Before creating a utf8 database on mysql

/etc/my.cnf
[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
# Default to using old password format for compatibility with mysql 3.x
# clients (those using the mysqlclient10 compatibility package).
old_passwords=1
default-character-set=utf8
collation_server=utf8_unicode_ci
character_set_server=utf8

[client]
default-character-set=utf8

[mysql.server]
user=mysql
basedir=/var/lib

[mysqld_safe]
log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
~