InnoDB' registration as a STORAGE ENGINE failed.
[ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
[ERROR] Aborting

There are a few circumstances where one will not want to run with only MyISAM tables. In this case, it can be beneficial to completely disable InnoDB.

As InnoDB has become more prevalent, disabling it in MySQL requires a little more effort than before.

In MariaDB 10.0, you can still completely disable it as you have done in the past (just add the –skip-innodb option, specify default-storage-engine=MyISAM, and comment out other InnoDB options):

[mysqld]
skip-innodb
default-storage-engine=MyISAM

Alternatively, instead of –skip-innodb, you can instead use “innodb=OFF”:

[mysqld]
skip-innodb
default-storage-engine=MyISAM

In MySQL 5.6, the –skip-innodb option has been deprecated (though still currently works), and since InnoDB is the new “default” storage engine, you must set both “default-storage-engine” and the new “default-tmp-storage-engine” options to “MyISAM”. If you do not set the latter, you instance will not start, and the error log will simply complain that “Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB” and you won’t easily identify why:

2014-11-08 18:47:28 13524 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
2014-11-08 18:47:28 13524 [ERROR] Aborting
So, if you want to disable InnoDB in MySQL 5.6, you’ll need to specify the following:

default-storage-engine=MyISAM
default-tmp-storage-engine=MyISAM
innodb=OFF

Hope this helps.