Shortly after I created the initial packages of embedded InnoDB on the OpenSUSE Build Service, Oracle/Innobase released an updated version (1.0.3.5325). In addition to many improvements and bug fixes, they slightly changed the versioning scheme to better indicate what version of the InnodDB plugin their code is based on (see Vasil's posting on the InnoDB Forums for more information).

I've now updated my InnoDB packages on the Build Service to this version as well - please note that the naming scheme of the shared library package has …

I've been enjoying a nice vacation - the Sun is shining, so to speak :-). But a couple of days I've enjoyed upgrading www.openlife.cc to a newer drupal version, and also adding some much delayed blogging and Web2.0 enhancments.

Notes about the upgrade process (Drupal 4.7 to 6)

I had never upgraded openlife.cc, so I had to go through 2 major version upgrades. To do this, I created a staging site on my laptop so I could spend several days fixing things that would and did break when upgrading.

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I found a new crasher in the MySQL 5.0 version which ships with Ubuntu 6.06 LTS.

> SELECT * FROM (SELECT mu.User FROM mysql.user mu UNION SELECT mu.user FROM mysql.user mu ORDER BY mu.user) a;
ERROR 2013 (HY000): Lost connection to MySQL server during query

The bug report: LP392236

On MySQL 5.0.51 on Debian stable it returns this error (like it should):
ERROR 1054 (42S22): Unknown column 'mu.user' in 'order clause'

The correct query should be like this (Using culumn a number):
> SELECT * FROM (SELECT mu.User FROM mysql.user mu UNION SELECT mu.user FROM mysql.user mu ORDER BY 1) a;

In order to upgrade from 6.3 to 7.0 you must follow these rules:

1. IT IS ONLY POSSIBLE TO UPGRADE FROM 6.3 to at least 7.0.6!
2. I would recommend to upgrade from 6.3.x to 6.3.latest before doing the upgrade. If the upgrade does not work then and you have a good config.ini , you have probably hit a bug.
   
3. You cannot upgrade from 6.3 to the multi-threaded binary of 7.0.6 in one go.
   You have to upgrade from 'ndbd' (6.3) --> 'ndbd' (7.0.6)
   Then you can do 'ndbd' (7.0.6) --> 'ndbmtd' (7.0.6)

So don't try to upgrade to 7.0.5 - it will fail.
As usual when upgrading (version, configuration variables etc) you must do a rolling restart and restart:

1. ndb_mgmd (management servers)
2. ndbd (data nodes)
3. mysqld (mysql servers / direct api applications)

There is a very simple test to show MySQL replication in action and to also better understand the basics of MySQL Replication. With a configured MySQL environment we can run the following test on your MySQL master, and monitor the MySQL slave.

If you would like to try this, you can use MySQL SandBox which can launch a MySQL Master/Slave configuration in seconds. You can get started with MySQL Sandbox and Download 3.0.04.

Sandbox setup

$ make_replication_sandbox ~/mysql/mysql-5.1.35-osx10.5-x86.tar.gz
$ cd ~/sandboxes/rsandbox_5_1_35/

On the master

We will use a modified version of the numbers procedure found at …

A post by Ronald reminded me I wanted to write about watch. The Linux watch command is a fab tool, it allows you to run a program at a set interval, such as every 5 seconds. Handy for keeping an eye on stuff!

Update 2009-06-30: yesterday I wrote “… watch does not re-load and run the program, but goes in and resets the program counter.” (and was un-recommending it for use on production systems for that reason). I was blindly quoting an otherwise trusted source, and it was wholly wrong. Numerous people had a peek at the source code (all the way back to 1997) and found the popen(). So, I stand corrected and my apologies for not doing extra homework in the first place before posting! (I’m leaving the comments as they are)

If you’re using the Zend Framework and Dreamweaver, you’ve probably noticed you can’t open PHTML files in Dreamweaver.  Here’s how to add it.  You’ll need to modify three separate files:

1. Open Documents and Settings > [user] > Application Data > Adobe Dreamweaver > Configuration > extensions.txt.  Keep in mind this is for Windows XP and the file may be located elsewhere for other OS’s. Add PHTML to the first line of this file as shown circled below:
   
   
   and add it again to the PHP line as shown circled below:
   
   
   
2. We’re going to do this again but in another location.  Open Program Files > Adobe > Dreamweaver [Your Version] > configuration > Extensions.txt and repeat step 1 above.
   
3. Open Program Files > Adobe > Dreamweaver [Your Version] > configuration > DocumentTypes > …

After some fiddling around with the alternatives, I convinced myself that Gearman is the way to go. Before I proceed to show what I did, though, perhaps it's useful if I spend a few words about Gearman …

This week I've had to revisit merge tables once again due to customers experiencing problems. Although 5.1 merge table implementation is a huge improvement over 5.0, there still remains some critical bugs.

My list is still growing:

bug #45800: crash when replacing into a merge table and there is a duplicate
bug #45781: infinite hang/crash in "opening tables" after handler tries to open merge table
bug #45796: invalid memory reads and writes when altering merge and base tables
bug #45777: check table doesn't show all problems for …

The Daily WTF collects excellent tales from the real world. These days, the dismal dramatic sagas are often (at least in part) about mistakes involving databases; no surprise there, they’re so prolific…

Anyway, if you can learn from other people’s mistakes, that’s cheap and efficient education! I thought I’d share today’s edition with you: it’s called Death by Delete. Read and enjoy^H^H^H^H^Hlearn.