MySQL 8.0 has been released as stable (GA) earlier this month. For db4free.net this means it’s time to make MySQL 8.0 the default version and to deprecate the MySQL 5.7 server instance.

The new MySQL 8.0 server is running on the default port 3306. All new registrations will have the database created on this server. It is fresh and empty and will start from scratch.

The previous MySQL 5.7 server will remain available on port 3308. All users who have data there which they want to keep should migrate it to the new MySQL 8.0 server. This will require you to sign up again.

The previous MySQL 8.0 server will remain on port 3307. Both the old MySQL 5.7 and the old MySQL 8.0 server on port 3307 will be available until June 15, 2018. Data which isn’t migrated to the new server instance by then will be lost.

The new MySQL 8.0 server instance will come …

db4free.net was born in 2005 (which makes it older than Twitter or Google Chrome) when MySQL 5.0 was in early development. 11 years went by but one thing always remained the same: the 5 in MySQL’s major version number. MySQL versions went from 5.0 to 5.1 to 5.5, 5.6 and recently to 5.7. There was always this 5.something.

While this 5 will stay around for a bit longer, it is not alone anymore.

Now there is a duplicate of the db4free.net website at

https://mysql8.db4free.net

where you can create a database on a newly set up MySQL 8.0 server!

MySQL 8.0 is in very early development, the first Development Milestone Release (MySQL 8.0.0 DMR) has just been released on September, 12. It will take several months until there will be a final release.

db4free.net makes it easy to try new features early. The …

There has been a recent spate of blog posts and tweets regarding MaxScale binary downloads requiring acceptance of an Evaluation License that some in the community perceived to be onerous.  MariaDB took quick action to make these binaries available without accepting the license, and were quickly – and rightly – praised for listening to the community. [UPDATE 2016-04-14: It turns out the measures MariaDB took were incomplete, and that accessing downloads of MaxScale still require accepting the Evaluation License terms – see comments for details]  The MaxScale binaries are part of a larger …

In a world where new data processing languages appear every day, it can be helpful to have tutorials explaining language characteristics in detail from the ground up.  This blog post is not such a tutorial.   It also isn’t a tutorial on getting started with MySQL or Hadoop, nor is it a list of best practices for the various languages I’ll reference here – there are bound to be better ways to accomplish certain tasks, and where a choice was required, I’ve emphasized clarity and readability over performance.  Finally, this isn’t meant to be a quickstart for SQL experts to access Hadoop – there are a number of SQL interfaces to Hadoop such as Impala or Hive that make Hadoop incredibly accessible to those with existing SQL skills.

Instead, this post is a pale equivalent of the …

Oracle University recently unveiled a new online training offering – the MySQL Learning Subscription.  The combination of freely-accessible and compelling paid content makes this an exciting development to me, and should prove valuable to the community and customer base alike.  This post will briefly explore this new MySQL educational resource.

Organization

The subscription content is organized into topical “channels”.  Current top-level channels are:

• Getting Started
• Development
• Administration
• Security

These channels have sub-channels as well – for example, the Getting Started channel includes Getting Started With MySQL New Features and MySQL For Beginners, …

A while back, I wrote a blog post explaining how PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA improvements in MySQL Server 5.7 provides new visibility into the SSL/TLS status of each running client configuration.  An excellent recent post from Frederic Descamps at Percona covers similar territory.  Both of us use PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA tables directly – a powerful interface, but one that requires a query joining multiple tables.  Thanks to the excellent work of Mark Leith, and a contribution from Daniël van Eeden, access to this same information is made far easier via the SYS schema.

I overlooked the SYS …

MariaDB recently announced the migration of the JIRA bug tracking system from the current Atlassian-hosted instance to a self-hosted installation to be found at jira.mariadb.org.    This likely isn’t a big deal to the community, and MariaDB is being very proactive in coordinating this change in the community – but it’s an opportunity for me to ask a few questions regarding MariaDB’s JIRA usage to which I can’t find answers.  I certainly welcome answers, feedback or clarification from MariaDB staff.

Before getting started, I should say that I appreciate MariaDB – the product, the company, the staff and the foundation.  MariaDB/SkySQL/Monty Programs serve a unique and useful purpose for community, users and staff who prefer …

After nearly ten years working for MySQL, I’m pursuing a new opportunity to expand into new areas of open source data infrastructure as part of the excellent Cloudera support organization.  I’ve been fortunate to work with incredibly talented, dedicated and wonderful people on relational databases, and I’m looking forward to doing the same in the Hadoop space in my new role.  Despite this transition, I intend to remain active in the MySQL community – most immediately, finishing off a handful of half-finished blog posts in the coming weeks.

My various bit roles at MySQL have given me a front-row seat as the company grew from a smaller independent company to a prominent product at Sun to part of a much larger, enterprise-focused portfolio within Oracle.  I’m incredibly proud of the progress MySQL has made over the years, in each stage – but the past 6 years under the stewardship of Oracle are …

Knowing which privileges a given account has is easy – just issue SHOW GRANTS FOR user@host.  But what about when you need visibility into privileges from the other direction – which accounts can access specific data?  If you’re a DBA – or perform DBA duties, regardless of your title – you may have been asked this question.  It’s an important question to ask in an audit or compliance review – but it can be a difficult question to answer.    This post will walk through how to assess this, but if you’re impatient and need answers to this question immediately, jump to the end – there’s a simple shortcut.

Things to consider

There are a few things you’ll want to consider about the implementation of the MySQL privilege system as you try to sort out who has access to certain data.

Access type

MySQL can restrict privileges based on operations – somebody who has …

MySQL Connector/Java 5.1.38 was released earlier this week, and it includes a notable improvement related to secure connections.  Here’s how the change log describes it:

When connecting to a MySQL server 5.7 instance that supports TLS, Connector/J now prefers a TLS over a plain TCP connection.

This mirrors changes made in 5.7 to the behavior of MySQL command-line clients and libmysql client library.  Coupled with the streamlined/automatic generation of TLS key material to ensure TLS availability in MySQL Server 5.7 deployments, this is an important step towards providing secure communication in default deployments.

…