diff --git a/mysql.init b/mysql.init
index 86645a1..91d93d8 100644
--- a/mysql.init
+++ b/mysql.init
@@ -18,23 +18,55 @@
 
 prog="MySQL"
 
-datadir="/var/lib/mysql"
-
-start(){
-	touch /var/log/mysqld.log
-	chown mysql:mysql /var/log/mysqld.log 
-	chmod 0640 /var/log/mysqld.log
-	[ -x /sbin/restorecon ] && /sbin/restorecon /var/log/mysqld.log
-	if [ ! -d $datadir/mysql ] ; then
-	    action $"Initializing MySQL database: " /usr/bin/mysql_install_db
-	    ret=$?
-	    chown -R mysql:mysql $datadir
-	    if [ $ret -ne 0 ] ; then
-		return $ret;
+# extract value of a MySQL option from /etc/my.cnf
+# Usage: get_mysql_option FILE VARNAME DEFAULT
+# result is returned in $result
+# Ugly as this is, it knows nothing of option file sections ...
+get_mysql_option(){
+	result=`sed -n "s/^[ \t]*$2[ \t]*=[ \t]*//p" "$1" 2>/dev/null | tail -n 1`
+	if [ -z "$result" ]; then
+	    # not found, use default
+	    result="$3"
+	else
+	    # found, still have to deal with quoting and end-of-line comments
+	    dequoted=`echo "$result" | sed "s/^'\([^']*\)'.*$/\1/"`
+	    if [ x"$dequoted" != x"$result" ]; then
+		result="$dequoted"
+	    else
+		dequoted=`echo "$result" | sed 's/^"\([^"]*\)".*$/\1/'`
+		if [ x"$dequoted" != x"$result" ]; then
+		    result="$dequoted"
+		else
+		    result=`echo "$result" | sed 's/^\([^ \t#]*\).*$/\1/'`
+		fi
 	    fi
 	fi
-	chown -R mysql:mysql $datadir
-	chmod 0755 $datadir
+}
+
+get_mysql_option /etc/my.cnf datadir "/var/lib/mysql"
+datadir="$result"
+get_mysql_option /etc/my.cnf socket "$datadir/mysql.sock"
+socketfile="$result"
+get_mysql_option /etc/my.cnf err-log "/var/log/mysqld.log"
+errlogfile="$result"
+get_mysql_option /etc/my.cnf pid-file "/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid"
+mypidfile="$result"
+
+start(){
+	touch "$errlogfile"
+	chown mysql:mysql "$errlogfile" 
+	chmod 0640 "$errlogfile"
+	[ -x /sbin/restorecon ] && /sbin/restorecon "$errlogfile"
+	if [ ! -d "$datadir/mysql" ] ; then
+	    action $"Initializing MySQL database: " /usr/bin/mysql_install_db
+	    ret=$?
+	    chown -R mysql:mysql "$datadir"
+	    if [ $ret -ne 0 ] ; then
+		return $ret
+	    fi
+	fi
+	chown -R mysql:mysql "$datadir"
+	chmod 0755 "$datadir"
 	/usr/bin/mysqld_safe  --defaults-file=/etc/my.cnf >/dev/null 2>&1 &
 	ret=$?
 	# Spin for a maximum of N seconds waiting for the server to come up.
@@ -62,21 +94,21 @@ start(){
 }
 
 stop(){
-        /bin/kill `cat /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid  2> /dev/null ` > /dev/null 2>&1
+        /bin/kill `cat "$mypidfile"  2>/dev/null ` >/dev/null 2>&1
 	ret=$?
 	if [ $ret -eq 0 ]; then
+	    sleep 2
+	    rm -f /var/lock/subsys/mysqld
+	    rm -f "$socketfile"
 	    action $"Stopping $prog: " /bin/true
 	else
     	    action $"Stopping $prog: " /bin/false
 	fi
-	[ $ret -eq 0 ] && rm -f /var/lock/subsys/mysqld
-	[ $ret -eq 0 ] && rm -f $datadir/mysql.sock
 	return $ret
 }
  
 restart(){
     stop
-    sleep 2
     start
 }