Digital Tech Trek Digest [#Issue 2024.01]

The Tiny Stack (Astro, SQLite, Litestream)

I spent many years in the LAMP stack, and there are often many more acronyms of technology stacks in our evolving programming ecosystem. New today is “The Tiny Stack”, consisting of Astro, a modern meta-framework for javascript (not my words), and Lightstream Continuously stream SQLite changes. I’ve never been a fan of Javascript, a necessary evil in modern stacks, but it changes so rapidly it’s a constant stream of new products with never the time to learn any. Lightstream is interesting. Replication of SQL operations to a database is nothing new, the Change Data Capture (CDC) of your data, however, I’d not thought of SQLite which is embedded everywhere offered this type of capability.

Amazon Aurora Introduces Long-Awaited RDS Data API to Simplify Serverless Workloads

AWS Aurora Serverless version 2 has been out for at least a year (actually 20 months – Apr 21, 2022), but a feature of version 1 that was not available in version 2 is the Data API. This is for developers without SQL skills to have a RESTful interface to the database, however, it only works in AppSync and only for recent versions of PostgreSQL and only in certain regions. I’ve never used it myself, but it is news.

Speaking of what is available in what AWS region, recently released InstanceHunt allows you to identify the instance families/types available in different regions across various AWS Database services. I developed this in just a few days and released it only last week as a working MVP. Future goals are to include other clouds and other categories of services such as Compute. The prior announcement may facilitate a future version that supports the features of services in regions.

Stop Stalling And Start Your Dream Side Business In 2024

The title kinda says it all. As an inspiring entrepreneur, my pursuits have only offered limited minimal success over the decades and never a passive revenue stream. While the article did not provide valuable nuggets, the title did. One of my goals for 2024 is to elevate my creation and release of side projects, regardless of each project being a source of revenue. I consider refining my design, development, testing, and implementation skills and providing information of value, are all resources of a soft income that showcase some of my diverse skills.

About ‘Digital Tech Trek Digest ‘

Most days I take some time early in the morning to scan my inbox newsletters, the news, LinkedIn, or other sources to read something new covering professional and personal topics of interest. Turning what I read into some actionable notes in a short committed time window is a summary of what I learned today, what I should learn and use, or what is of random interest.

Announcing InstanceHunt

InstanceHunt identifies the instance (families/types/classes) available for a cloud service across all the regions of that cloud.

The initial version is a working example of several AWS database services. Future releases will enable advanced filtering and will cover other service categories (e.g. compute) as well as GCP and Azure cloud platforms, as well as providing the full list of instance types within families within the service matrix.

For a few days investment this MVP is a usable service, complete with adding new regions the same day, for example ca-central-1 data was available the day of release. It is interesting and can answer questions like what regions the new generation 7 instance families are available? What consistent instance types can use use across Europe regions? Where is MemoryDB not available?

Feature requests are welcome. From today’s reading, being able to show a feature of a service may be also a useful future matrix, e.g. AWS Aurora Serverless Data API now available in Serverless v2, but only one of two engines and only in a few regions.

China regions and AWS Gov Cloud regions are coming soon.

InstanceHunt - Find what instances you can use for your cloud services

AWS RDS Aurora wish list

I’ve had this list on a post-it note on my monitor for all of 2022. I figured it was time to write it down, and reuse the space.

In summary, AWS suffers from the same problem that almost every other product does. It sacrifices improved security for backward compatibility of functionality. IMO this is not in the best practices of a data ecosystem that is under constant attack.

  • Storage should be encrypted by default. When you launch an RDS cluster its storage is not encrypted. This goes against their own AWS Well-Architected Framework Section 2 – Security.
  • Plain text passwords. To launch a cluster you must specify a password in plain text on the command line, again not security best practice. At least change this to using a known secret from AWS secrets manager.
  • TLS for administrative accounts should be the only option. The root user should only be REQUIRE SSL (MySQL syntax).
  • Expanding on the AWS secrets manager usage for passwords, there should not need to be lambda code and cloudwatch cron event for rotation, it should just be automatically built in.
  • The awscli has this neat wait command that will block until you can execute the next statement in a series of sequential events to prepare and launch a cluster, but it doesn’t work for create-db-cluster. You have to build in your own manual “wait” until “available” process.
  • In my last position, I was unable to enforce TLS communications to the database from the application. This insecure practice is a more touchy situation, however, there needs to be some way to ensure security best practices over application developer laziness in the future.
  • AWS has internal special flags that only AWS support can set when say you have a bug in a version. Call it a per-client feature flag. However, there is no visibility into what is set, which account, which cluster, etc. Transparency is of value so that the customer knows to get that special flag unset after minor upgrades.
  • When you launch a new RDS Cluster, for example, MySQL 2.x, you get the oldest version, back earlier in the year it was like 2.7.2, even when 2.10.1 was released. AWS should be using a default version when only an engine is specified as a more current version. I would advocate the latest version is not the automatic choice, but it’s better to be more current.
  • the ALTER SYSTEM CRASH functionality is great, but it’s incomplete. You cannot for example crash a global cluster, forcing a region-specific failover. If you have a disaster resiliency plan that is multi-region it’s impossible to actually test it. You can emulate a controlled failover, but this is a different use case to a real failover (aka Dec 2021)
  • Use arn when it’s required not id. This goes back to my earlier point over maximum compatibility over usability, but when a --db-instance-identifier, or --db-instance-identifier requires the value to be the ARN, then the parameter should be specific. IMO –identifier is what you use for that argument, e.g. --db-cluster-identifier. When you specify for example --replication-source-identifier this must be (as per docs) “The Amazon Resource Name (ARN) of the source DB instance or DB cluster if this DB cluster is created as a read replica.” It should then be --replication-source-arn. There are a number of different occurrences of this situation.

SELECT 1

If you have worked with an RDBMS for some time, you will likely have come across the statement SELECT 1.

However, rarely is it correctly explained to engineers what the origin of SELECT 1 is, and why it’s useless and wasteful? A google search is not going to give you the response you would hope, these ranked responses are just as useless as the statement itself.

Bloat

Seeing a SELECT 1 confirms two things. First you are using a generic ORM framework, quote, and second, you have never optimized your SQL traffic patterns.

“Frameworks generally suck.
They CLAIM to improve the speed of development and abstract the need to know SQL.
The REALITY is the undocumented cost to sub-optimal performance, especially with data persistence.”

Connection Pooling

SELECT 1 comes from early implementations of connection pooling.

What is a connection pool? Rather than a new request or call getting a new database connection each time you wanted to return some data, programming languages implemented a cache with a pre-loaded pool of pre-established database connections. The intended goal is to reduce the execution time of an initial expensive operation of getting a new database connection if you were retrieving data from a simple SELECT statement. If intelligent enough (many are not), these pools would include features such as a low watermark, a high watermark, a pruning backoff of idle connections, and an ability to flush all connections.

When your code wanted to access the database to retrieve data, it would first ask the connection pool for an available connection from its pool, mark the connection as in-use and provide that for subsequent consumption.

Here is a simple example of the two queries that would actually be necessary to retrieve one piece of information.

SELECT 1
SELECT email_address, phone, position, active FROM employee where employee_id = ?

Staleness

SELECT 1 was implemented as the most light-weight SQL statement (i.e., minimal parsing, privilege checking, execution) that would validate that your connection was still active and usable. If SELECT 1 failed, i.e. a protocol communication across your network, the connection could be dropped from the connection pool, and a new connection from the pool could be requested. While this may appear harmless, it leads to multiple code in-efficiencies, a topic for a subsequent discussion.

Failed error handling

SELECT 1 was a lazy and flawed means to perform error handling. In reality, every single SQL statement requires adequate error handling, any statement can fail at any time to complete. In the prior example, what happens if the SELECT 1 succeeds but a simple indexed SELECT statement fails? This anti-pattern also generally shows that error handling is inconsistent and highly duplicated rather than at the correct position in the data access path.

By definition, error handling is needed in an abstraction function for all SQL statements, and it needs to handle all types of error handling including the connection no longer valid, connection terminated, timed out, etc.

If you had the right error handling SELECT 1 would then be redundant, and as I stated useless. You simply run the actual SELECT statement and handle any failure accordingly.

High availability

In today’s cloud-first architectures where high availability consists of multiple availability zones and multiple regions where application A can communicate with database B, every unneeded network round-trip in a well-tuned system is wasteful, i.e. it is costing you time to render a result quicker. We all know studies have shown that slow page loads drive users away from your site.

The cost of the cloud

This AWS Latency Monitoring grid by Matt Adorjan really shows you the impact that physics has on your resiliency testing strategy when application A and database B are geographically separated and you just want one piece of information.

Conclusion

The continued appearance of SELECT 1 is a re-enforcement that optimizing for performance is a missing skill for the much larger engineering code-writing workforce that have lost the ability for efficiency. It is also another easy win that becomes an unnecessary battle for Data Architects to ensure your organization provides a better customer experience.

What does the MySQL mysqlsh util.checkForServerUpgrade() execute

During a recent Aurora MySQL 8 upgrade process, a number of validation checks have failed. This is an analysis of the error message “present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA’s INNODB_SYS_TABLES table but missing from TABLES table”.

Some background

During a Major Upgrade from Aurora MySQL 5.7 to Aurora MySQL 8.0 the cluster instances were left in an incompatible-parameters state. The upgrade-prechecks.log shed some more light on the situation with

{
            "id": "schemaInconsistencyCheck",
            "title": "Schema inconsistencies resulting from file removal or corruption",
            "status": "OK",
            "description": "Error: Following tables show signs that either table datadir directory or frm file was removed/corrupted. Please check server logs, examine datadir to detect the issue and fix it before upgrade",
            "detectedProblems": [
                {
                    "level": "Error",
                    "dbObject": "flinestones.fred",
                    "description": "present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA's INNODB_SYS_TABLES table but missing from TABLES table"
                }
            ]
        }, 

For anonymity the troublesome table here is played by flinestones.fred

This error could be reproduced more quickly with the util.checkForServerUpgrade() check that saves the creation of a snapshot of your cluster, restore from the snapshot cluster, then the launch cluster instance path.

18) Schema inconsistencies resulting from file removal or corruption
  Error: Following tables show signs that either table datadir directory or frm
    file was removed/corrupted. Please check server logs, examine datadir to
    detect the issue and fix it before upgrade

  mysql.rds_heartbeat2 - present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA's INNODB_SYS_TABLES
    table but missing from TABLES table
  flinstones.fred -
    present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA's INNODB_SYS_TABLES table but missing from
    TABLES table 

As I am using the MySQL community mysqlsh tool with a managed AWS RDS MySQL cluster, I have discounted any rds specific messages.

Back to investigating the cause. Some basic spot checks within the Cluster confirmed this mismatch.

mysql > desc flinstones.fred;
ERROR 1146 (42S02): Table flinstones.fred ' doesn't exist

mysql > select * from information_schema.innodb_sys_tables where name = ' flinstones/fred';

*results*
(1 row)

A closer inspection of the Aurora MySQL error log re-iterated there was some issue.

$ aws rds download-db-log-file-portion --db-instance-identifier ${INSTANCE_ID} --log-file-name error/mysql-error-running.log --output text

... 
[Warning] InnoDB: Tablespace 'flinstones/fred' exists in the cache with id 5233285 != 4954605
...

What is this check

It is easy enough to look at the SQL behind this using open-source software, you go to the source and look at the SQL https://github.com/mysql/mysql-shell .. upgrade_check.cc. As the message is near identical to what AWS provides I am making an educated assumption the check is the same.

// clang-format off
std::unique_ptr
Sql_upgrade_check::get_schema_inconsistency_check() {
  return std::make_unique(
      "schemaInconsistencyCheck",
      "Schema inconsistencies resulting from file removal or corruption",
      std::vector{
       "select A.schema_name, A.table_name, 'present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA''s "
       "INNODB_SYS_TABLES table but missing from TABLES table' from (select "
       "distinct "
       replace_in_SQL("substring_index(NAME, '/',1)")
       " as schema_name, "
       replace_in_SQL("substring_index(substring_index(NAME, '/',-1),'#',1)")
       " as table_name from "
       "information_schema.innodb_sys_tables where NAME like '%/%') A left "
       "join information_schema.tables I on A.table_name = I.table_name and "
       "A.schema_name = I.table_schema where A.table_name not like 'FTS_0%' "
       "and (I.table_name IS NULL or I.table_schema IS NULL) and A.table_name "
       "not REGEXP '@[0-9]' and A.schema_name not REGEXP '@[0-9]';"},
      Upgrade_issue::ERROR,
      "Following tables show signs that either table datadir directory or frm "
      "file was removed/corrupted. Please check server logs, examine datadir "
      "to detect the issue and fix it before upgrade");
}

Ok, that’s a little more difficult to read than plain text, and what if I wanted to review other SQL statements this could become tedious.

Gather the SQL statements executed by util.checkForServerUpgrade()

Let’s use a more straightforward means of capturing SQL statements, the MySQL general log.

MYSQL_PASSWD=$(date | md5sum - | cut -c1-20)

docker network create -d bridge mynetwork
docker run --name mysql57 -e MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD="${MYSQL_PASSWD}" -d mysql:5.7
docker network connect mynetwork mysql57
docker inspect mysql57 | grep "IPAddress"
IP=$(docker inspect mysql57 | grep '"IPAddress":' | head -1 | cut -d'"' -f4)
docker exec -it mysql57 mysql -uroot -p${MYSQL_PASSWD} -e "SET GLOBAL general_log=1"
docker exec -it mysql57 mysql -uroot -p${MYSQL_PASSWD} -e "SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'general_log_file'"
GENERAL_LOG_FILE=$(docker exec -it mysql57 mysql -uroot -p${MYSQL_PASSWD} -e "SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE 'general_log_file'" | grep general_log_file | cut -d'|' -f3)


docker run --name mysql8 -e "MYSQL_ALLOW_EMPTY_PASSWORD=yes" -d mysql/mysql-server
docker exec -it mysql8 mysqlsh -h${IP} -uroot -p${MYSQL_PASSWD} --js -- util checkForServerUpgrade | tee check.txt

docker exec -it mysql57 grep Query ${GENERAL_LOG_FILE} | cut -c41- | tee check.sql


# Cleanup
docker stop mysql8 && docker rm mysql8
docker stop mysql57 && docker rm mysql57
docker network rm mynetwork

And we are left with the output of util.checkForServerUpgrade() and the SQL of all checks including of said statement:

check.sql

SET NAMES 'utf8mb4'
select current_user()
SELECT PRIVILEGE_TYPE, IS_GRANTABLE FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.USER_PRIVILEGES WHERE GRANTEE = '\'root\'@\'%\''
SELECT PRIVILEGE_TYPE, IS_GRANTABLE, TABLE_SCHEMA FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMA_PRIVILEGES WHERE GRANTEE = '\'root\'@\'%\'' ORDER BY TABLE_SCHEMA
SELECT PRIVILEGE_TYPE, IS_GRANTABLE, TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_PRIVILEGES WHERE GRANTEE = '\'root\'@\'%\'' ORDER BY TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME
select @@version, @@version_comment, UPPER(@@version_compile_os)
SET show_old_temporals = ON
SELECT table_schema, table_name,column_name,column_type FROM information_schema.columns WHERE column_type LIKE 'timestamp /* 5.5 binary format */'
SET show_old_temporals = OFF
select SCHEMA_NAME, 'Schema name' as WARNING from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.SCHEMATA where SCHEMA_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, 'Table name' as WARNING FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_TYPE != 'VIEW' and TABLE_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
select TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, COLUMN_TYPE, 'Column name' as WARNING FROM information_schema.columns WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA not in ('information_schema', 'performance_schema') and COLUMN_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
SELECT TRIGGER_SCHEMA, TRIGGER_NAME, 'Trigger name' as WARNING FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TRIGGERS WHERE TRIGGER_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, 'View name' as WARNING FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS WHERE TABLE_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
SELECT ROUTINE_SCHEMA, ROUTINE_NAME, 'Routine name' as WARNING FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.ROUTINES WHERE ROUTINE_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
SELECT EVENT_SCHEMA, EVENT_NAME, 'Event name' as WARNING FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.EVENTS WHERE EVENT_NAME in ('ADMIN', 'CUBE', 'CUME_DIST', 'DENSE_RANK', 'EMPTY', 'EXCEPT', 'FIRST_VALUE', 'FUNCTION', 'GROUPING', 'GROUPS', 'JSON_TABLE', 'LAG', 'LAST_VALUE', 'LEAD', 'NTH_VALUE', 'NTILE', 'OF', 'OVER', 'PERCENT_RANK', 'PERSIST', 'PERSIST_ONLY', 'RANK', 'RECURSIVE', 'ROW', 'ROWS', 'ROW_NUMBER', 'SYSTEM', 'WINDOW', 'LATERAL', 'ARRAY' ,'MEMBER' )
select SCHEMA_NAME, concat('schema''s default character set: ',  DEFAULT_CHARACTER_SET_NAME) from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.schemata where SCHEMA_NAME not in ('information_schema', 'performance_schema', 'sys') and DEFAULT_CHARACTER_SET_NAME in ('utf8', 'utf8mb3')
select TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, concat('column''s default character set: ',CHARACTER_SET_NAME) from information_schema.columns where CHARACTER_SET_NAME in ('utf8', 'utf8mb3') and TABLE_SCHEMA not in ('sys', 'performance_schema', 'information_schema', 'mysql')
SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, 'Table name used in mysql schema in 8.0' as WARNING FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE LOWER(TABLE_SCHEMA) = 'mysql' and LOWER(TABLE_NAME) IN ('catalogs', 'character_sets', 'collations', 'column_type_elements', 'columns', 'dd_properties', 'events', 'foreign_key_column_usage', 'foreign_keys', 'index_column_usage', 'index_partitions', 'index_stats', 'indexes', 'parameter_type_elements', 'parameters', 'routines', 'schemata', 'st_spatial_reference_systems', 'table_partition_values', 'table_partitions', 'table_stats', 'tables', 'tablespace_files', 'tablespaces', 'triggers', 'view_routine_usage', 'view_table_usage', 'component', 'default_roles', 'global_grants', 'innodb_ddl_log', 'innodb_dynamic_metadata', 'password_history', 'role_edges')
select table_schema, table_name, concat(engine, ' engine does not support native partitioning') from information_schema.Tables where create_options like '%partitioned%' and upper(engine) not in ('INNODB', 'NDB', 'NDBCLUSTER')
select table_schema, table_name, 'Foreign key longer than 64 characters' as description from information_schema.tables where table_name in (select left(substr(id,instr(id,'/')+1), instr(substr(id,instr(id,'/')+1),'_ibfk_')-1) from information_schema.innodb_sys_foreign where length(substr(id,instr(id,'/')+1))>64)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete MAXDB sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('MAXDB', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete MAXDB sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('MAXDB', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete MAXDB sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('MAXDB', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete MAXDB option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('MAXDB', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete DB2 sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('DB2', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete DB2 sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('DB2', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete DB2 sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('DB2', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete DB2 option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('DB2', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete MSSQL sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('MSSQL', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete MSSQL sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('MSSQL', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete MSSQL sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('MSSQL', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete MSSQL option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('MSSQL', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete MYSQL323 sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('MYSQL323', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete MYSQL323 sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('MYSQL323', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete MYSQL323 sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('MYSQL323', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete MYSQL323 option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('MYSQL323', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete MYSQL40 sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('MYSQL40', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete MYSQL40 sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('MYSQL40', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete MYSQL40 sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('MYSQL40', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete MYSQL40 option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('MYSQL40', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete NO_FIELD_OPTIONS sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('NO_FIELD_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete NO_FIELD_OPTIONS sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('NO_FIELD_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete NO_FIELD_OPTIONS sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('NO_FIELD_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete NO_FIELD_OPTIONS option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('NO_FIELD_OPTIONS', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete NO_KEY_OPTIONS sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('NO_KEY_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete NO_KEY_OPTIONS sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('NO_KEY_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete NO_KEY_OPTIONS sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('NO_KEY_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete NO_KEY_OPTIONS option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('NO_KEY_OPTIONS', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete NO_TABLE_OPTIONS sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('NO_TABLE_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete NO_TABLE_OPTIONS sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('NO_TABLE_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete NO_TABLE_OPTIONS sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('NO_TABLE_OPTIONS', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete NO_TABLE_OPTIONS option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('NO_TABLE_OPTIONS', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete ORACLE sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('ORACLE', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete ORACLE sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('ORACLE', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete ORACLE sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('ORACLE', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete ORACLE option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('ORACLE', variable_value)
select routine_schema, routine_name, concat(routine_type, ' uses obsolete POSTGRESQL sql_mode') from information_schema.routines where find_in_set('POSTGRESQL', sql_mode)
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT uses obsolete POSTGRESQL sql_mode' from information_schema.EVENTS where find_in_set('POSTGRESQL', sql_mode)
select trigger_schema, trigger_name, 'TRIGGER uses obsolete POSTGRESQL sql_mode' from information_schema.TRIGGERS where find_in_set('POSTGRESQL', sql_mode)
select concat('global system variable ', variable_name), 'defined using obsolete POSTGRESQL option' as reason from performance_schema.global_variables where variable_name = 'sql_mode' and find_in_set('POSTGRESQL', variable_value)
select TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, UPPER(DATA_TYPE), COLUMN_TYPE, CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH from information_schema.columns where data_type in ('enum','set') and CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH > 255 and table_schema not in ('information_schema')
SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, concat('Partition ', PARTITION_NAME, ' is in shared tablespace ', TABLESPACE_NAME) as description FROM information_schema.PARTITIONS WHERE PARTITION_NAME IS NOT NULL AND (TABLESPACE_NAME IS NOT NULL AND TABLESPACE_NAME!='innodb_file_per_table')
SELECT tablespace_name, concat('circular reference in datafile path: \'', file_name, '\'') FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.FILES where file_type='TABLESPACE' and (file_name rlike '[^\\.]/\\.\\./' or file_name rlike '[^\\.]\\\\\\.\\.\\\\')
select table_schema, table_name, '', 'VIEW', UPPER(view_definition) from information_schema.views where table_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql')
select routine_schema, routine_name, '', routine_type, UPPER(routine_definition) from information_schema.routines where routine_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql')
select TABLE_SCHEMA,TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME, 'COLUMN', UPPER(GENERATION_EXPRESSION) from information_schema.columns where extra regexp 'generated' and table_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql')
select TRIGGER_SCHEMA, TRIGGER_NAME, '', 'TRIGGER', UPPER(ACTION_STATEMENT) from information_schema.triggers where TRIGGER_SCHEMA not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql')
select event_schema, event_name, '', 'EVENT', UPPER(EVENT_DEFINITION) from information_schema.events where event_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql')
select table_schema, table_name, 'VIEW', UPPER(view_definition) from information_schema.views where table_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql') and (UPPER(view_definition) like '%ASC%' or UPPER(view_definition) like '%DESC%')
select routine_schema, routine_name, routine_type, UPPER(routine_definition) from information_schema.routines where routine_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql') and (UPPER(routine_definition) like '%ASC%' or UPPER(routine_definition) like '%DESC%')
select TRIGGER_SCHEMA, TRIGGER_NAME, 'TRIGGER', UPPER(ACTION_STATEMENT) from information_schema.triggers where TRIGGER_SCHEMA not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql') and (UPPER(ACTION_STATEMENT) like '%ASC%' or UPPER(ACTION_STATEMENT) like '%DESC%')
select event_schema, event_name, 'EVENT', UPPER(EVENT_DEFINITION) from information_schema.events where event_schema not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql') and (UPPER(event_definition) like '%ASC%' or UPPER(event_definition) like '%DESC%')
select 'global.sql_mode', 'does not contain either NO_ZERO_DATE or NO_ZERO_IN_DATE which allows insertion of zero dates' from (SELECT @@global.sql_mode like '%NO_ZERO_IN_DATE%' and @@global.sql_mode like '%NO_ZERO_DATE%' as zeroes_enabled) as q where q.zeroes_enabled = 0
select 'session.sql_mode', concat(' of ', q.thread_count, ' session(s) does not contain either NO_ZERO_DATE or NO_ZERO_IN_DATE which allows insertion of zero dates') FROM (select count(thread_id) as thread_count from performance_schema.variables_by_thread WHERE variable_name = 'sql_mode' and (variable_value not like '%NO_ZERO_IN_DATE%' or variable_value not like '%NO_ZERO_DATE%')) as q where q.thread_count > 0
select TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME, concat('column has zero default value: ', COLUMN_DEFAULT) from information_schema.columns where TABLE_SCHEMA not in ('performance_schema','information_schema','sys','mysql') and DATA_TYPE in ('timestamp', 'datetime', 'date') and COLUMN_DEFAULT like '0000-00-00%'
select A.schema_name, A.table_name, 'present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA''s INNODB_SYS_TABLES table but missing from TABLES table' from (select distinct replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(substring_index(NAME, '/',1), '@002d', '-'), '@003a', ':'), '@002e', '.'), '@0024', '$'), '@0021', '!'), '@003f', '?'), '@0025', '%'), '@0023', '#'), '@0026', '&'), '@002a', '*'), '@0040', '@')  as schema_name, replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(substring_index(substring_index(NAME, '/',-1),'#',1), '@002d', '-'), '@003a', ':'), '@002e', '.'), '@0024', '$'), '@0021', '!'), '@003f', '?'), '@0025', '%'), '@0023', '#'), '@0026', '&'), '@002a', '*'), '@0040', '@')  as table_name from information_schema.innodb_sys_tables where NAME like '%/%') A left join information_schema.tables I on A.table_name = I.table_name and A.schema_name = I.table_schema where A.table_name not like 'FTS_0%' and (I.table_name IS NULL or I.table_schema IS NULL) and A.table_name not REGEXP '@[0-9]' and A.schema_name not REGEXP '@[0-9]'
select a.table_schema, a.table_name, concat('recognized by the InnoDB engine but belongs to ', a.engine) from information_schema.tables a join (select replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(substring_index(NAME, '/',1), '@002d', '-'), '@003a', ':'), '@002e', '.'), '@0024', '$'), '@0021', '!'), '@003f', '?'), '@0025', '%'), '@0023', '#'), '@0026', '&'), '@002a', '*'), '@0040', '@')  as table_schema, replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(substring_index(substring_index(NAME, '/',-1),'#',1), '@002d', '-'), '@003a', ':'), '@002e', '.'), '@0024', '$'), '@0021', '!'), '@003f', '?'), '@0025', '%'), '@0023', '#'), '@0026', '&'), '@002a', '*'), '@0040', '@')  as table_name from information_schema.innodb_sys_tables where NAME like '%/%') b on a.table_schema = b.table_schema and a.table_name = b.table_name where a.engine != 'Innodb'
FLUSH LOCAL TABLES
SELECT TABLE_SCHEMA, TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA not in ('information_schema', 'performance_schema', 'sys')
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`columns_priv` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`db` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`engine_cost` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`event` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`func` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`general_log` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`gtid_executed` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`help_category` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`help_keyword` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`help_relation` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`help_topic` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`innodb_index_stats` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`innodb_table_stats` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`ndb_binlog_index` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`plugin` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`proc` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`procs_priv` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`proxies_priv` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`server_cost` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`servers` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`slave_master_info` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`slave_relay_log_info` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`slave_worker_info` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`slow_log` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`tables_priv` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`time_zone` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`time_zone_leap_second` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`time_zone_name` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`time_zone_transition` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`time_zone_transition_type` FOR UPGRADE
CHECK TABLE `mysql`.`user` FOR UPGRADE

check.txt

Cannot set LC_ALL to locale en_US.UTF-8: No such file or directory
WARNING: Using a password on the command line interface can be insecure.
The MySQL server at 172.17.0.3:3306, version 5.7.33 - MySQL Community Server
(GPL), will now be checked for compatibility issues for upgrade to MySQL
8.0.24...

1) Usage of old temporal type
  No issues found

2) Usage of db objects with names conflicting with new reserved keywords
  No issues found

3) Usage of utf8mb3 charset
  No issues found

4) Table names in the mysql schema conflicting with new tables in 8.0
  No issues found

5) Partitioned tables using engines with non native partitioning
  No issues found

6) Foreign key constraint names longer than 64 characters
  No issues found

7) Usage of obsolete MAXDB sql_mode flag
  No issues found

8) Usage of obsolete sql_mode flags
  Notice: The following DB objects have obsolete options persisted for
    sql_mode, which will be cleared during upgrade to 8.0.
  More information:

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/mysql-nutshell.html#mysql-nutshell-removals

  global system variable sql_mode - defined using obsolete NO_AUTO_CREATE_USER
    option

9) ENUM/SET column definitions containing elements longer than 255 characters
  No issues found

10) Usage of partitioned tables in shared tablespaces
  No issues found

11) Circular directory references in tablespace data file paths
  No issues found

12) Usage of removed functions
  No issues found

13) Usage of removed GROUP BY ASC/DESC syntax
  No issues found

14) Removed system variables for error logging to the system log configuration
  To run this check requires full path to MySQL server configuration file to be specified at 'configPath' key of options dictionary
  More information:

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/relnotes/mysql/8.0/en/news-8-0-13.html#mysqld-8-0-13-logging

15) Removed system variables
  To run this check requires full path to MySQL server configuration file to be specified at 'configPath' key of options dictionary
  More information:

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/added-deprecated-removed.html#optvars-removed

16) System variables with new default values
  To run this check requires full path to MySQL server configuration file to be specified at 'configPath' key of options dictionary
  More information:

https://mysqlserverteam.com/new-defaults-in-mysql-8-0/

17) Zero Date, Datetime, and Timestamp values
  No issues found

18) Schema inconsistencies resulting from file removal or corruption
  No issues found

19) Tables recognized by InnoDB that belong to a different engine
  No issues found

20) Issues reported by 'check table x for upgrade' command
  No issues found

21) New default authentication plugin considerations
  Warning: The new default authentication plugin 'caching_sha2_password' offers
    more secure password hashing than previously used 'mysql_native_password'
    (and consequent improved client connection authentication). However, it also
    has compatibility implications that may affect existing MySQL installations.
    If your MySQL installation must serve pre-8.0 clients and you encounter
    compatibility issues after upgrading, the simplest way to address those
    issues is to reconfigure the server to revert to the previous default
    authentication plugin (mysql_native_password). For example, use these lines
    in the server option file:

    [mysqld]
    default_authentication_plugin=mysql_native_password

    However, the setting should be viewed as temporary, not as a long term or
    permanent solution, because it causes new accounts created with the setting
    in effect to forego the improved authentication security.
    If you are using replication please take time to understand how the
    authentication plugin changes may impact you.
  More information:

https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/upgrading-from-previous-series.html#upgrade-caching-sha2-password-compatibility-issues


https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.0/en/upgrading-from-previous-series.html#upgrade-caching-sha2-password-replication

Errors:   0
Warnings: 1
Notices:  1

No fatal errors were found that would prevent an upgrade, but some potential issues were detected. Please ensure that the reported issues are not significant before upgrading.

The pre-pre SQL check

I now am armed with an simplified single SQL statement. It does of course take a long to run in a cluster with thousands of tables.

select A.schema_name, A.table_name, 
       'present in INFORMATION_SCHEMA''s INNODB_SYS_TABLES table but missing from TABLES table' 
from (select distinct replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(substring_index(NAME, '/',1), '@002d', '-'), '@003a', ':'), '@002e', '.'), '@0024', '$'), '@0021', '!'), '@003f', '?'), '@0025', '%'), '@0023', '#'), '@0026', '&'), '@002a', '*'), '@0040', '@')  as schema_name, 
replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(replace(substring_index(substring_index(NAME, '/',-1),'#',1), '@002d', '-'), '@003a', ':'), '@002e', '.'), '@0024', '$'), '@0021', '!'), '@003f', '?'), '@0025', '%'), '@0023', '#'), '@0026', '&'), '@002a', '*'), '@0040', '@')  as table_name
 from information_schema.innodb_sys_tables 
where NAME like '%/%') A 
left join information_schema.tables I on A.table_name = I.table_name and A.schema_name = I.table_schema 
where A.table_name not like 'FTS_0%' 
and (I.table_name IS NULL or I.table_schema IS NULL) 
and A.table_name not REGEXP '@[0-9]' 
and A.schema_name not REGEXP '@[0-9]')

I then performed a number of drop/remove/restart/re-create/discard tablespace steps with no success. As a managed service RDS the only course of action now is to open an AWS Support ticket for help with this specific internal corruption.

Upgrading to AWS Aurora MySQL 8

With Aurora MySQL 8 now generally available to all, you may want to consider the plan for an upgrade path if you would like to take advantage of the new features for your application, for example, Common Table Expressions (CTE). This new major release has a much improved and streamlined upgrade progress from Aurora MySQL 5.7.

This tutorial will provide all the steps to allow you to try out setting up an Aurora cluster and performing an upgrade without the impact on your existing AWS environment. The two pre-requisites to getting started are:

You can find all the CLI cut/paste commands in my AWS Tutorials repo. This will lead you through all of the various AWS dependencies for a successful RDS Aurora cluster including IAM, KMS, VPC and EC2 requirements.

Create an RDS Aurora MySQL Cluster and Aurora MySQL Major upgrade – Aurora 2.x to Aurora 3.x can provide you with a POC of the primary operations path to achieving the goal of this post in under 30 minutes.

While this example will produce an upgraded cluster with some warnings, in real life a more detailed upgrade assessment is needed for any new version of software. The MySQL and Aurora pre-checks can be performed to minimize surprises during the final process of your data migration.

mysqlcheck –check-upgrade and the mysqlsh util.checkForServerUpgrade() pre-checks can help to assist in being prepared and not have your Cluster instances with the incompatible-parameters status. At this point download the upgrade-prechecks.log Aurora Log and trash your cluster and instance. They are unusable. Reviewing the upgrade-prechecks.log can contain more information than mysqlsh util.checkForServerUpgrade() output.

With an Aurora cluster configured with an instance parameter group enabling MySQL binary log replication, it is easy to have a functioning Aurora 5.7 Cluster with real-time replication to an Aurora 8 Cluster to minimize any downtime in your production environment and then benefit from an atomic data dictionary, roles, descending indexes, improved internal temporary table, additional JSON functions, Window Functions, CTEs and more!

More Reading

AWS Aurora MySQL 8 is now generally available

AWS has just announced the general availability of Aurora MySQL 8 compatibility (known as Aurora Version 3). This is long awaited addition to RDS MySQL 8 and provides many of the new features that can be found in the open-source MySQL 8 community version.

For those unfamiliar with Amazon Aurora my Understanding AWS RDS Aurora Capabilities presentation from Percona Live 2021 provides a great introduction of the benefits of this managed service.

There is a lot to digest and the Aurora User Guide provides details of the new features from the MySQL 8 community version, and of Aurora 3 new features, and feature differences or unsupported features. This AWS blog post also provides a general introduction.

It is very easy to spin up a new Aurora MySQL 3.01.0 cluster in an existing environment containing existing Aurora clusters. After defining new cluster and instance parameter groups for the aurora-mysql8.0 family, or starting with the available default.aurora-mysql8.0 parameter groups, there are no other differences in aws rds create-db-cluster syntax, or using the AWS Console or Terraform syntax for example.

Before considering a migration of an existing Aurora cluster, there is a lot of information around parameter changes (including inclusive language functionality), and those related status and CloudWatch Metrics changes. Yes, looking at the 29 ‘Removed from Aurora MySQL version 3′, 30 ‘This parameter applies to Aurora MySQL version 3 and higher’ and presently ‘Currently not available in Aurora MySQL version 3′ LOAD|SELECT S3 capabilities is important. There are new reserved words to be aware of, you will need to note how to take advantage of roles within the Aurora permissions model.

Migrating an existing Aurora MySQL 2 cluster to Aurora 3 is a little more involved than specifying the snapshot-id. Seeing your restored Aurora 2 snapshot in an Aurora 3 cluster but with a status of incompatible-parameters is a good indication that more work is needed. While I will detail some of my experiences in a subsequent post, one helpful tip is found in those additional pages of the 5 rows of logs for your new cluster after all the error.log files, you will find an upgrade-prechecks.log file. This contains an extensive list of checks and warnings performed for the upgrade. Skipping to the end of the JSON will give you an idea of your errorCount, warningCount and noticeCount.

Searching then for an object of “status”: “ERROR” will find the errorCount entries matching the count. Several other checks provide a “detectedProblems” section and a “level”: “Error” which would seem to be needed to be also corrected. There are a lot of checks between the INFORMATION_SCHEMA, InnoDB internal data dictionary and actual data/files on disk. You will also be presented with a nice long list of tables/columns using reserved words, as well as character set deprecations.

At a more technical glance of the documentation, there is a key change in how internal temporary tables are created, and how this differs from writer and reader instances. Benchmarking your application in different configurations will definitely be recommended.

Restoring an Aurora 2 cluster into Aurora 3 also took significantly more time; many hours; than a simple restore-db-cluster-from-snapshot you may be used to. While Terraform cluster creation timeouts need to be increased for global clusters, this time the default 1h30 timeout for an instance was also exceeded.

While different features will benefit different consumers of your Aurora database, one of the most anticipated is CTEs. From the operations perspective, as a managed service Aurora offers a subset of community features. One great feature that is now available in Aurora 3 is binary log filtering, a simple long-lived option in MySQL land that will help replacing more complex functionality.

This is a great and long awaited version release for Aurora.

#WDILTW – RTFM, then RTFM again, then improve it

This week I learned two valuable aspects of Terraform I did not know.

The first is Terraform State Import. While I use terraform state to list and show state and even remove state, I was unaware you could import from a created AWS resource. It’s not actually an argument to the “terraform state” syntax, instead its “terraform import” and likely why I do not see it when I look at terraform state syntax.

% terraform state
Usage: terraform [global options] state  [options] [args]

  This command has subcommands for advanced state management.

  These subcommands can be used to slice and dice the Terraform state.
  This is sometimes necessary in advanced cases. For your safety, all
  state management commands that modify the state create a timestamped
  backup of the state prior to making modifications.

  The structure and output of the commands is specifically tailored to work
  well with the common Unix utilities such as grep, awk, etc. We recommend
  using those tools to perform more advanced state tasks.

Subcommands:
    list                List resources in the state
    mv                  Move an item in the state
    pull                Pull current state and output to stdout
    push                Update remote state from a local state file
    replace-provider    Replace provider in the state
    rm                  Remove instances from the state

I am not an expert in Terraform, and looking at the command help output shown above did not give me reference to look elsewhere, but just reading the manual can help you to learn a new feature. If you do not know a product, reading documentation and examples can be an ideal way to get started in a self-paced way.

The second is Meta-Arguments. I use lifecycle, and to be honest I have learned and forgotten about count. Count was something I was able to use to solve a very nasty cross-region kinesis stream issue, reminding me of a syntax I had since forgotten. Using coalesce and conditional expressions (aka ternary operator) can help in modules, for example.

resource "aws_rds_cluster" "demo" {
  ...
  global_cluster_identifier       = var.has_global_cluster ? local.global_cluster_identifier : ""
  master_username                 = var.has_global_cluster ? "" : var.master_username
  db_cluster_parameter_group_name = coalesce(var.db_cluster_parameter_group_name , local.db_cluster_parameter_group_name)
  ...      

However to stop the creation of the object completely, use count.

resource "aws_???" "demo_???" {
  count = var.filter_condition ? 1 : 0
  ...

And just when I thought I’d read about Meta-Arguments, I hit a new never before seen problem. Now if I’d read the summary resources page about Meta-Arguments, and looked the very next section I would have been able to likely solve this new error without having to RTFM a second time.

module.?.?.aws_rds_cluster.default: Still creating... [1h59m53s elapsed]

Error: Error waiting for RDS Cluster state to be "available": timeout while waiting for state to become 'available' (last state: 'creating', timeout: 2h0m0s)

on .terraform/modules/?/main.tf line 306, in resource "aws_rds_cluster" "default":

306: resource "aws_rds_cluster" "default" {

I did not know there was a 2 hour timeout, and I did not know you can change that with

timeouts {
    create = "4h"
    delete = "4h"
  }
}

On a number of occasions I have found documentation to not be complete or accurate online. If you find this, then submit a request to get it fixed, must sources include a link at the bottom to recommend improvements. I have had good success with submitting improvements to the AWS documentation.

Understanding AWS RDS Aurora Capabilities

The RDS Aurora MySQL/PostgreSQL capabilities of AWS extend the High Availability (HA) capabilities of RDS read replicas and Multi-AZ. In this presentation I discuss the different capabilities and HA configurations with RDS Aurora including:

  • RDS Aurora Cluster single instance
  • RDS Aurora Cluster multiple instances (writer + 1 or more readers)
  • RDS Aurora Cluster multi-master
  • RDS Aurora Global Cluster
  • RDS Aurora Cluster options for multi-regions

Each option has its relative merits and limitations. Each will depend on your business requirements, global needs and budget.