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So running mysql-5.1.24rc with INNODB-Plugin-1a I ran into "Can't initialize function 'INNODB'; Plugin initialization function failed", and noticed a more serious issue with the whole plugin architecture.


Before without plugin if the engine died so did mysqld. Now, mysqld can stay up and accept connections. But what if you have 1000 mysql instances, and all of your Nagios checks where to test if mysqld was up and accepting connections? This entire test is now invalid. I now need a Nagios check to test if the plugin-engine is up, by doing a write to the engine.

Now to the cause of the issue:

Here is my condition. 5.1.24rc with INNODB-Plugin was killed by OOM killer (mysqld memory leak?). When it came back, my expectation was for innodb to go through a recovery process, it didn't. Strange. Then I got this message from replication.

Slave: Unknown table engine 'InnoDB' Error_code: …

well.. in my head anyway.

mysql 6.0.6 alpha was recently released, and with it a whole slew of patches (as one would expect).

So I got to thinking.. the problem with forking a large existing project is that you lose the testing that millions of people banging away at your product gives you.

going through the release notes I thought I saw 1 or 2 things that might be relevant to drizzle.

for example.. sorting.

  Incompatible Change: Certain characters were sorted

  incorrectly for the following collations: TILDE and GRAVE ACCENT

  in big5_chinese_ci; LATIN SMALL LETTER J in cp866_general_ci;

  TILDE in gb2312_chinese_ci; and TILDE in gbk_chinese_ci… Bug 25420

I am no way an expert in the mysql/drizzle internals but …

Is this a step towards companies opening up their source code in return for higher quality software? READ MORE

Stefan over at Suspekt brought up some interesting security vulnerabilities based on MySQL's column truncation tendencies (when not in strict mode), so I thought I'd add my own to the pile, this one right in the grant tables.MySQL's user table restricts user names to 16 characters (and hosts to 60). Any attempt to create a user with a longer login results in an error. However, unlike Stefan's example where a field is compared, then truncated and then inserted, MySQL actually truncates a login attempt before processing it. ...

Talend announced an open source data quality offering this week at the TDWI conference in San Diego. The company is rapidly to filling out the basic components needed in a complete data integration suite. In June they delivered added changed data capture (CDC) features to Open Studio, their ETL tool. They also added Talend Open Profiler for data profiling. While Talend doesn’t offer a complete suite yet, these new offerings are a big expansion of functionality in short time. The ETL and data profiling tools are available today, but Data Quality won’t be ready for download until September.

Talend …

Open Query has partnered with The Pythian Group, founded in Canada by Paul Vallee and active around the world providing fractional database infrastructure teams on a linear cost-to-effort basis.

Open Query focuses on MySQL and related training and consulting work, whereas The Pythian Group has its remote DBA offering with around the clock (and around the globe) coverage. A perfect match!

I'm very pleased with this partnership, so a grand thanks to Paul and Alex, but also Sheeri, Niklas, Gerry, Augusto, Keith, Julien, Singer, Danil, Santinesh, Paul, and everybody else (they're everywhere!) I've met some of you already, and hope to meet …

If this can be of any interest, the following is the list of new variables included in MySQL™ v.6.0.6-alpha. Maria-variables already included in prev. binary versions (like 5.1.23-maria) are not count here.

1. falcon_checksums: (default ON) to calculate and verify page checksums.
2. falcon_serial_log_file_size: not documented.
3. falcon_use_sectorcache:  not documented.
4. falcon_use_supernodes: not documented.
5. maria_force_start_after_recovery_failures: Number of consecutive log recovery failures after which logs will be automatically deleted to cure the problem; 0 (the default) disables the feature.
6. maria_recover: Specifies how corrupted tables should be automatically repaired.

No new status variables have been included. …

Last week, noted PHP security expert Stefan Esser from SektionEins fame held a webinar together with MySQL regarding the topic "Create secure LAMP applications". Unfortunately, this Webinar was in German, but if you understand German you might be interested in the Webinar recording which is now available at MySQL's website. If you have further questions regarding Web Application Security or MySQL security, don't hesitate to contact us.

This TOTD (Tip Of The Day) shows how to create a simple Java Server Faces application using NetBeans IDE 6.1. This is my first ever Java Server Faces application :) Much more comprehensive applications are already available in NetBeans and GlassFish tutorials.

The application is really simple - it allows you to create a database of cities/country that you like. You enter the city & country name on a page and click on Submit. This stores the data entered in the backend database and displays all the stored values in a new page. This application demonstrates simple JSF concepts:

• How to create a JSF application using NetBeans IDE ? …

Protobuf comes with a minor problem: it does not have support for handling "type tagged structures", that is, something reminiscent of objects in OOP lingo, so if one is going to have a heterogeneous sequences of messages, you have to roll it yourself. For that reason, I added a transport frame for the messages in the binary log that wraps each with some extra information. In addition to allowing the binary log to be a sequence of messages, it also adds some integrity-checking data and simplifies some administrative tasks.

The format of each message in the sequences is given in the table in the margin. where the length is a specially encoded …