MySQL 5.5 and transaction management

Announced at MySQL Sunday was the Release Candidate edition of MySQL 5.5.6. Also noted by Geert where he points out the default storage engine is now InnoDB.

However, for those from a background other then MySQL there is still a gotcha.

mysql> show global variables like 'autocommit';
+---------------+-------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------+-------+
| autocommit    | ON    |
+---------------+-------+

Unlike Oracle for example, the default autocommit is on.

Doing some other boundary conditions, it is no longer possible to disable InnoDB on startup which you would of course expect.

$ bin/mysqld_safe --skip-innodb &
$ tail error.log

101003 15:33:32 [Note] Plugin 'InnoDB' is disabled.
101003 15:33:32 [ERROR] Unknown/unsupported storage engine: InnoDB
101003 15:33:32 [ERROR] Aborting

MyISAM however can’t be removed and can’t be disabled. This is a question I’ve been asked by Oracle resources.

101003 15:34:55 [ERROR] /Users/rbradfor/mysql/mysql-5.5.6-rc-osx10.5-x86_64/bin/mysqld: ambiguous option '--skip-myisam' (--skip-myisam-block-size)
101003 15:34:55 [ERROR] Parsing options for plugin 'MyISAM' failed.
101003 15:34:55 [ERROR] Failed to initialize plugins.
101003 15:34:55 [ERROR] Aborting
mysql> select table_schema, table_name from information_schema.tables where engine='myisam';
+--------------------+---------------------------+
| table_schema       | table_name                |
+--------------------+---------------------------+
| information_schema | COLUMNS                   |
| information_schema | EVENTS                    |
| information_schema | PARAMETERS                |
| information_schema | PARTITIONS                |
| information_schema | PLUGINS                   |
| information_schema | PROCESSLIST               |
| information_schema | ROUTINES                  |
| information_schema | TRIGGERS                  |
| information_schema | VIEWS                     |
| mysql              | columns_priv              |
| mysql              | db                        |
| mysql              | event                     |
| mysql              | func                      |
| mysql              | help_category             |
| mysql              | help_keyword              |
| mysql              | help_relation             |
| mysql              | help_topic                |
| mysql              | host                      |
| mysql              | ndb_binlog_index          |
| mysql              | plugin                    |
| mysql              | proc                      |
| mysql              | procs_priv                |
| mysql              | servers                   |
| mysql              | tables_priv               |
| mysql              | time_zone                 |
| mysql              | time_zone_leap_second     |
| mysql              | time_zone_name            |
| mysql              | time_zone_transition      |
| mysql              | time_zone_transition_type |
| mysql              | user                      |
+--------------------+---------------------------+
30 rows in set (0.06 sec)

Common MySQL Scalability Mistakes

This week I was one of the presenters at the first Surge Scalability Conference in Baltimore. An event that focused not just on one technology but on what essential tools, technologies and practices system architects need to know about for successfully scaling web applications.

While MySQL is an important product in many environments, it is only one component for a successful technology stack and for many organizations is one of several products that manage your data.

My presentation was on the common MySQL scalability mistakes and how to avoid them. This is a problem/solution approach and is a companion talk with Successful MySQL Scalability which describes design for successfully scalability from the ground up.

OTN Interview about MySQL

I was interviewed by Justin Kestelyn the OTN Senior Director about MySQL at Oracle Open World this week.

Some highlights of the questions asked:

  • 0:55 Since the close of acquisition has there been any change in direction?
  • 2:23 How have your clients and customers responded to the acquisition?
  • 3:53 You mentioned that Oracle will bring added advantages and could infuse invocation.
  • 5:15 InnoDB and MySQL are now both owned by Oracle. What do you see as the development advantages?
  • 6:47 What were your thoughts on the first MySQL Sunday?
  • 8:58 Forks?
  • 11:04 Contact Details

You can view the Video online or play below.

Successful MySQL Scalability Presentation

Last night I was the invited guest at the SF MySQL Meetup. In my presentation “Successful MySQL Scalability” I talked about a set of principles to ensure appropriate system architecture, data availability and best practices to build an ideal solution for your business. The presentation was also live streamed and is available online.

MySQL South America tour

DISCLAIMER: This post contains no technical MySQL content however it is good news for the MySQL Community.

MySQL content will be included for the first time with the LAOUC (Latin American Oracle Usergroups Council) Oracle tour that is being organized in conjunction with OTN (Oracle Technology Network).

I have no idea what MySQL user communities are in South America however if you live in any of the following cities, please feel free to contact me. I am happy to have additional discussion regarding MySQL or help in some way if there is interest in any cities.

This seven country tour includes:

  • Oct 12 – Lima, Peru
  • Oct 14 – Santiago, Chile
  • Oct 16 – Montevideo, Uruguay
  • Oct 18 – São Paulo, Brazil
  • Oct 20 – Bogota, Colombia
  • Oct 22 – Quito, Ecuador
  • Oct 25 – San Jose, Costa Rica

More details on the specific locations in each city will be available when finalized.

I would be very happy if anybody wants to translate this to Spanish or Portuguese for readers in South America.


View OTN Latin America in a larger map

2011 MySQL Conferences

Next year will mark a significant change for the MySQL community. At least three major conferences will have dedicated MySQL content that is great for attendees getting the best information on how to use MySQL from the experts in the field.

O’Reilly MySQL Conference & Expo

The 9th Annual MySQL conference will be held at is usual home of recent years. Colin will again be back as committee chair for a 3rd year and this will be my 6th straight MySQL conference.

Date: April 11 – 14, 2011
Location: Hyatt Regency, Santa Clara, California
Website: There is no website at this time
Call for Papers: There are no details for call for papers
Program Chairs: Colin Charles from Monty Program AB and Brian Aker.

Collaborate 11

Collaborate is a larger conference (4,000-5,000 attendees) that is actually three separate conferences in one run by the IOUG, OAUG and Quest. The IOUG content is generally a focus for Oracle DBA’s. Last year marked the first year with any MySQL sessions, and this year Collaborate will have dedicated MySQL tracks chaired by fellow ACE director Sheeri Cabral who is well known for her work in the MySQL community.

Date: April 10 – 14, 2011
Location: Orange County Convention Center West, Orlando, Florida
Website: http://collaborate11.ioug.org/
Call for Papers: Now open. Closes Friday October 1, 2010
Program Chair: Sheeri Cabral

KScope 11

ODTUG Kaleidoscope (Kscope for short) is a conference (1500 attendees) that is very focused on delivering the best content from the top community contributors for the communities benefit. 2010 was my first Kaleidoscope conference and I felt completely at home. Great people, great events and the best conference food I’ve had in many years.

With a dedicated MySQL track in 2010 for the first time I will again be the MySQL Program Chair in 2011 with an extended format for the MySQL developer and DBA. The focus will be the best way to develop successful applications with MySQL and will include Architecture, Performance Tuning, Best Practices, Case Studies and Hands-On streams.

Date: June 26 – 30, 2011
Website: http://kscope11.com
Location: Long Beach, California
Call for Papers: Closes Tuesday October 26, 2010
Program Chair: Ronald Bradford – Independent Consultant

Recap

2010 is also not over. MySQL Sunday at OOW promises to be a great event in San Francisco in under 2 weeks. You can still register at a very cheap price of $75 for 4 dedicated tracks of MySQL content. Open SQL Camp being organized also by Sheeri in Boston in October will continue the tradition of a small but focused and free event for the MySQL community.

The case against using rpm packaging for MySQL

In some environments using a distro package management system may* provide benefits including handling dependencies and providing a simpler approach when there are no dedicated DBA or SA resources.

However, the incorrect use can result in pain and in this instance production downtime. Even with dedicated resources at an unnamed premium managed hosting provider, the simple mistake of assumption resulted in over 30 minutes of unplanned downtime during peak time.

One of the disadvantages of using a system such as rpm is the lack of control in managing the starting and stopping of your MySQL instance, and the second is unanticipated package dependency upgrades.

So what happened with this client. When attempting to use the MySQL client on the production server, I got the following error.

$ mysql -uxxx -p
error while loading shared libraries: libmysqlclient.so.10: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

The server was running MySQL 5.0.27 via an rpm install.

$ rpm -qa | grep -i mysql
MySQL-server-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel3
MySQL-shared-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel3
MySQL-devel-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel3
MySQL-shared-compat-5.0.27-0.rhel3
MySQL-client-standard-5.0.27-0.rhel3

With no access to this managed server the information was relayed to the hosting provider and some time later we found the production website down. Some 30 minutes later we found that to fix the rpm problem, a dependency upgrade has also caused an automatic upgrade from 5.0.27 to 5.0.88.

While upgrading is not necessarily a bad thing, the lack of planning including a backup, a scheduled window of downtime and any level of testing is simply a poor cowboy approach to DBA management.

Upcoming MySQL Conferences

Unlike previous years when the number of conferences with MySQL content diminishes after the O’Reilly MySQL and OSCON conferences (Open SQL Camp excluded), this year has a lot on offer.

This month:

Upcoming next month in September:

  • MySQL Sunday at Oracle Open World on September 18 in San Francisco includes 4 tracks and around 15 quality speakers. (Big numbers of attendees also rumored but yet unconfirmed).
  • The inaugural Surge Scalability conference in Baltimore will include presentations by myself and Baron Schwartz (Percona being sponsors) as well as talks from other popular sites using MySQL.

If your in SF for the MySQL Sunday you may also want to come for the SF MySQL Meetup on the preceeding Thursday night where I’ll be giving my talk on “Common MySQL Scalability problems, and how to fix them”.

In October:

  • Open SQL Camp in Boston from Friday, Oct 15th in the evening, ending Sunday Oct 17th

Europeans will be busy in November where you will find dedicated MySQL tracks with multiple speakers at DOAG and UKOUG. Other MySQL talks can be found at SAPO Codebits 2010 and BGOUG.

And for South America, stay tuned. October will be your month!

There is also a great event calendar maintained by the MySQL community team on the Forge.

Why GRANT ALL is bad

A common observation for many LAMP stack products is the use of poor MySQL security practices. Even for more established products such as WordPress don’t always assume that the provided documentation does what it best for you. As per my earlier posts where I detailed installation instructions and optimal permissions for both WordPress and Mediawiki, and not just directed readers to online documentation.

In this post I will detail why GRANT ALL is bad.

Let’s start with what GRANT ALL [PRIVILEGES] provides. As per the MySQL 5.1 Reference Manual you get the following:

ALTER, ALTER ROUTINE, CREATE, CREATE ROUTINE, CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES, CREATE USER, CREATE VIEW, DELETE, DROP, EVENT, EXECUTE, FILE, INDEX, INSERT, LOCK TABLES, PROCESS, REFERENCES, RELOAD, REPLICATION CLIENT, REPLICATION SLAVE, SELECT, SHOW DATABASES, SHOW VIEW, SHUTDOWN, SUPER, TRIGGER, UPDATE, USAGE

I am going to focus on just one privilege that is included with ALL, and that is SUPER. This privilege can do the following which can be destructive for an application level user:

  • Bypasses read_only
  • Bypasses init_connect
  • Can Disable binary logging
  • Change configuration dynamically
  • No reserved connection

User Permissions

This is how a user should be created, granting only the required permissions to a given schema.

CREATE USER goodguy@localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'sakila';
GRANT CREATE,SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE ON odtug.* TO goodguy@localhost;

This is what is commonly seen.

CREATE USER superman@'%';
GRANT ALL ON *.* TO superman@'%';

Bypasses read_only

Many MySQL replication environments rely on ensuring the MySQL slave is consistent with the master. Did you know that an application can bypass this security when read_only=true is used?

$ mysql -ugoodguy -psakila odtug
mysql> insert into test1(id) values(1);
ERROR 1290 (HY000): The MySQL server is running with the --read-only option so it cannot execute this statement
$ mysql -usuperman odtug
mysql> insert into test1(id) values(1);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.01 sec)

GRANT ALL is bad for data consistency.

Bybasses init_connect

A common practices used for UTF8 communications is to use the init_connect configuration variable.

#my.cnf
[client]
init_connect=SET NAMES utf8
$ mysql -ugoodguy -psakila odtug

mysql> SHOW SESSION VARIABLES LIKE 'ch%';
+--------------------------+----------+
| Variable_name            | Value    |
+--------------------------+----------+
| character_set_client     | utf8     |
| character_set_connection | utf8     |
| character_set_database   | latin1   |
| character_set_filesystem | binary   |
| character_set_results    | utf8     |
| character_set_server     | latin1   |
| character_set_system     | utf8     |
+--------------------------+----------+
$ mysql -usuperman odtug

mysql> SHOW SESSION VARIABLES LIKE 'character%';
+--------------------------+----------+
| Variable_name            | Value    |
+--------------------------+----------+
| character_set_client     | latin1   |
| character_set_connection | latin1   |
| character_set_database   | latin1   |
| character_set_filesystem | binary   |
| character_set_results    | latin1   |
| character_set_server     | latin1   |
| character_set_system     | utf8     |
+--------------------------+----------+

GRANT ALL is bad for data integrity.

Disables Binary Logging.

$ mysql -usuperman odtug

mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;
+-------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| File              | Position | Binlog_Do_DB | Binlog_Ignore_DB |
+-------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| binary-log.000001 |      354 |              |                  |
+-------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+

mysql> DROP TABLE time_zone_leap_second;
mysql> SET SQL_LOG_BIN=0;
mysql> DROP TABLE time_zone_name;
mysql> SET SQL_LOG_BIN=1;
mysql> DROP TABLE time_zone_transition;
mysql> SHOW MASTER STATUS;
+-------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| File              | Position | Binlog_Do_DB | Binlog_Ignore_DB |
+-------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
| binary-log.000001 |      674 |              |                  |
+-------------------+----------+--------------+------------------+
$ mysqlbinlog binary-log.000001 --start-position=354 --stop-position=674

# at 354
#100604 18:00:08 server id 1  end_log_pos 450 Query thread_id=1 exec_time=0 error_code=0
use mysql/*!*/;
SET TIMESTAMP=1275688808/*!*/;
DROP TABLE time_zone_leap_second
/*!*/;
# at 579
#100604 18:04:31 server id 1  end_log_pos 674 Query thread_id=2 exec_time=0 error_code=0
use mysql/*!*/;
SET TIMESTAMP=1275689071/*!*/;
DROP TABLE time_zone_transition
/*!*/;
DELIMITER ;
# End of log file
ROLLBACK /* added by mysqlbinlog */;

Should that statement be run on MySQL Slaves?
Is the binary log used for any level of auditing?

GRANT ALL is bad for slave consistency.

The reserved connection

MySQL reserved one connection for an administrator to be able to login to a server. For example.

$ mysql -uroot

mysql> show global variables like 'max_connections';
+-----------------+-------+
| Variable_name   | Value |
+-----------------+-------+
| max_connections | 3     |
+-----------------+-------+
1 row in set (0.07 sec)

mysql> show global status like 'threads_connected';
+-------------------+-------+
| Variable_name     | Value |
+-------------------+-------+
| Threads_connected | 4     |
+-------------------+-------+

mysql> SHOW PROCESSLIST;
+----+------+-----------+-------+---------+------+------------+---------------
| Id | User | Host      | db    | Command | Time | State      | Info
+----+------+-----------+-------+---------+------+------------+---------------
| 13 | good | localhost | odtug | Query   |  144 | User sleep | UPDATE test1 ...
| 14 | good | localhost | odtug | Query   |  116 | Locked     | select * from test1
| 15 | good | localhost | odtug | Query   |   89 | Locked     | select * from test1
| 15 | root | localhost | odtug | Query   |   89 | Locked     | SHOW PROCESSLIST

However if all application users are already using the SUPER privilege, the administrator will get.

$ mysql -uroot
ERROR 1040 (HY000): Too many connections

There is no way to be able to login and see what’s happening, or kill threads for example. In this case you either wait, or you are required to kill the mysqld process, or fine the client threads to kill. The result of the former may lead to a corrupt database requiring additional recovery.

GRANT ALL is bad for system administration and monitoring.

Conclusion

Don’t use GRANT ALL for application users. For more information, including why I only listed just 5 issues, check out my MySQL Idiosyncrasies that BITE presentation. I will also be presenting this talk at MySQL Sunday at Oracle Open World in September.

You have to love the Planet MySQL voting system

Within a few hours my post Installing Mediawiki on Oracle Enterprise Linux LAMP stack got 5 negative votes.

Wow, I’d be glad if these people could felt so passionately about all the other CRUD on Planet MySQL that has ZERO to do actually do with MySQL.

Using a LAMP product, and providing instructions for operation can’t be a negative voting offense. So it can only be the words “Oracle Enterprise Linux”.

For those negative people out there that care enough to physically mark blogs let me share some facts with you. RedHat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) is the most widely used and support platform for production MySQL environments. CentOS and Oracle Enterprise Linux (OEL) provide via the freedom of Open Source, their own offerings of RHEL with various other features including support or specific additional features for other products. Oracle also provides and commits work to the Linux Kernel, so they are just as much an allies to open source as other companies.

So are you bagging the operating system or just the word Oracle. Oracle is hear to stay, in fact those attending the MySQL Sunday event at Oracle Open World may get a welcome wake up shock. And for reference these articles are being written for a published Oracle Magazine article which meets the comfort level of the reader and introduces MySQL in a positive way. Your actions show just how much you are unwilling to embrace the larger community.

Installing Mediawiki on Oracle Enterprise Linux LAMP stack

A company wiki can be easily configured in under 10 minutes using Mediawiki the open source LAMP software that powers the top 10 website Wikipedia.

A company wiki is an ideal means for a centralized and user contributed documentation system. The following steps show you how to download, configure and get your Mediawiki site operational.

Software Pre-Requisites

Software Installation

su -
cd /tmp
wget http://download.wikimedia.org/mediawiki/1.16/mediawiki-1.16.0.tar.gz
cd /var/www/html
tar xfz /tmp/mediawiki*.tar.gz
mv mediawiki* wiki
chmod 777 wiki/config

NOTE: You should check the Mediawiki Downloads page for the latest version.

You can now visit http://localhost/wiki and you will be presented with a message of an un-configured Mediawiki environment. You can streamline the MySQL portion of this configuration with the following commands.

mysql -uroot -p -e "DROP SCHEMA IF EXISTS wikidb;CREATE SCHEMA wikidb"
mysql -uroot -p -e "CREATE USER wikiuser @localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'sakila'"
mysql -uroot -p -e "GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,INDEX on wikidb.* TO wikiuser@localhost"

You can now complete the configuration on the Configuration Page. You will need to enter the following information.

  • Wiki name = Example Wiki
  • Contact e-mail = your email address
  • Admin user password = enter password
  • DB password = sakila

After successful installation, one additional step is needed.

mv wiki/config/LocalSettings.php wiki/
chmod 400 wiki/LocalSettings.php
chmod 500 wiki/config

You can now start using your new Wiki at http://localhost/wiki. You will find documentation at the links provided on the displayed home page and also at www.mediawiki.org.

MySQL Structures

Looking at the tables that are created by the installation process:

$ mysql -uwikiuser -psakila blog

mysql> show tables;
+-------------------+
| Tables_in_wikidb  |
+-------------------+
| archive           |
| category          |
| categorylinks     |
| change_tag        |
| external_user     |
| externallinks     |
| filearchive       |
| hitcounter        |
| image             |
| imagelinks        |
| interwiki         |
| ipblocks          |
| job               |
| l10n_cache        |
| langlinks         |
| log_search        |
| logging           |
| math              |
| objectcache       |
| oldimage          |
| page              |
| page_props        |
| page_restrictions |
| pagelinks         |
| protected_titles  |
| querycache        |
| querycache_info   |
| querycachetwo     |
| recentchanges     |
| redirect          |
| revision          |
| searchindex       |
| site_stats        |
| tag_summary       |
| templatelinks     |
| text              |
| trackbacks        |
| transcache        |
| updatelog         |
| user              |
| user_groups       |
| user_newtalk      |
| user_properties   |
| valid_tag         |
| watchlist         |
+-------------------+
45 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT table_name,engine,table_rows FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = 'wikidb';
+-------------------+--------+------------+
| table_name        | engine | table_rows |
+-------------------+--------+------------+
| archive           | InnoDB |          0 |
| category          | InnoDB |          0 |
| categorylinks     | InnoDB |          0 |
| change_tag        | InnoDB |          0 |
| external_user     | InnoDB |          0 |
| externallinks     | InnoDB |          0 |
| filearchive       | InnoDB |          0 |
| hitcounter        | MEMORY |          0 |
| image             | InnoDB |          0 |
| imagelinks        | InnoDB |          0 |
| interwiki         | InnoDB |         95 |
| ipblocks          | InnoDB |          0 |
| job               | InnoDB |          0 |
| l10n_cache        | InnoDB |       3686 |
| langlinks         | InnoDB |          0 |
| log_search        | InnoDB |          0 |
| logging           | InnoDB |          0 |
| math              | InnoDB |          0 |
| objectcache       | InnoDB |          2 |
| oldimage          | InnoDB |          0 |
| page              | InnoDB |          1 |
| page_props        | InnoDB |          0 |
| page_restrictions | InnoDB |          0 |
| pagelinks         | InnoDB |          0 |
| protected_titles  | InnoDB |          0 |
| querycache        | InnoDB |          0 |
| querycache_info   | InnoDB |          0 |
| querycachetwo     | InnoDB |          0 |
| recentchanges     | InnoDB |          0 |
| redirect          | InnoDB |          0 |
| revision          | InnoDB |          1 |
| searchindex       | MyISAM |          0 |
| site_stats        | InnoDB |          1 |
| tag_summary       | InnoDB |          0 |
| templatelinks     | InnoDB |          0 |
| text              | InnoDB |          1 |
| trackbacks        | InnoDB |          0 |
| transcache        | InnoDB |          0 |
| updatelog         | InnoDB |          0 |
| user              | InnoDB |          1 |
| user_groups       | InnoDB |          2 |
| user_newtalk      | InnoDB |          0 |
| user_properties   | InnoDB |          0 |
| valid_tag         | InnoDB |          0 |
| watchlist         | InnoDB |          0 |
+-------------------+--------+------------+
45 rows in set (0.01 sec)

Sort URL for this post rb42.com/oel-install-mediawiki

Will Oracle kill MySQL?

I get asked this question often. It was mentioned again recently in a NYTECH executive breakfast with RedHat CIO Lee Congdon.

The short answer is No.

There is clear evidence that in the short to medium term Oracle will continue to promote and enhance MySQL. Some of these indicators include:

It is clear from these sources that Oracle intends to incorporate MySQL into Oracle Backup and Security Vault products. Both a practical and necessary step. There is also a clear mention of focusing on the Microsoft platform, a clear indicator that SQL Server is in their sights without actually saying it.

What is unknown is exact how and when features will be implemented. Also important is how much these may cost the end user. Oracle is in the business of selling, now an entire H/W and S/W stack. They also have a complicated pricing model of different components with product offerings. I assume this will continue. There are already two indications, InnoDBbackup included for Enterprise Backup (from April Keynote) and 5.1 enterprise split. (Note: while this split may have existed prior to Oracle, it is now more clearly obvious).

MySQL can never be seen as drawing away from any Oracle sales of the core entry level database product. It is likely Oracle will provide a SQL Syntax compatibility layer for MySQL within 2 years, however it will I’m sure be a commercial add-on. Likewise, I would suspect a PL/SQL lite layer within 5 years, but again at a significant cost to offset the potential loss of sales in the low end of the server market. There continues to be active development in the MySQL Enterprise Monitor, MySQL Workbench and MySQL Connectors which is all excellent news for users.

Moving forward, how long will this ancillary development of free tools continue? What will happen to the commercial storage engine, OEM and licensing model after the 5 year commitment? How will the MySQL ecosystem survive.? There is active development in Percona, MariaDB and Drizzle forks, however unless all players that want to provide a close MySQL compatible solution work together, progress will continue to be a disappointing disjointed approach. The 2011 conference season will also see a clear line with competing MySQL conferences in April scheduled at the same time, the O’Reilly MySQL conference in Santa Clara California and the Oracle supported(*) Collaborate 2011 in Orlando, Florida.

I have a number of predictions on what Oracle ME MySQL may look like in 5 years however this is a topic for a personal discussion.

Speaking at Surge Scalability 2010 – Baltimore, MD

I will be joining a great list of quality speakers including John Allspaw, Theo Schlossnagle, Rasmus Lerdorf and Tom Cook at Surge 2010 in Baltimore, Maryland on Thu 30 Sep, and Fri Oct 1st 2010. Surge 2010 Speaker - Baltimore, MD

My presentation on “The most common MySQL scalability mistakes, and how to avoid them.” will include discussing various experiences observed in the field as a MySQL Consultant and MySQL Performance Tuning expert.

Abstract:

The most common mistakes are easy to avoid however many startups continue to fall prey, with the impact including large re-design costs, delays in new feature releases, lower staff productivity and less then ideal ROI. All growing and successful sites need to achieve higher Availability, seamless Scalability and proven Resilience. Know the right MySQL environments to provide a suitable architecture and application design to support these essential needs.

Overview:

Some details of the presentation would include:

  • The different types of accessible data  (e.g. R/W, R, none)
  • What limits MySQL availability (e.g software upgrades, blocking statements, locking etc)
  • The three components of scalability – Read Scalability/Write Scalability/Caching
  • Design practices for increasing scalability and not physical resources
  • Disaster is inevitable. Having a tested and functional failover strategy
  • When other products are better (e.g. Static files, Session management via Key/Value store)
  • What a lack of accurate monitoring causes
  • What a lack of breakability testing causes
  • What does “No Downtime” mean to your organization.
  • Implementing a successful “failed whale” approach with preemptive analysis
  • Identifying when MySQL is not your bottleneck

If you missed MySQL Idiosyncrasies that BITE

I recently gave a webinar to the LAOUC and NZOUG user groups on MySQL Idiosyncrasies that BITE.

For the benefit of many viewers that do not use English as a first language my slides include some additional information from my ODTUG Kaleidoscope presentation in June.

Thanks to Francisco Munoz Alvarez for organizing.

3 webinars on Upgrading MySQL

The IOUG Online Education Series: Get Real with Upgrades will include next week 3 different MySQL webinars. These are:

  • MySQL 5.1: Why and How to Upgrade by Sheeri Cabral on Tuesday, July 27, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. CT
  • MySQL Upgrades With No Downtime by Sean Hull on Wednesday, July 28, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. CT
  • MySQL Upgrade Best Practices by Matt Yonkovit on Thursday, July 29, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. CT

Each speaker will be covering different areas and reasons for considering and implementing a successful MySQL Upgrade.

Installing WordPress on Oracle Enterprise Linux LAMP stack

A company blog can be easily configured in under 10 minutes using WordPress, a popular open source LAMP product that runs a reported 12+ million blogs including those found at CNN, NY Times, Wall Street Journal (WSJ), ZDNet, MTV, People Magazine, Playstation and eBay.

A company blog is a great way for the dissemination of information to your user base as well as enabling a means of user feedback via comments.

The following steps show you how to download, configure and get your WordPress blog operational.

Software Pre-Requisites

Software Installation

su -
cd /tmp
wget  http://wordpress.org/latest.tar.gz
cd /var/www/html
tar xfz /tmp/latest.tar.gz
mv wordpress blog

You can now visit http://localhost/blog and you will be presented with a message of an un-configured WordPress environment. You can streamline the MySQL portion of this configuration with the following commands.

cd blog
sed -e "s/database_name_here/blog/;s/username_here/blog_user/;s/password_here/sakila/" wp-config-sample.php > wp-config.php
mysql -uroot -p -e "CREATE SCHEMA blog"
mysql -uroot -p -e "CREATE USER blog_user @localhost IDENTIFIED BY 'sakila'"
mysql -uroot -p -e "GRANT SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE on blog.* TO blog_user@localhost"

Returning now to http://localhost/blog you simply only need to specify a Title, password and email address, click Save and your Blog at http://localhost/blog is complete and operational.



MySQL Structures

Looking at the tables that are created by the installation process:

$ mysql -ublog_user -psakila blog

mysql> show tables;
+-----------------------+
| Tables_in_blog        |
+-----------------------+
| wp_commentmeta        |
| wp_comments           |
| wp_links              |
| wp_options            |
| wp_postmeta           |
| wp_posts              |
| wp_term_relationships |
| wp_term_taxonomy      |
| wp_terms              |
| wp_usermeta           |
| wp_users              |
+-----------------------+
11 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SELECT table_name,engine,table_rows FROM information_schema.tables WHERE table_schema = 'blog';
+-----------------------+--------+------------+
| table_name            | engine | table_rows |
+-----------------------+--------+------------+
| wp_commentmeta        | MyISAM |          0 |
| wp_comments           | MyISAM |          1 |
| wp_links              | MyISAM |          7 |
| wp_options            | MyISAM |        109 |
| wp_postmeta           | MyISAM |          1 |
| wp_posts              | MyISAM |          2 |
| wp_term_relationships | MyISAM |          8 |
| wp_term_taxonomy      | MyISAM |          2 |
| wp_terms              | MyISAM |          2 |
| wp_usermeta           | MyISAM |         13 |
| wp_users              | MyISAM |          1 |
+-----------------------+--------+------------+
11 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Additional References

Short URL for this post rb42.com/oel-install-wordpress

Reviewing your MySQL installation on Oracle Enterprise Linux

After successfully Installing MySQL, let us take a look at an operational MySQL instance on your Oracle Enterprise Linux server.

User Management

By default there will be a new mysql user and group created. This user is used to run the mysqld process is generally not used for any other purpose.

$ grep mysql /etc/{passwd,shadow,group}
/etc/passwd:mysql:x:27:27:MySQL Server:/var/lib/mysql:/bin/bash
/etc/shadow:mysql:!!:14796::::::
/etc/group:mysql:x:27:

Binaries

MySQL binaries are found in /usr/bin.

$ ls -l /usr/bin/mysql*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  314568 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysql
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  110776 Feb 16 14:39 /usr/bin/mysqlaccess
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   35144 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqladmin
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  112944 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqlbinlog
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7632 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqlbug
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   30576 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqlcheck
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    7632 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysql_config
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    3670 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_convert_table_format
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   22522 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysqld_multi
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   13073 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   75184 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqldump
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    6356 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysqldumpslow
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   11648 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_explain_log
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    3245 Feb 16 14:39 /usr/bin/mysql_find_rows
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root     483 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_fix_extensions
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    5834 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_fix_privilege_tables
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   31431 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysqlhotcopy
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   26160 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqlimport
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   13659 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_install_db
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    6586 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   16687 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_setpermission
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   28224 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqlshow
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   14473 Feb 16 14:39 /usr/bin/mysql_tableinfo
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  158192 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqltest
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   42360 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqltestmanager
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   15464 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqltestmanagerc
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   13448 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysqltestmanager-pwgen
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1312064 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysql_tzinfo_to_sql
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root   54160 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysql_upgrade
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    5753 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_upgrade_shell
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root  112136 Feb 16 17:45 /usr/bin/mysql_waitpid
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root    3818 Feb 16 17:44 /usr/bin/mysql_zap

The mysqld binary is found in /usr/libexec

Error Log

The MySQL error log is found in /var/log/mysqld.log

The content after an initial start of MySQL will look similar to:

cat /var/log/mysqld.log
100705 22:09:03  mysqld started
InnoDB: The first specified data file ./ibdata1 did not exist:
InnoDB: a new database to be created!
100705 22:09:03  InnoDB: Setting file ./ibdata1 size to 10 MB
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
100705 22:09:03  InnoDB: Log file ./ib_logfile0 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file ./ib_logfile0 size to 5 MB
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
100705 22:09:03  InnoDB: Log file ./ib_logfile1 did not exist: new to be created
InnoDB: Setting log file ./ib_logfile1 size to 5 MB
InnoDB: Database physically writes the file full: wait...
InnoDB: Doublewrite buffer not found: creating new
InnoDB: Doublewrite buffer created
InnoDB: Creating foreign key constraint system tables
InnoDB: Foreign key constraint system tables created
100705 22:09:03  InnoDB: Started; log sequence number 0 0
100705 22:09:03 [Note] /usr/libexec/mysqld: ready for connections.
Version: '5.0.77'  socket: '/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock'  port: 3306  Source distribution

On the first invocation of MySQL, the InnoDB storage engine will create a default tablespace and redo logs. This is the majority of messages in the above log.

Processes

MySQL is a multi-threaded single process called mysqld. A second wrapper process mysqld_safe is generally found. This process logs stderr and also will restart the mysqld process if not found.

ps -ef | grep mysql
root     14733     1  0 Jul05 pts/1    00:00:00 /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock --log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --user=mysql
mysql    14783 14733  0 Jul05 pts/1    00:00:10 /usr/libexec/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-external-locking --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Memory Usage

MySQL can have a very low memory footprint. By default the mysqld process has a 175M virtual size.

$ ps -eopid,fname,rss,vsz,user,command | grep -e "RSS" -e "mysql"
  PID COMMAND    RSS    VSZ USER     COMMAND
14275 grep       720  61136 root     grep -e RSS -e mysql
14733 mysqld_s  1192  63820 root     /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock --log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --user=mysql
14783 mysqld   27004 179496 mysql    /usr/libexec/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/var/lib/mysql --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-external-locking --socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock

Disk Usage

The MySQL data files will be stored on a default installation in /var/lib/mysql

$ du -sh /var/lib/mysql
22M     /var/lib/mysql

$ ls -ld /var/lib/mysql
drwxr-xr-x 4 mysql mysql 4096 Jul 13 11:50 /var/lib/mysql

$ ls -l /var/lib/mysql
total 20552
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql 10485760 Jul  5 22:09 ibdata1
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql  5242880 Jul  5 22:09 ib_logfile0
-rw-rw---- 1 mysql mysql  5242880 Jul  5 22:09 ib_logfile1
drwx------ 2 mysql mysql     4096 Jul  5 22:09 mysql
srwxrwxrwx 1 mysql mysql        0 Jul  5 22:09 mysql.sock

The MySQL data directory includes the InnoDB tablespace datafile (ibdata1), redo logs (ib_logfile?), and the mysql directory corresponding to the mysql schema containing instance meta data.

This directory also contains the socket file, which is actually a poor location as this opens the security of this directory for world access. This will be discussed later in securing your installation.

Running MySQL

The best means of controlling the starting and stopping of mysql is to use the provided service init script mysqld

$ ls -l /etc/init.d/mysqld
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 4286 Feb 16 17:45 /etc/init.d/mysqld

Configuration

For OEL the MySQL configuration can be found in /etc.
NOTE: MySQL can use multiple configuration files.

$ ls -l /etc/my.cnf
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 441 Feb 16 14:39 /etc/my.cnf

MySQL includes a minimalistic configuration file by default. The configuration file format is variable=value pairs for a given number of different sections, in this file [mysqld] and [mysqld_safe].

$ cat /etc/my.cnf

[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
user=mysql
# Default to using old password format for compatibility with mysql 3.x
# clients (those using the mysqlclient10 compatibility package).
old_passwords=1

# Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks;
# to do so, uncomment this line:
# symbolic-links=0

[mysqld_safe]
log-error=/var/log/mysqld.log
pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid

Audit

A full audit of all MySQL related files.

find / -name "*mysql*"
/etc/rc.d/rc3.d/S64mysqld
/etc/rc.d/rc5.d/S64mysqld
/etc/rc.d/rc6.d/K36mysqld
/etc/rc.d/init.d/mysqld
/etc/rc.d/rc0.d/K36mysqld
/etc/rc.d/rc4.d/S64mysqld
/etc/rc.d/rc1.d/K36mysqld
/etc/rc.d/rc2.d/S64mysqld
/etc/php.d/pdo_mysql.ini
/etc/php.d/mysql.ini
/etc/php.d/mysqli.ini
/etc/ld.so.conf.d/mysql-x86_64.conf
/etc/ld.so.conf.d/mysql-i386.conf
/usr/lib64/mysql
/usr/lib64/mysql/mysqlbug
/usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.so.15.0.0
/usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15
/usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.so.15
/usr/lib64/mysql/mysql_config
/usr/lib64/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0
/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/Bundle/DBD/mysql.pm
/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBD/mysql
/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBD/mysql/mysql.so
/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/DBD/mysql
/usr/lib64/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.8/x86_64-linux-thread-multi/DBD/mysql.pm
/usr/lib64/php/modules/mysql.so
/usr/lib64/php/modules/pdo_mysql.so
/usr/lib64/php/modules/mysqli.so
/usr/libexec/mysqld
/usr/libexec/mysqlmanager
/usr/share/mysql
/usr/share/mysql/mysql_system_tables.sql
/usr/share/mysql/mysql_system_tables_data.sql
/usr/share/mysql/mysql_fix_privilege_tables.sql
/usr/share/mysql/mysql_test_data_timezone.sql
/usr/share/vim/vim70/syntax/mysql.vim
/usr/share/man/man8/mysqld.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man8/mysqlmanager.8.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql.server.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_tableinfo.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_upgrade.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlaccess.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_waitpid.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_fix_extensions.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlman.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlbinlog.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_install_db.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_tzinfo_to_sql.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_secure_installation.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqld_safe.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqladmin.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlimport.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_zap.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/msql2mysql.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlshow.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqldump.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/safe_mysqld.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_explain_log.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_config.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlbug.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqld_multi.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_setpermission.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlhotcopy.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_find_rows.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_convert_table_format.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysql_fix_privilege_tables.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqldumpslow.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqltest.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man1/mysqlcheck.1.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/Bundle::DBD::mysql.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/DBD::mysql.3pm.gz
/usr/share/man/man3/DBD::mysql::INSTALL.3pm.gz
/usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.0.77
/usr/share/doc/mysql-5.0.77
/usr/share/doc/selinux-policy-2.4.6/html/services_mysql.html
/usr/share/pixmaps/comps/mysql.png
/usr/share/info/mysql.info.gz
/usr/share/selinux/devel/include/services/mysql.if
/usr/bin/mysql_fix_extensions
/usr/bin/mysql
/usr/bin/mysqltestmanager
/usr/bin/mysqldumpslow
/usr/bin/mysql_upgrade_shell
/usr/bin/mysql_convert_table_format
/usr/bin/mysqlimport
/usr/bin/mysqldump
/usr/bin/mysqltestmanager-pwgen
/usr/bin/mysql_tzinfo_to_sql
/usr/bin/mysqlbug
/usr/bin/mysqlhotcopy
/usr/bin/mysqlaccess
/usr/bin/mysqltest
/usr/bin/mysqladmin
/usr/bin/mysql_upgrade
/usr/bin/mysqltestmanagerc
/usr/bin/mysqld_safe
/usr/bin/mysql_zap
/usr/bin/mysql_waitpid
/usr/bin/msql2mysql
/usr/bin/mysql_secure_installation
/usr/bin/mysql_fix_privilege_tables
/usr/bin/mysqlshow
/usr/bin/mysql_config
/usr/bin/mysql_setpermission
/usr/bin/mysql_tableinfo
/usr/bin/mysql_find_rows
/usr/bin/mysqld_multi
/usr/bin/mysqlcheck
/usr/bin/mysqlbinlog
/usr/bin/mysql_install_db
/usr/bin/mysql_explain_log
/usr/lib/mysql
/usr/lib/mysql/mysqlbug
/usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.so.15.0.0
/usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15
/usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient_r.so.15
/usr/lib/mysql/mysql_config
/usr/lib/mysql/libmysqlclient.so.15.0.0
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/sos/plugins/mysql.pyo
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/sos/plugins/mysql.pyc
/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/sos/plugins/mysql.py
/var/log/mysqld.log
/var/run/mysqld
/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid
/var/lock/subsys/mysqld
/var/lib/mysql
/var/lib/mysql/mysql
/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
/root/.mysql_history
/selinux/booleans/mysqld_disable_trans
/selinux/booleans/allow_user_mysql_connect

Installing a LAMP stack on Oracle Enterprise Linux

After successfully installing MySQL on Oracle Enterprise Linux installing a LAMP (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP) stack can also be performed with a single command:

$ yum install -y httpd php php-mysql
# Start the Apache Httpd Process
$ /etc/init.d/httpd start

To test and confirm Apache Httpd and PHP, we can use the CLI browser lynx:

$ yum install -y lynx
$ echo "<? phpinfo() ?>" > /var/www/html/phpinfo.php
$ lynx http://localhost/phpinfo.php

If successful, you will find a web page that contains the following.

phpinfo() (p1 of 31)

   PHP Logo

PHP Version 5.1.6

   System Linux localhost.localdomain 2.6.18-164.el5 #1 SMP Thu Sep 3 04:15:13
   EDT 2009 x86_64
   Build Date Feb 11 2010 19:07:36
   Configure   Command   './configure'  '--build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu'
   '--host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu'    '--target=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu'
   '--program-prefix=''--prefix=/usr''--exec-prefix=/usr''--bindir=/usr/bin'
   '--sbindir=/usr/sbin'    '--sysconfdir=/etc'    '--datadir=/usr/share'
   '--includedir=/usr/include'                      '--libdir=/usr/lib64'
   '--libexecdir=/usr/libexec'                     '--localstatedir=/var'
   '--sharedstatedir=/usr/com'                  '--mandir=/usr/share/man'
   '--infodir=/usr/share/info'             '--cache-file=../config.cache'
   '--with-libdir=lib64'                   '--with-config-file-path=/etc'

It is important to note that PHP is also a standalone scripting language that doesn’t require a web browser. You can use PHP on the command line, for example:

$ php --version
PHP 5.1.6 (cli) (built: Feb 11 2010 19:06:40)
Copyright (c) 1997-2006 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.1.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2006 Zend Technologies

$ echo "<?phpinfo()?>" | php | grep -i mysql
Configure Command =>  './configure' '--build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu' '--host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu' '--target=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu' '--program-prefix=' '--prefix=/usr' '--exec-prefix=/usr' '--bindir=/usr/bin' '--sbindir=/usr/sbin' '--sysconfdir=/etc' '--datadir=/usr/share' '--includedir=/usr/include' '--libdir=/usr/lib64' '--libexecdir=/usr/libexec' '--localstatedir=/var' '--sharedstatedir=/usr/com' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--cache-file=../config.cache' '--with-libdir=lib64' '--with-config-file-path=/etc' '--with-config-file-scan-dir=/etc/php.d' '--disable-debug' '--with-pic' '--disable-rpath' '--without-pear' '--with-bz2' '--with-curl' '--with-exec-dir=/usr/bin' '--with-freetype-dir=/usr' '--with-png-dir=/usr' '--enable-gd-native-ttf' '--without-gdbm' '--with-gettext' '--with-gmp' '--with-iconv' '--with-jpeg-dir=/usr' '--with-openssl' '--with-png' '--with-pspell' '--with-expat-dir=/usr' '--with-pcre-regex=/usr' '--with-zlib' '--with-layout=GNU' '--enable-exif' '--enable-ftp' '--enable-magic-quotes' '--enable-sockets' '--enable-sysvsem' '--enable-sysvshm' '--enable-sysvmsg' '--enable-track-vars' '--enable-trans-sid' '--enable-yp' '--enable-wddx' '--with-kerberos' '--enable-ucd-snmp-hack' '--with-unixODBC=shared,/usr' '--enable-memory-limit' '--enable-shmop' '--enable-calendar' '--enable-dbx' '--enable-dio' '--with-mime-magic=/usr/share/file/magic.mime' '--without-sqlite' '--with-libxml-dir=/usr' '--with-xml' '--with-system-tzdata' '--enable-force-cgi-redirect' '--enable-pcntl' '--with-imap=shared' '--with-imap-ssl' '--enable-mbstring=shared' '--enable-mbstr-enc-trans' '--enable-mbregex' '--with-ncurses=shared' '--with-gd=shared' '--enable-bcmath=shared' '--enable-dba=shared' '--with-db4=/usr' '--with-xmlrpc=shared' '--with-ldap=shared' '--with-ldap-sasl' '--with-mysql=shared,/usr' '--with-mysqli=shared,/usr/lib64/mysql/mysql_config' '--enable-dom=shared' '--with-dom-xslt=/usr' '--with-dom-exslt=/usr' '--with-pgsql=shared' '--with-snmp=shared,/usr' '--enable-soap=shared' '--with-xsl=shared,/usr' '--enable-xmlreader=shared' '--enable-xmlwriter=shared' '--enable-fastcgi' '--enable-pdo=shared' '--with-pdo-odbc=shared,unixODBC,/usr' '--with-pdo-mysql=shared,/usr/lib64/mysql/mysql_config' '--with-pdo-pgsql=shared,/usr' '--with-pdo-sqlite=shared,/usr' '--enable-dbase=shared'
/etc/php.d/mysql.ini,
/etc/php.d/mysqli.ini,
/etc/php.d/pdo_mysql.ini,
mysql
MySQL Support => enabled
MYSQL_MODULE_TYPE => external
MYSQL_SOCKET => /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
MYSQL_INCLUDE => -I/usr/include/mysql
MYSQL_LIBS => -L/usr/lib64/mysql -lmysqlclient
mysql.allow_persistent => On => On
mysql.connect_timeout => 60 => 60
mysql.default_host => no value => no value
mysql.default_password => no value => no value
mysql.default_port => no value => no value
mysql.default_socket => no value => no value
mysql.default_user => no value => no value
mysql.max_links => Unlimited => Unlimited
mysql.max_persistent => Unlimited => Unlimited
mysql.trace_mode => Off => Off
mysqli
MysqlI Support => enabled
MYSQLI_SOCKET => /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
mysqli.default_host => no value => no value
mysqli.default_port => 3306 => 3306
mysqli.default_pw => no value => no value
mysqli.default_socket => no value => no value
mysqli.default_user => no value => no value
mysqli.max_links => Unlimited => Unlimited
mysqli.reconnect => Off => Off
PDO drivers => mysql, sqlite
pdo_mysql
PDO Driver for MySQL, client library version => 5.0.77

Short URL: rb42.com/oel-install-lamp

Installing MySQL on Oracle Enterprise Linux

One of the significant benefits of MySQL is it’s ease of use. Generally already installed on most Linux systems, MySQL can be installed by a single command if not yet present. On Oracle Enterprise Linux 5.4 you can use the following commands to check for MySQL, configure your yum repository and install MySQL.

# Check if already installed
$ rpm -qa | grep -i mysql

# Configure yum repository on new server
$ su -
$ cd /tmp
$ wget http://public-yum.oracle.com/public-yum-el5.repo
$ sed -e "s/enabled=0/enabled=1/" public-yum-el5.repo > /etc/yum.repos.d/public-yum-el5.repo

# Install MySQL
$ yum install -y mysql-server mysql

# Start and test MySQL Instance
$ /etc/init.d/mysqld start
$ mysql -uroot -e "SELECT VERSION()"

+-----------+
| VERSION() |
+-----------+
| 5.0.77    |
+-----------+

You can find more information about the Oracle public yum repository at http://public-yum.oracle.com You will also note that the version installed is 5.0. The current GA version of MySQL is 5.1, however Red Hat is notorious for taking time to update repositories more regularly. You can always use more current rpm files available at the MySQL downloads page.

If you want MySQL to be configured to automatically start and stop on your server you need to run the following command.

$ chkconfig mysqld on
$ chkconfig --list mysqld
mysqld          0:off   1:off   2:on    3:on    4:on    5:on    6:off

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Speaking at Oracle Open World 2010


I will be one of 18 MySQL speakers at Oracle Open World 2010 at the first ever MySQL Sunday. With a great diversity of technical, community and product talks this will be a great opportunity to get a cross section of MySQL content. Combined with Java One, this year’s Oracle Open World will include a lot more opportunity of technical and developer content then the more regular marketing material.

As the program chair for the first dedicated MySQL track at last month’s ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 our MySQL community now includes a larger number of target people. From the Oracle community come many highly technical and skilled resources, some with an understanding or appreciation of MySQL and many that are new to MySQL.

This is a great opportunity to share our knowledge and experience with MySQL.

References

Optimizing SQL Performance – The Art of Elimination

The most efficient performance optimization of a SQL statement is to eliminate it. Cary Millsap’s recent Kaleidoscope presentation again highlighted that improving performance is function of code path. Removing code will improve performance.

You may think that it could be hard to eliminate SQL, however when you know every SQL statement that is executed in your code path obvious improvements may be possible. In the sequence SQL was implemented sometimes easy observations can lead to great gains. Let me provide some actual client examples that were discovered by using the MySQL General Log.

Example 1

5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist` WHERE (ArtistID = 196 )
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist` WHERE (ArtistID = 2188 )
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`
5 Query   SELECT *  FROM `artist`

In this example, the following was executed for a single page load. Not only did I find a bug where full-table scans occurred rather then being qualified, there were many repeating and unnecessary occurrences.

Example 2

SELECT option_name, option_value FROM wp_options WHERE autoload = 'yes'
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'aiosp_title_format' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_show_only_even' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_num_months' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_day_length' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_hide_event_box' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_advanced' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_navigation' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'ec3_disable_popups' LIMIT 1
SELECT option_value FROM wp_options WHERE option_name = 'sidebars_widgets' LIMIT 1

This is a stock WordPress installation and highlights a classic Row at a Time (RAT) processing.

Example 3

SELECT * FROM activities_theme WHERE theme_parent_id=0
SELECT * FROM activities_theme WHERE theme_parent_id=1
SELECT * FROM activities_theme WHERE theme_parent_id=2
SELECT * FROM activities_theme WHERE theme_parent_id=11
SELECT * FROM activities_theme WHERE theme_parent_id=16

In this client example, again RAT processing, I provided a code improvement to run these multiple queries in a single statement, otherwise known as Chunk At a Time (CAT) processing. It’s not rocket science however the elimination of the network component of several SQL statements can greatly reduce page load time.

SELECT *
FROM   activities_theme
WHERE  theme_parent_id in  (0,1,2,11,16) 

Example 4

The following represents one of the best improvement. During capture, the following query was executed 6,000 times over a 5 minute period. While you make think this is acceptable, the value passed wae 0. The pages_id is an auto_increment column which by definition does not have a 0 value. In this instance, a simple boundary condition in the code would eliminate this query.

SELECT pages_id, pages_livestats_code, pages_title,
       pages_parent, pages_exhibid, pages_theme,
       pages_accession_num
FROM pages WHERE pages_id = 0

There are many tips to improving and optimizing SQL. This is the simplest and often overlooked starting point.

Related articles include: The RAT and the CAT and We need more CAT’s

What do MySQL Consultants do?

One role of a MySQL consultant is to review an existing production system. Sometimes you have sufficient time and access, and other times you don’t. If I am given a limited time here is a general list of things I look at.

  1. Review Server architecture, OS, Memory, Disks (including raid and partition type), Network etc
  2. Review server load and identify physical bottleneck
  3. Look at all running processes
  4. Look specifically at MySQL processes
  5. Review MySQL Error Log
  6. Determine MySQL version
  7. Look at MySQL configuration (e.g. /etc/my.cnf)
  8. Look at running MySQL Variables
  9. Look at running MySQL status (x n times)
  10. Look at running MySQL INNODB status (x n times) if used
  11. Get Database and Schema Sizes
  12. Get Database Schema
  13. Review Slow Query Log
  14. Capture query sample via SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST (locked and long running)
  15. Analyze Binary Log file
  16. Capture all running SQL

Here are some of the commands I would run.

2. Review server load and identify physical bottleneck

$ vmstat 5 720 > vmstat.`date +%y%m%d.%H%M%S`.txt

4. Look at MySQL processes

$ ps -eopid,fname,rss,vsz,user,command | grep -e "RSS" -e "mysql"
  PID COMMAND    RSS    VSZ USER     COMMAND
 5463 grep       764   5204 ronald   grep -e RSS -e mysql
13894 mysqld_s   596   3936 root     /bin/sh /usr/bin/mysqld_safe
13933 mysqld   4787812 5127208 mysql /usr/sbin/mysqld --basedir=/usr --datadir=/vol/mysql/mysqldata --user=mysql --pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid --skip-external-locking --port=3306 --socket=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
13934 logger     608   3840 root     logger -p daemon.err -t mysqld_safe -i -t mysqld

$ ps -eopid,fname,rss,vsz,user,command | grep " mysqld " | grep -v grep | awk '{print $3,$4}'
4787820 5127208

5. Review MySQL Error Log

The error log can be found in various different places based on the operating system and configuration. It is important to find the right log, the SHOW GLOBAL VARIABLES LIKE ‘log_error’ will determine the location.

This is generally overlooked, however this can quickly identify some underlying problems with a MySQL environment.

7. Look at MySQL configuration

$ [ -f /etc/my.cnf ] &&  cat /etc/my.cnf
$ [ -f /etc/mysql/my.cnf ] &&  cat /etc/mysql/my.cnf
$ find / -name  "*my*cnf" 2>/dev/null

8. Look at running MySQL Variables

$ mysqladmin -uroot -p variables

9. Look at running MySQL status (x n times)

$ mysqladmin -uroot -p extended-status

It is important to run this several times at regular intervals, say 60 seconds, 60 minutes, or 24 hours.

I also have dedicated scripts that can perform this. Check out Log MySQL Stats.

11. Get Database and Schema Sizes

Check out my scripts on my MySQL DBA page

14. Capture Locked statements

Check out my script for Capturing MySQL sessions.

15. Analyze Binary Log file

Check out my post on using mk-query-digest.

16. Capture all SQL

Check out my post on DML Stats per table

Moving forward

Of course the commands I run exceeds this initial list, and gathering this information is only

Timing your SQL queries

When working interactively with the MySQL client, you receive feedback of the time the query took to complete to a granularity of 10 ms.

Enabling profiling is a simple way to get more a more accurate timing of running queries. In the following example you can see the time the kernel took to run an explain, the query, and alter, and repeat explain and query.


mysql> set profiling=1;
mysql> EXPLAIN SELECT ...
mysql> SELECT ...
mysql> ALTER ...
mysql> show profiles;
+----------+------------+-------------------------
| Query_ID | Duration   | Query
+----------+------------+-------------------------
|        1 | 0.00036500 | EXPLAIN SELECT sbvi.id a
|        2 | 0.00432700 | SELECT sbvi.id as sbvi_i
|        3 | 2.83206100 | alter table sbvi drop in
|        4 | 0.00047500 | explain SELECT sbvi.id a
|        5 | 0.00367100 | SELECT sbvi.id as sbvi_i
+----------+------------+-------------------------

More information at Show Profiles documentation page.

Upcoming Conferences with dedicated MySQL content

We recently held a dedicated MySQL Track at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 conference for 4 days. This is the first of many Oracle events that will begin to include dedicated MySQL content.

If your attending OSCON 2010 in the next few weeks you will see a number of MySQL presentations.

MySQL will be represented at Open World 2010 in September with MySQL Sunday. Giuseppe has created a great one page summary of speakers. This event is described as technical sessions, an un-conference and an fireside chat with Edward Screven. I’ve seen tickets listed at $50 or $75 for the day.

Open SQL Camp will be held in Germany in August, and Boston in October. This is a great FREE event that includes technical content not just on MySQL but other open source databases and data stores.

You will also find dedicated MySQL tracks in Europe at the German Oracle Users Group (DOAG) conference in November and the United Kingdom Oracle Users Group (UKOUG) in November that I am planning on attending.

In 2011 there is already a lineup of events that will all contain multiple tracks of MySQL content.

For the MySQL community the introduction of various large Oracle conferences may be confusing. From my perspective I describe the big three as.

  • Oracle Open World is targeted towards marketing. This includes product announcements, case studies and first class events.
  • Collaborate is targeted towards deployment and includes 3 different user groups, the IOUG representing the Oracle Database, the Oracle Applications User Group, and the Quest Group.
  • ODTUG Kaleidoscope is targeted towards development. This includes the tools and technologies for developers and DBA’s to do your job.

Having just attended Kaleidoscope 2010, and being a relative unknown I left with a great impression of an open, technical and welcoming event. There was a great atmosphere, great events with excellent food for breakfast, lunch and dinner and I now have a long list of new friends. This conference very much reflected being part of a greater extended family, the experience I have enjoyed at previous MySQL conferences. I’ve already committed to being involved next year.

Improving MySQL Productivity – From Design to Implementation

My closing presentation at the dedicated MySQL track at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010 discussed various techniques and best practices for improving the ROI of developer resources using MySQL. Included in the sections on Design, Security, Development, Testing, Implementation, Instrumentation and Support were also a number of horror stories of not what to do, combined with practical examples of improving productivity.

MySQL Idiosyncrasies That Bite

The following are my slides that I presented at ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010. This presentation talks about the MySQL defaults including a non-transactional state, silent data truncations, date management, and transaction isolation options. These are all critical for data integrity and consistency. I also cover in-depth topics including SQL_MODE, character sets and collations.

Still room at Kaleidoscope for MySQL attendees

Today I received notice that next week’s Velocity conference is at maximum capacity. With just under 2 weeks before the start of ODTUG Kaleidoscope in Washington DC we still have room for late registrations. There is 4 days of MySQL content, free events and also a Sunday Symposium that includes talks on performance and high availability.

Contact any of the MySQL speakers directly and you can receive a special 50% discount code. This is only for MySQL attendees.

If you live in the DC area and only want the FREE option then come along and join use on Monday night for a free session and reception.

ODTUG Kaleidoscope 2010
July 27 – July 1
Marriott Wardman Part Hotel
2660 Woodley Road NW
Washington, District Of Columbia 20008
www.odtugkaleidoscope.com

Conference highlights include

Community Service Day – Saturday, June 26, 8:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Join ODTUG volunteers and help refurbish a school in D.C.  Under the guidance of Greater DC Cares (GDCC), the leading and largest nonprofit coordinator of volunteerism in the D.C. region, ODTUGgers will: Sort books, beautify school grounds, and paint games on blacktop outside of hte school.

There is still time to sign up!  

Four Full-day Symposia – Sunday, June 27, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
Application Express; Oracle EPM and Essbase; Security, Scalability, and Performance; SOA and BPM. One-day registration available.

Welcome Reception/Battle of the Rock Bands – Sunday, June 27, 6:15 – 8:00 p.m.
Meet the exhibitors and compete in the “Battle of the Rock Bands.” Sign up to play.


Opening General Session – Monday, June 28, 8:30 – 10:00 a.m.
Awards for Best Technical Paper and Best 2009 Presentations
Keynote – “Future of the Internet and its Social Impact” by Lee Rainie, Director of the PEW Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project.
Sundown Sessions with Oracle ACE Directors – Monday, June 28, 5:45 – 6:45 p.m.
Reception to meet the Oracle ACE Directors immediately follows – 6:45 – 7:45 p.m.

Special Event – Wednesday, June 30, 6:30 – 10:00 p.m.
Featuring comedian John Heffron, 2nd season champion of the hit TV show, Last Comic Standing.
Music by live cover band, Right Foot Red

Oracle resources for the MySQL Community

While I have spent a lot of time recently helping the MySQL community interact with and integrate with various Oracle User Groups including ODTUG, IOUG, NoCOUG, NYOUG, DAOG I thought I’d share some resources for the MySQL Community that wanted to know more about Oracle.

The Oracle family of products is huge. You only have to look at the acquisitions via Wikipedia to get an idea. The first thing is to narrow your search, e.g. Database, APEX, Middleware, BI, Hyperion, Financials, development via Java, PHP or Oracle Forms etc.

While Oracle is a commercial product you can download all software for FREE via Oracle Technology Network. There is also documentation, forums, blogs and events.

Some Oracle bloggers I have already been reading however I’m expanding my list. People you may want to consider include:

Cary Millsap,Lewis Cunningham, Debra Lilley, Dimitri Gielis,Duncan Mills, Edward Roske, Mark Rittman, Scott Spendolini, Tim Tow, Tom Kyte

If you want a comparison of the Oracle and MySQL community, be sure to also check out Sheeri Cabral’s keynote address at the 2010 MySQL User Conference for reference.