There were two nasty MySQL replication bugs in two different 5.6 releases that would make it difficult to upgrade slaves to MySQL 5.6 while still connected to MySQL 5.5 master.

The first of those bugs is MySQL bug 72610 which affects 5.6.19. Essentially this bug is triggered when the table structure on the slave is different from the table structure on the master which leads to unnecessarily large amount of RAM usage while replicating events that affect that table. The amount of RAM used would generally be more noticeable when the replicated transaction consists of thousands of RBR events.

The most common way this affects how we upgrade a replication hierarchy, is when we have the master running MySQL 5.5 and the slave running MySQL 5.6 and we have transactions involving DATETIME column(s). Tables with DATETIME columns will have different …

With the query rewrite framework in the latest MySQL (Optimizer/InnoDB/Replication) labs release, you get the opportunity to author plugins that can rewrite queries. You can choose whether to rewrite the queries before and/or after parsing. Today I am going to walk you through how to write a pre-parse query rewrite plugin.

When would you want to use a pre-parse query rewrite plugin? The greatest benefit compared to post-parse rewrites — which I cover in a separate post — is the efficiency, especially the lack of overhead for those queries that are actually rewritten. Typical cases where you may want to write a pre-parse plugin are:

• When you want to remove certain specific clauses from queries. For example, perhaps you want to remove all ENGINE …

I log into a lot of different servers running MySQL and one of the first things I do is create a file in my home directory called ‘.my.cnf’ with my credentials to that local mysql instance:

[client]
user=root
password=secret

This means I don’t have to type my password in every time, nor am I tempted to include it on the command line with -p and get the dreaded (but completely accurate):

Warning: Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.

MySQL 5.6 introduces a utility to make this easier and more secure. First, let’s start with a new mysqld instance with a blank root password and make it more secure:

[vagrant@localhost ~]$ mysqladmin -u root password
New password:secret
Confirm new password:secret
[vagrant@localhost ~]$ mysql -u root
ERROR 1045 (28000): Access denied for user …

I just pushed the new Java based iiBench for MySQL (and Percona Server and MariaDB), the code and documentation are available now in the iibench-mysql Github repo. Pull request are welcome!

The history of iiBench goes back to the early days of Tokutek. Since "indexed insertion" is a strength of Fractal Tree indexes, the first iiBench was created by Tokutek in C++ back in 2008. Mark Callaghan rewrote iiBench in Python, adding several features along the way. His version of iiBench is available in …

People using OpenStack Trove instances can hit a common issue in the MySQL world: how to perform schema change operations while minimizing the impact on the database server? Let’s explore the options that can allow online schema changes.

Summary

With MySQL 5.5, pt-online-schema-change from Percona Toolkit is your best option for large tables while regular ALTER TABLE statements are only acceptable for small tables. Also beware of metadata locks.

With MySQL 5.6, almost all types of schema changes can be done online. Metadata locks can also be an issue. pt-online-schema-change can still be worth using as it is also online on read replicas.

Regular ALTER TABLE with MySQL 5.5

If you are still using MySQL 5.5, almost all schema changes will require a table …

I'm happy to announce the release of mylvmbackup version 0.16. The source package is now available for download from http://lenzg.net/mylvmbackup/ and https://launchpad.net/mylvmbackup.

Installation packages for a number of platforms can be obtained from the openSUSE Build Service.

Version 0.16 adds support for sending out SNMP traps in case of backup successes or failures. I'd like to thank Alexandre Anriot for contributing this new feature and his patience with me.

Please see the ChangeLog and bzr …

Introduction

With the introduction of Galera replication for MySQL, Codership has, in my opinion, provide the most significant support to MySQL that the community had seen in the last tree years.

Codership had filled a significant gap in MySQL replication capability, succeeding in a task where many before had failed.

Not only Codership is constantly committed in doing their solution better and more solid, and they are the most friendly and helpful team I have met in years.

In short chapeau to all of the guys! Great job, I am really proud to have the opportunity to discuss, interact with you.

Said that, no product or code around is unmingled of errors and/or issues at different level. So also if Galera help us a lot solving many replication and architectural issues it still has some limitation that must be taken in consideration.

Galera is easy to setup, especially to perform a basic setup, which …

Performance Schema (P_S) has been available since MySQL 5.5, more than 4 years ago. It is still difficult to see production servers with P_S enabled, even with MySQL 5.6 where the feature is enabled by default. There have been several complaints like the overhead, that the fix is a work in progress, and the ease of use. 52 tables to query and 31 configuration variables is enough to scare people.

There is a solution for the second problem, the usability. It’s name is “sys schema“. It is a collection of views, functions and procedures to make P_S more user friendly.

Installation

If you are a MySQL Workbench user the installation is pretty easy because sys schema is already included. You just need to install it. Click on “Performance – Performance Reports” and there you will find the “Install Helper” button that will install sys schema. …

You’ve already read it in What’s new in 5.7 (So Far) — the MySQL server now has new-and-improved supported for syslog (on unix-like systems) and EventLog (on Windows). In the next few paragraphs, we’ll take a look at what they are, what has changed, and how they can make your life easier.

The MySQL server supplies information in two main ways:

1. The client will receive a reply to every statement. If everything goes right, then we’ll see a simple OK for success, or a result set for SELECT, SHOW, etc.; and even a successful statement may be qualified by a set of warnings or notices. If the statement fails for some reason then we’ll receive an error regarding the failure.
2. On the server, we’ll see a variety of logs depending on the server configuration. Queries exceeding a certain execution …

MySQL is a database that has been bending the SQL standard in ways that make it hard to move off MySQL. What may appear to be a clever technique for vendor lockin (or maybe just oversight of the standard) can be quite annoying in understanding the real meaning of the SQL language. One such example … Continue reading Use MySQL’s Strict Mode on all new Projects! →