The recent release of 5.6.6 includes a new utility, mysql_config_editor, which makes it easier to interact with MySQL clients securely.  At the same time, it’s easy to overstate the security benefits of using this new tool, and unfortunately, I think a couple of statements in the release notes and documentation go a step too far (something we’re in the process of correcting).  Ronald quoted one of them in his blog:

MySQL now provides a method for storing authentication credentials securely in an option file named .mylogin.cnf.

This enhancement really isn’t about securing passwords at a file-system level.  Don’t assume that the encryption …

Taxonomy upgrade extras: indexprimary keyinnodbtuningperformanceOptimizer

Recently a customer has shown up with some deadlocks occurring frequently. They were of the following type (I have shortened the output a bit):

*** (1) TRANSACTION:

TRANSACTION 22723019234, fetching rows
mysql tables in use 1, locked 1
LOCK WAIT 7 lock struct(s), heap size 1216, 14 row lock(s)
update location set expires='2012-08-10 04:50:29' where username='12345678901' AND contact='sip:12345678901@192.168.0.191:5060' AND …

We recently released a new migration tool for Microsoft SQL Server to MySQL, along with additional tools and features improving the MySQL user experience on Windows.

In the latest episode of our "Meet The MySQL Experts" podcast, Alfredo Kojima, Senior Software Development Manager, talks to us about the new migration tool.

Enjoy the podcast!

To learn more about SQL Server to MySQL migrations, MySQL on Windows and numerous other MySQL topics, register for MySQL Connect if you haven’t done so …

Mail’s Mail.app keeps a list of recent recipients, but it doesn’t let you export them to a file. You could do as some others on the Internet have suggested and grep the file of addresses for everything that looks like an email address, or you could work with your system instead of against it!

The trick is twofold: knowing where the addresses are stored, and knowing how. They’re stored in a file in your user directory, Library/Application Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr.

The “how” is the fun part. It’s an SQLite database file. Now all you have to do is open the file with SQLite and select the data from it! The full power of SQL is at your disposal. Here’s a sample:

$ sqlite3 ~/Library/Application\ Support/AddressBook/MailRecents-v4.abcdmr

Here is an SQL command you can enter to select all of the emails, with first and last names:

select '"' || ZFIRSTNAME …

In case you missed it, MySQL 5.6.6, also known as Milestone 9, was recently released. I have yet to install this, however just one part of the MySQL 5.6.6 Release Notes makes placing installing and testing high on my TODO list.

Updated 20 Sep, 2012. Be sure to also read Todd’s post Understanding mysql_config_editor’s security aspects about a more in-depth and accurate description of this new feature. In summary, “It makes secure access via MySQL client applications easier to use”.

That is the reported improvements in password management. From the release notes:

Security Improvements

These security improvements were implemented:

MySQL now provides a method for …

Answer: When Oracle acknowledges the bug in 5.5.25 (to the owner only), corrects the bug in 5.5.27 (to the owner only), yet hides all information of its existence.

Recently a colleague and good friend discovered a bug in MySQL 5.5 replication that would crash MySQL. This was initially reported as Bug #65740, and after a lot of back and forth, a reproducible test case was found. Excellent work on the part of my colleague to spend the time to clearly identify the specific conditions. I remember looking at this initial thread in detail for an UPDATE statement using variables combined with an –ignore-database configuration option.

For no explanation by Oracle, this bug was subsequently marked as private (after I originally viewed the thread publicly), corrected, and the corrected bug is not referenced in the …

So, if I’m reading this correctly, one has to launch and EC2 instance, and an RDS database. Correct? I find that confusing. Why should it be necessary to go through an EC2 instance? It must have taken a lot of work to figure this out.

I will double my all-time total of public speaking engagements this September at the MySQL Connect conference in San Fransisco.

The title of my session is "Delivering Breakthrough Performance with MySQL Cluster", and it's between 17:30 and 18:30 on Saturday 29th September.

The content is not finalised yet, so if there's something you would like to hear about which fits with the abstract, then comment below.  If it doesn't fit in with the abstract then we …

Schedule Builder allows you to effectively plan your conference and pre-enroll in MySQL Connect sessions. For instance, don’t miss the keynotes including:

The State of The Dolphin

Join Oracle Executive Vice President Edward Screven and MySQL Vice President of Engineering Tomas Ulin to hear about Oracle’s MySQL strategy, and the key latest developments including product releases, roadmap and community.

MySQL Perspectives Join us for an exciting keynote featuring power users of MySQL, including speakers from PayPal, Twitter, and Verizon, who will share with you their experiences and perspectives.

Search the …

Next week I (Bradley) will be traveling to FROSCON near Bonn, Germany, and then on to VLDB in Istanbul.

At FROSCON I’ll be talking about fast data structures for maintaining indexes. The talk will share some content with my upcoming MySQL Connect talk.

At VLDB, Dzejla Medjedovic will be presenting a talk on our paper on SSD-friendly Bloom-filter-like data structures. The paper is

Michael A. Bender, Martin Farach-Colton, Rob Johnson, Russell Kraner, Bradley C. Kuszmaul, Dzejla Medjedovic, Pablo Montes, Pradeep Shetty, Richard P. Spillane, and Erez Zadok.
Don’t Thrash: How to Cache Your Hash on Flash. PVLDB 5(11):1627-1637, 2012.

An earlier version of the paper appeared at …