Just recently, I have been asked to look into what a Disaster Recovery site for InnoDB Cluster would look like.

If you’re reading this, then I assume you’re familiar with what MySQL InnoDB Cluster is, and how it is configured, components, etc.

Reminder: InnoDB Cluster (Group Replication, Shell & Router) in version 8.0 has had serious improvements from 5.7. Please try it out.

So, given that, and given that we want to consider how best to fulfill the need, i.e. create a DR site for our InnoDB Cluster, let’s get started.

Basically I’ll be looking at the following scenario:

InnoDB Cluster Source site with a Group Replication Disaster Recovery Site.

Now, just before we get into the nitty-gritty, here’s the scope.

Life is already hard enough, so we want as much automated as possible, so, yes, InnoDB Cluster gets some of that done, but there are other parts we will still have …

In a couple previous posts, I explained how to get an “Always Free” Oracle Cloud compute instance and how to install MySQL on it – as well as how to add a web server.

I started my IT career (way back in 1989) using a (dumb) terminal and a 2400-baud modem to access a server. While I still use a terminal window and the command-line, it is always nice to have access to a GUI. In this post, I will show you how to install and use a GUI on your Oracle Cloud …

Ok, so if you’re reading this, then I can guess you’ve got a MySQL InnoDB Cluster in an awkard shape, i.e. you need to restore a backup and add the instance back into the cluster, so we have all our instances again.

As it might be logical to think “ah, but I’ve only lost 1 instance, a read-only instance, so all I have to do is backup & restore the other read-only instance and I’m home free. Well I want to make it a little harder. So in this scenario, assume that we’ve lost both the READ-ONLY instances, so I need to backup my primary READ-WRITE instance.

I’ve got a 8.0.16 instance, on Oracle Linux 7.4. We’ll be looking at 2 hosts, ic1 & ic3.

We’ll be using the MySQL Enterprise Edition Server, that bundles MySQL Enterprise Backup with the rpm’s so we don’t need to install anything else.

I’ll assume you’ve got access to Oracle …

An easy way to setup one or multiple MySQL server deployments on a single server is to use Docker – a computer program that performs operating-system-level virtualization. Docker is simple-to-use and allows you to run multiple containers at once.

A container is a standard unit of software that packages up code and all its dependencies so the application runs quickly and reliably from one computing environment to another. A Docker container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries and settings. (Source: https://www.docker.com/resources/what-container)

In other words, think of a container as a virtual machine without the graphical user interface (GUI). There are third-party GUI’s available, but for this post, I am going to use a …

You say you want a Replication?

One of the best features of MySQL is the ability to use MySQL‘s built-in database replication feature to automatically replicate data from one server (source/master) to another (slave/replica). Group Replication was added in MySQL 5.7 as a way to provide a high-availability solution using a new variation of MySQL replication.

(In some earlier posts, I explained how to setup Group Replication using three MySQL database servers and how to …

So, if we’re applying GDPR to our system, and we’re already making use of MySQL Transparent Data Encryption / keyring, then here’s an example on how to migrate from filed-based keyring to the encrypted keyring. Online.

If you’re looking to go deeper into the TDE then I suggest reading the MySQL Server Team’s InnoDB Transparent Tablespace Encryption blog.

You’d already have your environment running, whereas I have to create one.. give me a minute please, 8.0.12 here we come:

mysqld --defaults-file=my_okv.cnf --initialize-insecure --user=khollman
mysqld --defaults-file=my_okv.cnf --user=khollman &

mysql …

As a spin-off from the previous post, https://mysqlmed.wordpress.com/2018/08/23/get-the-auditors-in/, I thought that it would be good to see how well the Audit plugin upgrades to MySQL 8. The big change in auditing is that the tables change from MyISAM to InnoDB, so keep your eyes open.

I’m using the previously used instance in version 5.7.18.

Preparation

Before we do anything, let’s make sure auditing will be in place when we restart the instance with 8.0.12:

Uncomment the plugin-load & audit-log params we had originally commented out. After all, this is something we should have done in the last post (apologies!):

vi my_audit.cnf:
  ..
  [mysqld]
  plugin-load =audit_log.so
  audit-log =FORCE_PLUS_PERMANENT
  ..

Restart the 5.7 instance so we upgrade from a rebooted / ‘as real as can be …

Here I have been looking into using the MySQL Enterprise Edition Audit Log plugin for 5.7. We have many options to audit (filters, encryption, compression, Workbench, rotation & purging, viewing the log, etc.) and it’s quite clear cut on what we’re auditing and not when active.

If you’re looking to go deep into the Audit Plugin, as part of the Enterprise Edition, you’ll want to look at the following Support note:

Master Note for MySQL Enterprise Audit Log Plugin (Doc ID 2299419.1)

And if you’re looking for other Audit Plugin examples, I’d recommend Tony Darnell’s blog post:

…

MySQL’s InnoDB Cluster was released on Apr 12, 2017, with version 5.7 and is also included in MySQL version 8.0.

MySQL InnoDB cluster provides a complete high availability solution for MySQL. MySQL Shell includes AdminAPI which enables you to easily configure and administer a group of at least three MySQL server instances to function as an InnoDB cluster. Each MySQL server instance runs MySQL Group Replication, which provides the mechanism to replicate data within InnoDB clusters, with built-in failover. AdminAPI removes the need to work directly with Group Replication in InnoDB clusters, but for more information see Chapter 18, Group Replication which explains the details. MySQL Router can automatically configure itself based on the cluster you …

As of MySQL 5.6.24, MySQL Enterprise Edition includes MySQL Enterprise Firewall, an application-level firewall (it runs within the mysql database process) that enables database administrators to permit or deny SQL statement execution based on matching against whitelists of accepted statement patterns. This helps harden MySQL Server against attacks such as SQL injection or attempts to exploit applications by using them outside of their legitimate query workload characteristics.

Each MySQL account registered with the firewall has its own whitelist of statement patterns (a tokenized representation of a SQL statement), enabling protection to be tailored per account. For a given account, the firewall can operate in recording or protecting mode, for training in the accepted statement …