Cannot set a global variable on Mysql

The variable name var does not reference a valid system variable. The GLOBAL and SESSION keywords in the SET statement are used for specifying the scope when setting MySQL system variables, not MySQL user variables.

Try for example:

SELECT @@global.net_read_timeout ;

SET GLOBAL net_read_timeout = 45 ;

SELECT @@global.net_read_timeout ;

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http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/set-statement.html

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/set-statement.html

According to the MySQL 5.0 Reference Manual:

User-defined variables are session-specific. That is, a user variable defined by one client cannot be seen or used by other clients. All variables for a given client session are automatically freed when that client exits.

You could consider using an extension like MySQL Global User Variables UDF (old archived link) to use global (persistent shared) variables.