In the last post, we saw how to create a test OpenLDAP server, populate it and secure it with SSL certificates. Now we are going to have a look at how to configure MySQL Enterprise Manager (MEM) to authenticate against LDAP. We will be examining a few different kinds of setup methods.

1. Using LDAP to fetch just the user password

The simplest form is to configure a user with MEM and set it to the LDAP type. The user’s role is setup in MEM during user creation time and is not fetched from LDAP. Below you can see the user definition page:

How to create a LDAP user in MEM - password only

The username is user1 as specified in MEM, but where do we get the password …

The latest 2.2 release of MySQL Enterprise Monitor (MEM) has the ability to authenticate against LDAP. I decided to test this setup and for that, I had to create and populate an OpenLDAP server, including STARTTLS/SSL certificates. This guide was done on CentOS 5.5 but it shouldn’t be much different in other Linux/Unix distributions. First, start off by installing the packages with:

root@shell> yum install openldap openldap-clients openldap-servers

Then head to /etc/openldap where you can set you domain and the DN for the LDAP manager user. I’ve inserted some useful comments into the slapd.conf file. Lines without comments have not been changed from the default slapd.conf file.

shell> grep -v "^#" /etc/openldap/slapd.conf | grep -v "^$"
include         /etc/openldap/schema/core.schema
include         /etc/openldap/schema/cosine.schema
include         /etc/openldap/schema/inetorgperson.schema
include …

With the release of MySQL Enterprise Monitor (MEM) 2.2, there is now the ability to monitor queries using the Query Analyzer (QUAN) without needing the agent proxy to be running. You can use a .NET or JDBC connector plugin to directly gather the query statistics. In the example below, we will use the MySQL Enterprise Plugin for Connector/J.

First, make sure both the Connector/J, the Connector/J plugin and the Apache Commons Logging jars are in the $CLASSPATH. At the time of writing, these are the files needed:

mysql-connector-java-5.1.12-bin.jar
c-java-mysql-enterprise-plugin-1.0.0.42.jar
required/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar

Then, add the plugin to the connection string so that it changes from something like this:

conn = …

Announced at MySQL Sunday was the Release Candidate edition of MySQL 5.5.6. Also noted by Geert where he points out the default storage engine is now InnoDB.

However, for those from a background other then MySQL there is still a gotcha.

mysql> show global variables like 'autocommit';
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| autocommit    | ON    |
+---------------+-------+

Unlike Oracle for example, the default autocommit is on.

Doing some other boundary conditions, it is no longer possible to disable InnoDB on startup which you would of course expect.

$ bin/mysqld_safe --skip-innodb &
$ tail error.log

101003 15:33:32 [Note] Plugin 'InnoDB' is disabled.
101003 15:33:32 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
101003 15:33:32 [ERROR] Aborting

MyISAM however can’t be removed and …

This week I was one of the presenters at the first Surge Scalability Conference in Baltimore. An event that focused not just on one technology but on what essential tools, technologies and practices system architects need to know about for successfully scaling web applications.

While MySQL is an important product in many environments, it is only one component for a successful technology stack and for many organizations is one of several products that manage your data.

My presentation was on the common MySQL scalability mistakes and how to avoid them. This is a problem/solution approach and is a companion talk with Successful MySQL Scalability which describes design for successfully scalability …

Seeing as it looks like 5.5 is shortly about to go GA I thought I’d give it a run and see how well it works. The only way really to test it is to give it a bit of load and look for things which break. That I did with the 5.5.6-rc community rpms, compared to the 5.1 advanced rpms I usually run.

My colleagues, Ben and Peter, found a horrible problem which means that I can’t use this even for any real usage on my real servers. See: bug#57095 for all the gory details. Thanks to them both for finding the problem and then digging down and figuring out the real cause. Sometimes developers work a long way from the database so their errors don’t translate into something I can really look at in the database. They delved into the problem and then found the cause and a nice easy test case which I could report to MySQL.

After a couple of days of running this was …

I was interviewed by Justin Kestelyn the OTN Senior Director about MySQL at Oracle Open World this week.

Some highlights of the questions asked:

• 0:55 Since the close of acquisition has there been any change in direction?
• 2:23 How have your clients and customers responded to the acquisition?
• 3:53 You mentioned that Oracle will bring added advantages and could infuse invocation.
• 5:15 InnoDB and MySQL are now both owned by Oracle. What do you see as the development advantages?
• 6:47 What were your thoughts on the first MySQL Sunday?
• 8:58 Forks?
• 11:04 Contact Details

You can view the Video online or play below.

Last night I was the invited guest at the SF MySQL Meetup. In my presentation “Successful MySQL Scalability” I talked about a set of principles to ensure appropriate system architecture, data availability and best practices to build an ideal solution for your business. The presentation was also live streamed and is available online.

Successful MySQL Scalability

DISCLAIMER: This post contains no technical MySQL content however it is good news for the MySQL Community.

MySQL content will be included for the first time with the LAOUC (Latin American Oracle Usergroups Council) Oracle tour that is being organized in conjunction with OTN (Oracle Technology Network).

I have no idea what MySQL user communities are in South America however if you live in any of the following cities, please feel free to contact me. I am happy to have additional discussion regarding MySQL or help in some way if there is interest in any cities.

This seven country tour includes:

• Oct 12 – Lima, Peru
• Oct 14 – Santiago, Chile
• Oct 16 – Montevideo, Uruguay
• Oct 18 – São Paulo, Brazil
…

I collect a lot of configuration values from my database servers and most of these values are stored by date.

So often I end up with values such as:


config_date config_value
2010-09-01  value_1
2010-09-02  value_1
2010-09-03  value_2
2010-09-04  value_3
2010-09-05  value_3
2010-09-06  value_3
2010-09-07  value_3
2010-09-08  value_4
2010-09-09  value_4
2010-09-10  value_1
2010-09-11  value_5
2010-09-12  value_5
2010-09-13  value_5
I´ve been unsuccessfully been trying to figure out how to convert this in SQL into something like the following:


config_from config_to   config_value
2010-09-01  2010-09-02  value_1
2010-09-03  2010-09-03  value_2
2010-09-04  2010-09-07 …