MySQL Database Administration

MySQL Database Administration
MySQL Database Administration

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If you need to administer MySQL, this article gets you off to a good start. The first of a multi-
part series, it is excerpted from chapter four of the book MySQL Administrator's Guide, written
by Paul Dubois (Sams; ISBN: 0672326345).
This chapter covers topics that deal with administering a MySQL installation, such
as configuring the server, managing user accounts, and performing backups.
4.1 The MySQL Server and Server Startup Scripts
The MySQL server, mysqld, is the main program that does most of the work in a
MySQL installation. The server is accompanied by several related scripts that
perform setup operations when you install MySQL or that are helper programs to assist you in
starting and stopping the server.
This section provides an overview of the server and related programs, and information about
server startup scripts. Information about configuring the server itself is given in Section 4.2,
"Configuring the MySQL Server."
4.1.1 Overview of the Server-Side Scripts and Utilities
All MySQL programs take many different options. However, every MySQL program provides a
--help option that you can use to get a description of the program's options. For example, try
mysqld --help.
You can override default options for all standard programs by specifying options on the
command line or in an option file. See Section 3.3, "Specifying Program Options."
The following list briefly describes the MySQL server and server-related programs:
• mysqld
The SQL daemon (that is, the MySQL server). To use client programs, this program must
be running, because clients gain access to databases by connecting to the server. See
Section 4.2, "Configuring the MySQL Server."
• mysqld-max
A version of the server that includes additional features. See Section 4.1.2, "The mysqld-
max Extended MySQL Server."
• mysqld_safe
A server startup script. mysqld_safe attempts to start mysqld-max if it exists, and
mysqld otherwise. See Section 4.1.3, "The mysqld_safe Server Startup Script."
• mysql.server
A server startup script. This script is used on systems that use run directories containing
scripts that start system services for particular run levels. It invokes mysqld_safe to start
the MySQL server. See Section 4.1.4, "The mysql.server Server Startup Script."
• mysqld_multi
A server startup script that can start or stop multiple servers installed on the system. See
Section 4.1.5, "The mysqld_multi Program for Managing Multiple MySQL Servers."
• mysql_install_db
This script creates the MySQL grant tables with default privileges. It is usually executed
only once, when first installing MySQL on a system.
• mysql_fix_privilege_tables
This script is used after an upgrade install operation, to update the grant tables with any
changes that have been made in newer versions of MySQL.
There are several other programs that also are run on the server host:
• myisamchk
A utility to describe, check, optimize, and repair MyISAM tables. myisamchk is described
in Section 4.6.2, "Table Maintenance and Crash Recovery."
• make_binary_distribution
This program makes a binary release of a compiled MySQL. This could be sent by FTP
to /pub/mysql/upload on ftp.mysql.com for the convenience of other MySQL users.
• mysqlbug
The MySQL bug reporting script. It can be used to send a bug report to the MySQL
mailing list. (You can also visit http://bugs.mysql.com/ to file a bug report
online.)
MySQL Database Administration - 4.1.2 The mysqld-max Extended MySQL Server

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A MySQL-Max server is a version of the mysqld MySQL server that has been built to include
additional features.
The distribution to use depends on your platform:
• For Windows, MySQL binary distributions include both the standard server
(mysqld.exe) and the MySQL-Max server (mysqld-max.exe), so you need not get a
special distribution. Just use a regular Windows distribution, available at
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-4.0.html. See Section 2.2.1,
"Installing MySQL on Windows."
• For Linux, if you install MySQL using RPM distributions, use the regular MySQL-server
RPM first to install a standard server named mysqld. Then use the MySQL-Max RPM to
install a server named mysqld-max. The MySQL-Max RPM presupposes that you have
already installed the regular server RPM. See Section 2.2.2, "Installing MySQL on
Linux," for more information on the Linux RPM packages.
• All other MySQL-Max distributions contain a single server that is named mysqld but that
has the additional features included.
You can find the MySQL-Max binaries on the MySQL AB Web site at
http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-max-4.0.html.
MySQL AB builds the MySQL-Max servers by using the following configure options:
• --with-server-suffix=-max
This option adds a -max suffix to the mysqld version string.
• --with-innodb
This option enables support for the InnoDB storage engine. MySQL-Max servers always
include InnoDB support, but this option actually is needed only for MySQL 3.23. From
MySQL 4 on, InnoDB is included by default in binary distributions, so you do not need a
MySQL-Max server to obtain InnoDB support.
• --with-bdb
This option enables support for the Berkeley DB (BDB) storage engine.
• CFLAGS=-DUSE_SYMDIR
This define enables symbolic link support for Windows.
MySQL-Max binary distributions are a convenience for those who wish to install precompiled
programs. If you build MySQL using a source distribution, you can build your own Max-like
server by enabling the same features at configuration time that the MySQL-Max binary
distributions are built with.
MySQL-Max servers include the BerkeleyDB (BDB) storage engine whenever possible, but not
all platforms support BDB. The following table shows which platforms allow MySQL-Max
binaries to include BDB:
System BDB Support

AIX 4.3 N
HP-UX 11.0 N
Linux-Alpha N
Linux-IA-64 N
Linux-Intel Y
Mac OS X N
NetWare N
SCO OSR5 Y
Solaris-Intel N
Solaris-SPARC Y
UnixWare Y
Windows/NT Y
To find out which storage engines your server supports, issue the following statement:
mysql> SHOW ENGINES;
Before MySQL 4.1.2, SHOW ENGINES is unavailable. Use the following statement instead and
check the value of the variable for the storage engine in which you are interested:
mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have_%';

+------------------+----------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+------------------+----------+
| have_bdb | NO |
| have_crypt | YES |
| have_innodb | YES |
| have_isam | NO |
| have_raid | NO |
| have_symlink | DISABLED |
| have_openssl | NO |
| have_query_cache | YES |
+------------------+----------+
The values in the second column indicate the server's level of support for each feature:
Value Meaning
YES The feature is supported and is active.
NO The feature is not supported.
DISABLED The feature is supported but has been disabled.
A value of NO means that the server was compiled without support for the feature, so it cannot be
activated at runtime.
A value of DISABLED occurs either because the server was started with an option that disables the
feature, or because not all options required to enable it were given. In the latter case, the
host_name.err error log file should contain a reason indicating why the option is disabled.
One situation in which you might see DISABLED occurs with MySQL 3.23 when the InnoDB
storage engine is compiled in. In MySQL 3.23, you must supply at least the
innodb_data_file_path option at runtime to set up the InnoDB tablespace. Without this option,
InnoDB disables itself. See Section 9.3, "InnoDB in MySQL 3.23." You can specify configuration
options for the BDB storage engine, too, but BDB will not disable itself if you do not provide them.
See Section 8.4.3, "BDB Startup Options."
You might also see DISABLED for the InnoDB, BDB, or ISAM storage engines if the server was
compiled to support them, but was started with the --skip-innodb, --skip-bdb, or --skip-
isam options at runtime.
As of Version 3.23, all MySQL servers support MyISAM tables, because MyISAM is the default
storage engine.
MySQL Database Administration - 4.1.3 The mysqld_safe Server Startup Script

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mysqld_safe is the recommended way to start a mysqld server on Unix and NetWare.
mysqld_safe adds some safety features such as restarting the server when an error occurs and
logging runtime information to an error log file. NetWare-specific behaviors are listed later in
this section.
Note: Before MySQL 4.0, mysqld_safe is named safe_mysqld. To preserve backward

compatibility, MySQL binary distributions for some time will include safe_mysqld as a
symbolic link to mysqld_safe.
By default, mysqld_safe tries to start an executable named mysqld-max if it exists, or mysqld

otherwise. Be aware of the implications of this behavior:
• On Linux, the MySQL-Max RPM relies on this mysqld_safe behavior. The RPM installs
an executable named mysqld-max, which causes mysqld_safe to automatically use that
executable from that point on.
• If you install a MySQL-Max distribution that includes a server named mysqld-max, then
upgrade later to a non-Max version of MySQL, mysqld_safe will still attempt to run the
old mysqld-max server. If you perform such an upgrade, you should manually remove the
old mysqld-max server to ensure that mysqld_safe runs the new mysqld server.
To override the default behavior and specify explicitly which server you want to run, specify a
--mysqld or --mysqld-version option to mysqld_safe.
Many of the options to mysqld_safe are the same as the options to mysqld. See Section 4.2.1,
"mysqld Command-Line Options."
All options specified to mysqld_safe on the command line are passed to mysqld. If you want to
use any options that are specific to mysqld_safe and that mysqld doesn't support, do not specify
them on the command line. Instead, list them in the [mysqld_safe] group of an option file. See
Section 3.3.2, "Using Option Files."
mysqld_safe reads all options from the [mysqld], [server], and [mysqld_safe] sections in
option files. For backward compatibility, it also reads [safe_mysqld] sections, although you
should rename such sections to [mysqld_safe] when you begin using MySQL 4.0 or later.
mysqld_safe supports the following options:
• --basedir=path
The path to the MySQL installation directory.
• --core-file-size=size
The size of the core file mysqld should be able to create. The option value is passed to
ulimit -c.
• --datadir=path
The path to the data directory.
• --defaults-extra-file=path
The name of an option file to be read in addition to the usual option files.
• --defaults-file=path
The name of an option file to be read instead of the usual option files.
• --err-log=path
The old form of the --log-error option, to be used before MySQL 4.0.
• --ledir=path
The path to the directory containing the mysqld program. Use this option to explicitly
indicate the location of the server.
• --log-error=path
Write the error log to the given file. See Section 4.8.1, "The Error Log."
• --mysqld=prog_name
The name of the server program (in the ledir directory) that you want to start.
• --mysqld-version=suffix
This option is similar to the --mysqld option, but you specify only the suffix for the
server program name. The basename is assumed to be mysqld. For example, if you use
--mysqld-version=max, mysqld_safe will start the mysqld-max program in the ledir
directory. If the argument to --mysqld-version is empty, mysqld_safe uses mysqld in
the ledir directory.
• --nice=priority
Use the nice program to set the server's scheduling priority to the given value. This
option was added in MySQL 4.0.14.
• --no-defaults
Do not read any option files.
• --open-files-limit=count
The number of files mysqld should be able to open. The option value is passed to ulimit
-n. Note that you need to start mysqld_safe as root for this to work properly!
• --pid-file=path
The path to the process ID file.
• --port=port_num
The port number to use when listening for TCP/IP connections.
• --socket=path
The Unix socket file to use for local connections.

• --timezone=zone
Set the TZ time zone environment variable to the given option value. Consult your
operating system documentation for legal time zone specification formats.
• --user={user_name | user_id}
Run the mysqld server as the user having the name user_name or the numeric user ID
user_id. ("User" in this context refers to a system login account, not a MySQL user
listed in the grant tables.)
The mysqld_safe script is written so that it normally can start a server that was installed from
either a source or a binary distribution of MySQL, even though these types of distributions
typically install the server in slightly different locations. (See Section 2.1.5, "Installation
Layouts.") mysqld_safe expects one of the following conditions to be true:
• The server and databases can be found relative to the directory from which mysqld_safe
is invoked. For binary distributions, mysqld_safe looks under its working directory for
bin and data directories. For source distributions, it looks for libexec and var
directories. This condition should be met if you execute mysqld_safe from your MySQL
installation directory (for example, /usr/local/mysql for a binary distribution).
• If the server and databases cannot be found relative to the working directory,
mysqld_safe attempts to locate them by absolute pathnames. Typical locations are
/usr/local/libexec and
/usr/local/var. The actual locations are determined from the values configured into
the distribution at the time it was built. They should be correct if MySQL is installed in
the location specified at configuration time.
Because mysqld_safe will try to find the server and databases relative to its own working
directory, you can install a binary distribution of MySQL anywhere, as long as you run
mysqld_safe from the MySQL installation directory:
shell> cd mysql_installation_directory
shell> bin/mysqld_safe &
If mysqld_safe fails, even when invoked from the MySQL installation directory, you can
specify the --ledir and --datadir options to indicate the directories in which the server and
databases are located on your system.
Normally, you should not edit the mysqld_safe script. Instead, configure mysqld_safe by using
command-line options or options in the [mysqld_safe] section of a my.cnf option file. In rare
cases, it might be necessary to edit mysqld_safe to get it to start the server properly. However, if
you do this, your modified version of mysqld_safe might be overwritten if you upgrade MySQL
in the future, so you should make a copy of your edited version that you can reinstall.
On NetWare, mysqld_safe is a NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) that is ported from the
original Unix shell script. It does the following:
1. Runs a number of system and option checks.

2. Runs a check on MyISAM and ISAM tables.
3. Provides a screen presence for the MySQL server.
4. Starts mysqld, monitors it, and restarts it if it terminates in error.
5. Sends error messages from mysqld to the host_name.err file in the data directory.
6. Sends mysqld_safe screen output to the host_name.safe file in the data directory.
MySQL Database Administration - 4.1.4 The mysql.server Server Startup Script

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MySQL distributions on Unix include a script named mysql.server. It can be used on systems
such as Linux and Solaris that use System V-style run directories to start and stop system
services. It is also used by the Mac OS X Startup Item for MySQL.
mysql.server can be found in the support-files directory under your MySQL installation
directory or in a MySQL source tree.
If you use the Linux server RPM package (MySQL-server-VERSION.rpm), the mysql.server
script will already have been installed in the /etc/init.d directory with the name mysql. You
need not install it manually. See Section 2.2.2, "Installing MySQL on Linux," for more
information on the Linux RPM packages.
Some vendors provide RPM packages that install a startup script under a different name such as
mysqld.
If you install MySQL from a source distribution or use a binary distribution format that does not
install mysql.server automatically, you can install it manually. Instructions are provided in
Section 2.4.3, "Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically."
mysql.server reads options from the [mysql.server] and [mysqld] sections of option files.
For backward compatibility, it also reads [mysql_server] sections, although you should rename
such sections to [mysql.server] when you begin using MySQL 4.0 or later.
4.1.5 The mysqld_multi Program for Managing Multiple MySQL Servers
mysqld_multi is meant for managing several mysqld processes that listen for connections on
different Unix socket files and TCP/IP ports. It can start or stop servers, or report their current
status.
The program searches for groups named [mysqld#] in my.cnf (or in the file named by the
--config-file option). # can be any positive integer. This number is referred to in the
following discussion as the option group number, or GNR. Group numbers distinguish option
groups from one another and are used as arguments to mysqld_multi to specify which servers
you want to start, stop, or obtain a status report for. Options listed in these groups are the same
that you would use in the [mysqld] group used for starting mysqld. (See, for example, Section
2.4.3, "Starting and Stopping MySQL Automatically.") However, when using multiple servers it
is necessary that each one use its own value for options such as the Unix socket file and TCP/IP
port number. For more information on which options must be unique per server in a multiple-
server environment, see Section 4.9, "Running Multiple MySQL Servers on the Same Machine."
To invoke mysqld_multi, use the following syntax:
shell> mysqld_multi [options] {start|stop|report}
[GNR[,GNR]...]
start, stop, and report indicate which operation you want to perform. You can perform the
designated operation on a single server or multiple servers, depending on the GNR list that
follows the option name. If there is no list, mysqld_multi performs the operation for all servers
in the option file.
Each GNR value represents an option group number or range of group numbers. The value
should be the number at the end of the group name in the option file. For example, the GNR for a
group named [mysqld17] is 17. To specify a range of numbers, separate the first and last
numbers by a dash. The GNR value 10-13 represents groups [mysqld10] through [mysqld13].
Multiple groups or group ranges can be specified on the command line, separated by commas.
There must be no whitespace characters (spaces or tabs) in the GNR list; anything after a
whitespace character is ignored.
This command starts a single server using option group [mysqld17]:
shell> mysqld_multi start 17
This command stops several servers, using option groups [mysql8] and [mysqld10] through
[mysqld13]:
shell> mysqld_multi start 8,10-13
For an example of how you might set up an option file, use this command:
shell> mysqld_multi --example
mysqld_multi supports the following options:
• --config-file=name
Specify the name of an alternative option file. This affects where mysqld_multi looks
for [mysqld#] option groups. Without this option, all options are read from the usual
my.cnf file. The option does not affect where mysqld_multi reads its own options,
which are always taken from the [mysqld_multi] group in the usual my.cnf file.
• --example
Display a sample option file.
• --help
Display a help message and exit.
• --log=name
Specify the name of the log file. If the file exists, log output is appended to it.
• --mysqladmin=prog_name
The mysqladmin binary to be used to stop servers.
• --mysqld=prog_name
The mysqld binary to be used. Note that you can specify mysqld_safe as the value for
this option also. The options are passed to mysqld. Just make sure that you have the
directory where mysqld is located in your PATH environment variable setting or fix
mysqld_safe.
• --no-log
Print log information to stdout rather than to the log file. By default, output goes to the
log file.
• --password=password
The password of the MySQL account to use when invoking mysqladmin. Note that the
password value is not optional for this option, unlike for other MySQL programs.
• --tcp-ip
Connect to each MySQL server via the TCP/IP port instead of the Unix socket file. (If a
socket file is missing, the server might still be running, but accessible only via the
TCP/IP port.) By default, connections are made using the Unix socket file. This option
affects stop and report operations.
• --user=user_name
The username of the MySQL account to use when invoking mysqladmin.
• --version
Display version information and exit.
Some notes about mysqld_multi:
• Make sure that the MySQL account used for stopping the mysqld servers (with the
mysqladmin program) has the same username and password for each server. Also, make
sure that the account has the SHUTDOWN privilege. If the servers that you want to manage
have many different usernames or passwords for the administrative accounts, you might
want to create an account on each server that has the same username and password. For
example, you might set up a common multi_admin account by executing the following
commands for each server:
• shell> mysql -u root -S /tmp/mysql.sock
• -proot_password
• mysql> GRANT SHUTDOWN ON *.*
• -> TO 'multi_admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED
BY 'multipass';
See Section 4.4.2, "How the Privilege System Works." You will have to do this for each
mysqld server. Change the connection parameters appropriately when connecting to each
one. Note that the host part of the account name must allow you to connect as
multi_admin from the host where you want to run mysqld_multi.
• The --pid-file option is very important if you are using mysqld_safe to start mysqld
(for example, --mysqld=mysqld_safe) Every mysqld should have its own process ID
file. The advantage of using mysqld_safe instead of mysqld is that mysqld_safe
"guards" its mysqld process and will restart it if the process terminates due to a signal
sent using kill -9, or for other reasons, such as a segmentation fault. Please note that
the mysqld_safe script might require that you start it from a certain place. This means
that you might have to change location to a certain directory before running
mysqld_multi. If you have problems starting, please see the mysqld_safe script. Check
especially the lines:
• -----------------------------------------------------
• MY_PWD=´pwd´
• # Check if we are starting this relative (for
• the binary release)

• if test -d $MY_PWD/data/mysql -a -f ./share/
• mysql/english/errmsg.sys -a \
• -x ./bin/mysqld
-----------------------------------------------------
See Section 4.1.3, "The mysqld_safe Server Startup Script." The test performed by these
lines should be successful, or you might encounter problems.
• The Unix socket file and the TCP/IP port number must be different for every mysqld.
• You might want to use the --user option for mysqld, but in order to do this you need to
run the mysqld_multi script as the Unix root user. Having the option in the option file
doesn't matter; you will just get a warning, if you are not the superuser and the mysqld
processes are started under your own Unix account.
• Important: Make sure that the data directory is fully accessible to the Unix account that
the specific mysqld process is started as. Do not use the Unix root account for this, unless
you know what you are doing.
• Most important: Before using mysqld_multi be sure that you understand the meanings
of the options that are passed to the mysqld servers and why you would want to have
separate mysqld processes. Beware of the dangers of using multiple mysqld servers with
the same data directory. Use separate data directories, unless you know what you are
doing. Starting multiple servers with the same data directory will not give you extra
performance in a threaded system. See Section 4.9, "Running Multiple MySQL Servers
on the Same Machine."
The following example shows how you might set up an option file for use with mysqld_multi.
The first and fifth [mysqld#] group were intentionally left out from the example to illustrate that
you can have "gaps" in the option file. This gives you more flexibility. The order in which the
mysqld programs are started or stopped depends on the order in which they appear in the option
file.
# This file should probably be in your home dir
(~/.my.cnf)
# or /etc/my.cnf
# Version 2.1 by Jani Tolonen
[mysqld_multi]
mysqld = /usr/local/bin/mysqld_safe
mysqladmin = /usr/local/bin/mysqladmin
user = multi_admin
password = multipass
[mysqld2]
socket = /tmp/mysql.sock2
port = 3307
pid-file = /usr/local/mysql/var2/hostname.pid2
datadir = /usr/local/mysql/var2
language = /usr/local/share/mysql/english
user = john
[mysqld3]
port = 3308
language = /usr/local/share/mysql/swedish
user = monty
[mysqld4]
port = 3309
language = /usr/local/share/mysql/estonia
user = tonu
[mysqld6]
port = 3311
language = /usr/local/share/mysql/japanese
user = jani
See Section 3.3.2, "Using Option Files."
MySQL Database Administration - 4.2 Configuring the MySQL Server

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This section discusses MySQL server configuration topics:
• Startup options that the server supports

• How to set the server SQL mode
• Server system variables
• Server status variables
4.2.1 mysqld Command-Line Options
When you start the mysqld server, you can specify program options using any of the methods
described in Section 3.3, "Specifying Program Options." The most common methods are to
provide options in an option file or on the command line. However, in most cases it is desirable
to make sure that the server uses the same options each time it runs. The best way to ensure this
is to list them in an option file. See Section 3.3.2, "Using Option Files."
mysqld reads options from the [mysqld] and [server] groups. mysqld_safe reads options
from the [mysqld], [server], [mysqld_safe], and [safe_mysqld] groups. mysql.server
reads options from the [mysqld] and [mysql.server] groups. An embedded MySQL server
usually reads options from the [server], [embedded], and [xxxxx_SERVER] groups, where
xxxxx is the name of the application into which the server is embedded.
mysqld accepts many command-line options. For a list, execute mysqld --help. Before MySQL
4.1.1, --help prints the full help message. As of 4.1.1, it prints a brief message; to see the full
list, use mysqld --verbose --help.
The following list shows some of the most common server options. Additional options are
described elsewhere:
• Options that affect security: See Section 4.3.3, "Startup Options for mysqld Concerning
Security."
• SSL-related options: See Section 4.5.7.5, "SSL Command-Line Options."
• Binary log control options: See Section 4.8.4, "The Binary Log."
• Replication-related options: See Section 5.8, "Replication Startup Options."
• Options specific to particular storage engines: See Section 8.1.1, "MyISAM Startup
Options," Section 8.4.3, "BDB Startup Options," and Section 9.5, "InnoDB Startup
Options."
You can also set the value of a server system variable by using the variable name as an option, as
described later in this section.
• --help, -?
Display a short help message and exit. Before MySQL 4.1.1, --help displays the full
help message. As of 4.1.1, it displays an abbreviated message only. Use both the
--verbose and --help options to see the full message.
• --ansi
Use standard SQL syntax instead of MySQL syntax. See Section 1.8.3, "Running
MySQL in ANSI Mode." For more precise control over the server SQL mode, use the
--sql-mode option instead.
• --basedir=path, -b path
The path to the MySQL installation directory. All paths are usually resolved relative to
this.
• --big-tables
Allow large result sets by saving all temporary sets in files. This option prevents most
"table full" errors, but also slows down queries for which in-memory tables would
suffice. Since MySQL 3.23.2, the server is able to handle large result sets automatically
by using memory for small temporary tables and switching to disk tables where
necessary.
• --bind-address=IP
The IP address to bind to.
• --console
Write the error log messages to stderr/stdout even if --log-error is specified. On

Windows, mysqld will not close the console screen if this option is used.
• --character-sets-dir=path
The directory where character sets are installed. See Section 4.7.1, "The Character Set
Used for Data and Sorting."
• --chroot=path
Put the mysqld server in a closed environment during startup by using the chroot()
system call. This is a recommended security measure as of MySQL 4.0. (MySQL 3.23 is
not able to provide a chroot() jail that is 100% closed.) Note that use of this option
somewhat limits LOAD DATA INFILE and SELECT ... INTO OUTFILE.
• --core-file
Write a core file if mysqld dies. For some systems, you must also specify the --core-
file-size option to mysqld_safe. See Section 4.1.3, "The mysqld_safe Server Startup
Script." Note that on some systems, such as Solaris, you will not get a core file if you are
also using the --user option.
• --datadir=path, -h path
The path to the data directory.
• --debug[=debug_options], -# [debug_options]
If MySQL is configured with --with-debug, you can use this option to get a trace file of
what mysqld is doing. The debug_options string often is 'd:t:o,file_name'.
• --default-character-set=charset
Use charset as the default character set. See Section 4.7.1, "The Character Set Used for
Data and Sorting."
• --default-collation=collation
Use collation as the default collation. This option is available as of MySQL 4.1.1. See
Section 4.7.1, "The Character Set Used for Data and Sorting."
• --default-storage-engine=type
This option is a synonym for --default-table-type. It is available as of MySQL 4.1.2.
• --default-table-type=type
Set the default table type for tables. See Chapter 8, "MySQL Storage Engines and Table
Types."
• --delay-key-write[= OFF | ON | ALL]
How the DELAYED KEYS option should be used. Delayed key writing causes key buffers
not to be flushed between writes for MyISAM tables. OFF disables delayed key writes. ON
enables delayed key writes for those tables that were created with the DELAYED KEYS
option. ALL delays key writes for all MyISAM tables. Available as of MySQL 4.0.3. See
Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters." See Section 8.1.1, "MyISAM Startup Options."
Note: If you set this variable to ALL, you should not use MyISAM tables from within
another program (such as from another MySQL server or with myisamchk) when the
table is in use. Doing so will lead to index corruption.
• --delay-key-write-for-all-tables
Old form of --delay-key-write=ALL for use prior to MySQL 4.0.3. As of 4.0.3, use
--delay-key-write instead.
• --des-key-file=file_name
Read the default keys used by DES_ENCRYPT() and DES_DECRYPT() from this file.
• --enable-named-pipe
Enable support for named pipes. This option applies only on Windows NT, 2000, and XP
systems, and can be used only with the mysqld-nt and mysqld-max-nt servers that
support named pipe connections.
• --external-locking
Enable system locking. Note that if you use this option on a system on which lockd does
not fully work (as on Linux), you will easily get mysqld to deadlock. This option
previously was named --enable-locking.
Note: If you use this option to enable updates to MyISAM tables from many MySQL
processes, you have to ensure that these conditions are satisfied:
o You should not use the query cache for queries that use tables that are updated by
another process.
o You should not use --delay-key-write=ALL or DELAY_KEY_WRITE=1 on any
shared tables.
The easiest way to ensure this is to always use --external-locking together with
--delay-key-write=OFF --query-cache-size=0.
(This is not done by default because in many setups it's useful to have a mixture of the
above options.)
• --exit-info[=flags], -T [flags]
This is a bit mask of different flags you can use for debugging the mysqld server. Do not
use this option unless you know exactly what it does!
• --flush
Flush all changes to disk after each SQL statement. Normally MySQL does a write of all
changes to disk only after each SQL statement and lets the operating system handle the
synching to disk. See Section A.4.2, "What to Do If MySQL Keeps Crashing."
• --init-file=file
Read SQL statements from this file at startup. Each statement must be on a single line
and should not include comments.
• --language=lang_name, -L lang_name
Client error messages in given language. lang_name can be given as the language name
or as the full pathname to the directory where the language files are installed. See Section
4.7.2, "Setting the Error Message Language."
• --log[=file], -l [file]
Log connections and queries to this file. See Section 4.8.2, "The General Query Log." If
you don't specify a filename, MySQL will use host_name.log as the filename.
• --log-bin=[file]
The binary log file. Log all queries that change data to this file. Used for backup and
replication. See Section 4.8.4, "The Binary Log." If you don't specify a filename, MySQL
will use host_name-bin as the filename.
• --log-bin-index[=file]
The index file for binary log filenames. See Section 4.8.4, "The Binary Log." If you don't
specify a filename, MySQL will use host_name-bin.index as the filename.
• --log-error[=file]
Log errors and startup messages to this file. See Section 4.8.1, "The Error Log." If you
don't specify a filename, MySQL will use host_name.err as the filename.
• --log-isam[=file]
Log all ISAM/MyISAM changes to this file (used only when debugging ISAM/MyISAM).
• --log-long-format
Log some extra information to the log files (update log, binary update log, and slow
queries log, whatever log has been activated). For example, username and timestamp are
logged for queries. If you are using --log-slow-queries and --log-long-format, then
queries that are not using indexes also are logged to the slow query log. Note that --log-
long-format is deprecated as of MySQL version 4.1, when --log-short-format was
introduced (the long log format is the default setting since version 4.1). Also note that
starting with MySQL 4.1, the --log-queries-not-using-indexes option is available
for the purpose of logging queries that do not use indexes to the slow query log.
• --log-queries-not-using-indexes
If you are using this option with --log-slow-queries, then queries that are not using
indexes also are logged to the slow query log. This option is available as of MySQL 4.1.
See Section 4.8.5, "The Slow Query Log."
• --log-short-format
Log less information to the log files (update log, binary update log, and slow queries log,
whatever log has been activated). For example, username and timestamp are not logged
for queries. This option was introduced in MySQL 4.1.
• --log-slow-queries[=file]
Log all queries that have taken more than long_query_time seconds to execute to file.
See Section 4.8.5, "The Slow Query Log." Note that the default for the amount of
information logged has changed in MySQL 4.1. See the --log-long-format and
--log-short-format options for details.
• --log-update[=file]
Log updates to file.# where # is a unique number if not given. See Section 4.8.3, "The
Update Log." The update log is deprecated and is removed in MySQL 5.0.0; you should
use the binary log instead (--log-bin). See Section 4.8.4, "The Binary Log." Starting
from version 5.0.0, using --log-update will just turn on the binary log instead.
• --log-warnings, -W
Print out warnings such as Aborted connection... to the error log. Enabling this
option is recommended, for example, if you use replication (you will get more
information about what is happening, such as messages about network failures and
reconnections). This option is enabled by default as of MySQL 4.1.2; to disable it, use
--skip-log-warnings. See Section A.2.10, "Communication Errors and Aborted
Connections."
This option was named --warnings before MySQL 4.0.

• --low-priority-updates
Table-modifying operations (INSERT, REPLACE, DELETE, UPDATE) will have lower priority
than selects. This can also be done via {INSERT | REPLACE | DELETE | UPDATE}
LOW_PRIORITY ... to lower the priority of only one query, or by SET
LOW_PRIORITY_UPDATES=1 to change the priority in one thread. See Section 6.3.2, "Table
Locking Issues."
• --memlock
Lock the mysqld process in memory. This works on systems such as Solaris that support
the mlockall() system call. This might help if you have a problem where the operating
system is causing mysqld to swap on disk. Note that use of this option requires that you
run the server as root, which normally is not a good idea for security reasons.
• --myisam-recover [=option[,option...]]]
Set the MyISAM storage engine recovery mode. The option value is any combination of the
values of DEFAULT, BACKUP, FORCE, or QUICK. If you specify multiple values, separate
them by commas. You can also use a value of "" to disable this option. If this option is
used, mysqld will, when it opens a MyISAM table, check whether the table is marked as
crashed or wasn't closed properly. (The last option works only if you are running with
--skip-external-locking.) If this is the case, mysqld will run a check on the table. If
the table was corrupted, mysqld will attempt to repair it.
The following options affect how the repair works:
Option Description
DEFAULT The same as not giving any option to --myisam-recover.
BACKUP If the data file was changed during recovery, save a backup of the tbl_name.MYD
file as tbl_name-datetime.BAK.
FORCE Run recovery even if you will lose more than one row from the .MYD file.
QUICK Don't check the rows in the table if there aren't any delete blocks.
Before a table is automatically repaired, MySQL will add a note about this in the error
log. If you want to be able to recover from most problems without user intervention, you
should use the options BACKUP,FORCE. This will force a repair of a table even if some
rows would be deleted, but it will keep the old data file as a backup so that you can later
examine what happened.
This option is available as of MySQL 3.23.25.

• --new
From version 4.0.12, the --new option can be used to make the server behave as 4.1 in
certain respects, easing a 4.0 to 4.1 upgrade:
o TIMESTAMP is returned as a string with the format 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'.
This option can be used to help you see how your applications will behave in
MySQL 4.1, without actually upgrading to 4.1.
• --pid-file=path
The path to the process ID file used by mysqld_safe.
• --port=port_num, -P port_num
The port number to use when listening for TCP/IP connections.
• --old-protocol, -o
Use the 3.20 protocol for compatibility with some very old clients. See Section 2.5.6,
"Upgrading from Version 3.20 to 3.21."
• --one-thread
Only use one thread (for debugging under Linux). This option is available only if the
server is built with debugging enabled.
• --open-files-limit=count
To change the number of file descriptors available to mysqld. If this is not set or set to 0,
then mysqld will use this value to reserve file descriptors to use with setrlimit(). If
this value is 0, then mysqld will reserve max_connections*5 or max_connections +
table_cache*2 (whichever is larger) number of files. You should try increasing this if
mysqld gives you the error "Too many open files."
• --safe-mode
Skip some optimization stages.
• --safe-show-database
With this option, the SHOW DATABASES statement displays only the names of those
databases for which the user has some kind of privilege. As of MySQL 4.0.2, this option
is deprecated and doesn't do anything (it is enabled by default), because there is now a
SHOW DATABASES privilege that can be used to control access to database names on a per-
account basis. See Section 4.4.3, "Privileges Provided by MySQL."
• --safe-user-create
If this is enabled, a user can't create new users with the GRANT statement, if the user
doesn't have the INSERT privilege for the mysql.user table or any column in the table.
• --secure-auth
Disallow authentication for accounts that have old (pre-4.1) passwords. This option is
available as of MySQL 4.1.1.
• --skip-bdb
Disable the BDB storage engine. This saves memory and might speed up some operations.
Do not use this option if you require BDB tables.
• --skip-concurrent-insert
Turn off the ability to select and insert at the same time on MyISAM tables. (This is to be
used only if you think you have found a bug in this feature.)
• --skip-delay-key-write
Ignore the DELAY_KEY_WRITE option for all tables. As of MySQL 4.0.3, you should use
--delay-key-write=OFF instead. See Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."
• --skip-external-locking
Don't use system locking. To use isamchk or myisamchk, you must shut down the server.
See Section 1.2.3, "MySQL Stability." In MySQL 3.23, you can use CHECK TABLE and
REPAIR TABLE to check and repair MyISAM tables. This option previously was named
--skip-locking.
• --skip-grant-tables
This option causes the server not to use the privilege system at all. This gives everyone
full access to all databases! (You can tell a running server to start using the grant tables
again by executing a mysqladmin flush-privileges or mysqladmin reload
command, or by issuing a FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement.)
• --skip-host-cache
Do not use the internal hostname cache for faster name-to-IP resolution. Instead, query
the DNS server every time a client connects. See Section 6.5.5, "How MySQL Uses
DNS."
• --skip-innodb
Disable the InnoDB storage engine. This saves memory and disk space and might speed
up some operations. Do not use this option if you require InnoDB tables.
• --skip-isam
Disable the ISAM storage engine. As of MySQL 4.1, ISAM is disabled by default, so this
option applies only if the server was configured with support for ISAM. This option was
added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• --skip-name-resolve
Do not resolve hostnames when checking client connections. Use only IP numbers. If you
use this option, all Host column values in the grant tables must be IP numbers or
localhost. See Section 6.5.5, "How MySQL Uses DNS."
• --skip-networking
Don't listen for TCP/IP connections at all. All interaction with mysqld must be made via
named pipes (on Windows) or Unix socket files (on Unix). This option is highly
recommended for systems where only local clients are allowed. See Section 6.5.5, "How
MySQL Uses DNS."
• --skip-new
Don't use new, possibly wrong routines.
• --skip-symlink
This is the old form of --skip-symbolic-links, for use before MySQL 4.0.13.
• --symbolic-links, --skip-symbolic-links
Enable or disable symbolic link support. This option has different effects on Windows
and Unix:
o On Windows, enabling symbolic links allows you to establish a symbolic link to a

database directory by creating a directory.sym file that contains the path to the
real directory. See Section 6.6.1.3, "Using Symbolic Links for Databases on
Windows."
o On Unix, enabling symbolic links means that you can link a MyISAM index file or
data file to another directory with the INDEX DIRECTORY or DATA DIRECTORY
options of the CREATE TABLE statement. If you delete or rename the table, the
files that its symbolic links point to also are deleted or renamed.
This option was added in MySQL 4.0.13.
• --skip-safemalloc
If MySQL is configured with --with-debug=full, all MySQL programs check for

memory overruns during each memory allocation and memory freeing operation. This
checking is very slow, so for the server you can avoid it when you don't need it by using
the --skip-safemalloc option.
• --skip-show-database
With this option, the SHOW DATABASES statement is allowed only to users who have the
SHOW DATABASES privilege, and the statement displays all database names. Without this
option, SHOW DATABASES is allowed to all users, but displays each database name only if
the user has the SHOW DATABASES privilege or some privilege for the database.
• --skip-stack-trace
Don't write stack traces. This option is useful when you are running mysqld under a
debugger. On some systems, you also must use this option to get a core file.
• --skip-thread-priority
Disable using thread priorities for faster response time.
• --socket=path
On Unix, this option specifies the Unix socket file to use for local connections. The
default value is /tmp/mysql.sock. On Windows, the option specifies the pipe name to
use for local connections that use a named pipe. The default value is MySQL.
• --sql-mode=value[,value[,value...]]
Set the SQL mode for MySQL. See Section 4.2.2, "The Server SQL Mode." This option
was added in 3.23.41.
• --temp-pool
This option causes most temporary files created by the server to use a small set of names,
rather than a unique name for each new file. This works around a problem in the Linux
kernel dealing with creating many new files with different names. With the old behavior,
Linux seems to "leak" memory, because it's being allocated to the directory entry cache
rather than to the disk cache.
• --transaction-isolation=level
Sets the default transaction isolation level, which can be READ-UNCOMMITTED, READ-
COMMITTED, REPEATABLE-READ, or SERIALIZABLE.
• --tmpdir=path, -t path
The path of the directory to use for creating temporary files. It might be useful if your
default /tmp directory resides on a partition that is too small to hold temporary tables.
Starting from MySQL 4.1, this option accepts several paths that are used in round-robin
fashion. Paths should be separated by colon characters (':') on Unix and semicolon
characters (';') on Windows, NetWare, and OS/2. If the MySQL server is acting as a
replication slave, you should not set --tmpdir to point to a directory on a memory-based
filesystem or to a directory that is cleared when the server host restarts. A replication
slave needs some of its temporary files to survive a machine restart so that it can replicate
temporary tables or LOAD DATA INFILE operations. If files in the temporary file directory
are lost when the server restarts, replication will fail.
• --user={user_name | user_id}, -u {user_name | user_id}
Run the mysqld server as the user having the name user_name or the numeric user ID
user_id. ("User" in this context refers to a system login account, not a MySQL user
listed in the grant tables.)
This option is mandatory when starting mysqld as root. The server will change its user
ID during its startup sequence, causing it to run as that particular user rather than as root.
See Section 4.3.1, "General Security Guidelines."
Starting from MySQL 3.23.56 and 4.0.12: To avoid a possible security hole where a user
adds a --user=root option to some my.cnf file (thus causing the server to run as root),
mysqld uses only the first --user option specified and produces a warning if there are
multiple --user options. Options in /etc/my.cnf and datadir/my.cnf are processed
before command-line options, so it is recommended that you put a --user option in
/etc/my.cnf and specify a value other than root. The option in /etc/my.cnf will be
found before any other --user options, which ensures that the server runs as a user other
than root, and that a warning results if any other --user option is found.
• --version, -V
Display version information and exit.

You can assign a value to a server system variable by using an option of the form
--var_name=value. For example, --key_buffer_size=32M sets the key_buffer_size variable
to a value of 32MB.
Note that when setting a variable to a value, MySQL might automatically correct it to stay within
a given range, or adjust the value to the closest allowable value if only certain values are
allowed.
It is also possible to set variables by using --set-variable=var_name=value or -O

var_name=value syntax. However, this syntax is deprecated as of MySQL 4.0.
You can find a full description for all variables in Section 4.2.3, "Server System Variables." The
section on tuning server parameters includes information on how to optimize them. See Section
6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."
You can change the values of most system variables for a running server with the SET statement.
If you want to restrict the maximum value to which a system variable can be set with the SET
statement, you can specify this maximum by using an option of the form --maximum-var_name
at server startup. For example, to prevent the value of query_cache_size from being increased
to more than 32MB at runtime, use the option --maximum-query_cache_size=32M. This feature
is available as of MySQL 4.0.2.
MySQL Database Administration - 4.2.2 The Server SQL Mode

(Page 6 of 7 )
The MySQL server can operate in different SQL modes, and (as of MySQL 4.1) can apply these
modes differentially for different clients. This allows applications to tailor server operation to
their own requirements.
Modes define what SQL syntax MySQL should support and what kind of data validation checks
it should perform. This makes it easier to use MySQL in different environments and to use
MySQL together with other database servers.
You can set the default SQL mode by starting mysqld with the --sql-mode="modes" option.
Beginning with MySQL 4.1, you can also change the mode after startup time by setting the
sql_mode variable with a SET [SESSION|GLOBAL] sql_mode='modes' statement. Setting the
GLOBAL variable affects the operation of all clients that connect from that time on. Setting the
SESSION variable affects only the current client. modes is a list of different modes separated by
comma (',') characters. You can retrieve the current mode by issuing a SELECT @@sql_mode
statement. The default value is empty (no modes set).
The value also can be empty (--sql-mode="") if you want to reset it.
The following list describes the supported modes:

• ANSI_QUOTES
Treat '"' as an identifier quote character (like the '´' quote character) and not as a string
quote character. You can still use '´' to quote identifers in ANSI mode. With
ANSI_QUOTES enabled, you cannot use double quotes to quote a literal string, because it
will be interpreted as an identifier. (New in MySQL 4.0.0.)
• IGNORE_SPACE
Allow spaces between a function name and the '(' character. This forces all function
names to be treated as reserved words. As a result, if you want to access any database,
table, or column name that is a reserved word, you must quote it. For example, because
there is a USER() function, the name of the user table in the mysql database and the User
column in that table become reserved, so you must quote them:
SELECT "User" FROM mysql."user";
(New in MySQL 4.0.0.)
• NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO
NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO affects handling of AUTO_INCREMENT columns. Normally, you

generate the next sequence number for the column by inserting either NULL or 0 into it.
NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO suppresses this behavior for 0 so that only NULL generates the
next sequence number. This mode can be useful if 0 has been stored in a table's
AUTO_INCREMENT column. (This is not a recommended practice, by the way.) For
example, if you dump the table with mysqldump and then reload it, normally MySQL
generates new sequence numbers when it encounters the 0 values, resulting in a table
with different contents than the one that was dumped. Enabling
NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO before reloading the dump file solves this problem. As of
MySQL 4.1.1, mysqldump automatically includes statements in the dump output to enable
NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO. (New in MySQL 4.1.1.)
• NO_DIR_IN_CREATE
When creating a table, ignore all INDEX DIRECTORY and DATA DIRECTORY directives.
This option is useful on slave replication servers. (New in MySQL 4.0.15.)
• NO_FIELD_OPTIONS
Don't print MySQL -specific column options in the output of SHOW CREATE TABLE. This
mode is used by mysqldump in portability mode. (New in MySQL 4.1.1.)
• NO_KEY_OPTIONS
Don't print MySQL -specific index options in the output of SHOW CREATE TABLE. This
mode is used by mysqldump in portability mode. (New in MySQL 4.1.1.)
• NO_TABLE_OPTIONS
Don't print MySQL -specific table options (such as ENGINE) in the output of SHOW
CREATE TABLE. This mode is used by mysqldump in portability mode. (New in MySQL
4.1.1.)
• NO_UNSIGNED_SUBTRACTION
In subtraction operations, don't mark the result as UNSIGNED if one of the operands is
unsigned. Note that this makes UNSIGNED BIGINT not 100% usable in all contexts. (New
in MySQL 4.0.2.)
• ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY
Don't allow queries that in the GROUP BY part refer to a not selected column. (New in
MySQL 4.0.0.)
• PIPES_AS_CONCAT
Treat || as a string concatenation operator (same as CONCAT()) rather than as a synonym

for OR. (New in MySQL 4.0.0.)
• REAL_AS_FLOAT
Treat REAL as a synonym for FLOAT rather than as a synonym for DOUBLE. (New in
MySQL 4.0.0.)
The following special modes are provided as shorthand for combinations of mode values from
the preceding list. They are available as of MySQL 4.1.1.
• ANSI
Equivalent to REAL_AS_FLOAT, PIPES_AS_CONCAT, ANSI_QUOTES, IGNORE_SPACE,

ONLY_FULL_GROUP_BY. See Section 1.8.3, "Running MySQL in ANSI Mode."
• DB2
Equivalent to PIPES_AS_CONCAT, ANSI_QUOTES, IGNORE_SPACE, NO_KEY_OPTIONS,

NO_TABLE_OPTIONS, NO_FIELD_OPTIONS.
• MAXDB
• MSSQL

• MYSQL323
Equivalent to NO_FIELD_OPTIONS.
• MYSQL40
Equivalent to NO_FIELD_OPTIONS.
• ORACLE

• POSTGRESQL

MySQL Database Administration - 4.2.3 Server System Variables

(Page 7 of 7 )
The server maintains many system variables that indicate how it is configured. All of them have
default values. They can be set at server startup using options on the command line or in option
files. Most of them can be set at runtime using the SET statement.
Beginning with MySQL 4.0.3, the mysqld server maintains two kinds of variables. Global
variables affect the overall operation of the server. Session variables affect its operation for
individual client connections.
When the server starts, it initializes all global variables to their default values. These defaults can
be changed by options specified in option files or on the command line. After the server starts,
those global variables that are dynamic can be changed by connecting to the server and issuing a
SET GLOBAL var_name statement. To change a global variable, you must have the SUPER
privilege.
The server also maintains a set of session variables for each client that connects. The client's
session variables are initialized at connect time using the current values of the corresponding
global variables. For those session variables that are dynamic, the client can change them by
issuing a SET SESSION var_name statement. Setting a session variable requires no special
privilege, but a client can change only its own session variables, not those of any other client.
A change to a global variable is visible to any client that accesses that global variable. However,
it affects the corresponding session variable that is initialized from the global variable only for
clients that connect after the change. It does not affect the session variable for any client that is
already connected (not even that of the client that issues the SET GLOBAL statement).
When setting a variable using a startup option, variable values can be given with a suffix of K, M,
or G to indicate kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes, respectively. For example, the following
command starts the server with a key buffer size of 16 megabytes:
mysqld --key_buffer_size=16M
Before MySQL 4.0, use this syntax instead:
mysqld --set-variable=key_buffer_size=16M
The lettercase of suffix letters does not matter; 16M and 16m are equivalent.
At runtime, use the SET statement to set system variables. In this context, suffix letters cannot be
used, but the value can take the form of an expression:
mysql> SET sort_buffer_size = 10 * 1024 * 1024;
To specify explicitly whether to set the global or session variable, use the GLOBAL or SESSION
options:
mysql> SET GLOBAL sort_buffer_size = 10 * 1024 *
1024;
mysql> SET SESSION sort_buffer_size = 10 * 1024 *
1024;
Without either option, the statement sets the session variable.
The variables that can be set at runtime are listed in Section 4.2.3.1.2, "Dynamic System
Variables."
If you want to restrict the maximum value to which a system variable can be set with the SET
statement, you can specify this maximum by using an option of the form --maximum-var_name
at server startup. For example, to prevent the value of query_cache_size from being increased
to more than 32MB at runtime, use the option --maximum-query_cache_size=32M. This feature
is available as of MySQL 4.0.2.
You can view system variables and their values by using the SHOW VARIABLES statement. See
Section 4.2.3.1, "System Variables," for more information.
mysql> SHOW VARIABLES;

+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------|
| back_log | 50 |
| basedir | /usr/local/mysql |
| bdb_cache_size | 8388572 |
| bdb_home | /usr/local/mysql |
| bdb_log_buffer_size | 32768 |
| bdb_logdir | |
| bdb_max_lock | 10000 |
| bdb_shared_data | OFF |
| bdb_tmpdir | /tmp/ |
| bdb_version | Sleepycat Software: ... |
| binlog_cache_size | 32768 |
| bulk_insert_buffer_size | 8388608 |
| character_set | latin1 |
| character_sets | latin1 big5 czech euc_kr |
| concurrent_insert | ON |
| connect_timeout | 5 |
| convert_character_set | |
| datadir | /usr/local/mysql/data/ |
| default_week_format | 0 |
| delay_key_write | ON |
| delayed_insert_limit | 100 |
| delayed_insert_timeout | 300 |
| delayed_queue_size | 1000 |
| flush | OFF |
| flush_time | 0 |
| ft_boolean_syntax | + -><()~*:""&| |
| ft_max_word_len | 84 |
| ft_min_word_len | 4 |
| ft_query_expansion_limit | 20 |
| ft_stopword_file | (built-in) |
| have_bdb | YES |
| have_innodb | YES |
| have_isam | YES |
| have_openssl | YES |
| have_query_cache | YES |
| have_raid | NO |
| have_symlink | DISABLED |
| init_file | |
| innodb_additional_mem_pool_size | 1048576 |
| innodb_buffer_pool_size | 8388608 |
| innodb_data_file_path | ibdata1:10M:autoextend |
| innodb_data_home_dir | |
| innodb_fast_shutdown | ON |
| innodb_file_io_threads | 4 |
| innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit | 1 |
| innodb_flush_method | |
| innodb_force_recovery | 0 |
| innodb_lock_wait_timeout | 50 |
| innodb_log_arch_dir | |
| innodb_log_archive | OFF |
| innodb_log_buffer_size | 1048576 |
| innodb_log_file_size | 5242880 |
| innodb_log_files_in_group | 2 |
| innodb_log_group_home_dir | ./ |
| innodb_mirrored_log_groups | 1 |
| innodb_thread_concurrency | 8 |
| interactive_timeout | 28800 |
| join_buffer_size | 131072 |
| key_buffer_size | 16773120 |
| key_cache_age_threshold | 300 |
| key_cache_block_size | 1024 |
| key_cache_division_limit | 100 |
| language | /usr/local/mysql/share/... |
| large_files_support | ON |
| local_infile | ON |
| locked_in_memory | OFF |
| log | OFF |
| log_bin | OFF |
| log_slave_updates | OFF |
| log_slow_queries | OFF |
| log_update | OFF |
| log_warnings | OFF |
| long_query_time | 10 |
| low_priority_updates | OFF |
| lower_case_table_names | 0 |
| max_allowed_packet | 1047552 |
| max_binlog_cache_size | 4294967295 |
| max_binlog_size | 1073741824 |
| max_connect_errors | 10 |
| max_connections | 100 |
| max_delayed_threads | 20 |
| max_error_count | 64 |
| max_heap_table_size | 16777216 |
| max_join_size | 4294967295 |
| max_relay_log_size | 0 |
| max_sort_length | 1024 |
| max_tmp_tables | 32 |
| max_user_connections | 0 |
| max_write_lock_count | 4294967295 |
| myisam_max_extra_sort_file_size | 268435456 |
| myisam_max_sort_file_size | 2147483647 |
| myisam_recover_options | force |
| myisam_repair_threads | 1 |
| myisam_sort_buffer_size | 8388608 |
| net_buffer_length | 16384 |
| net_read_timeout | 30 |
| net_retry_count | 10 |
| net_write_timeout | 60 |
| open_files_limit | 1024 |
| pid_file | /usr/local/mysql/name.pid |
| port | 3306 |
| protocol_version | 10 |
| query_cache_limit | 1048576 |
| query_cache_size | 0 |
| query_cache_type | ON |
| read_buffer_size | 131072 |
| read_rnd_buffer_size | 262144 |
| rpl_recovery_rank | 0 |
| server_id | 0 |
| skip_external_locking | ON |
| skip_networking | OFF |
| skip_show_database | OFF |
| slave_net_timeout | 3600 |
| slow_launch_time | 2 |
| socket | /tmp/mysql.sock |
| sort_buffer_size | 2097116 |
| sql_mode | |
| table_cache | 64 |
| table_type | MYISAM |
| thread_cache_size | 3 |
| thread_stack | 131072 |
| timezone | EEST |
| tmp_table_size | 33554432 |
| tmpdir | /tmp/:/mnt/hd2/tmp/ |
| tx_isolation | READ-COMMITTED |
| version | 4.0.4-beta |
| wait_timeout | 28800 |
+---------------------------------+------------------------------+
Most system variables are described here. Variables with no version indicated have been present
since at least MySQL 3.22. InnoDB system variables are listed in Section 9.5, "InnoDB Startup
Options."
Values for buffer sizes, lengths, and stack sizes are given in bytes unless otherwise specified.
Information on tuning these variables can be found in Section 6.5.2, "Tuning Server Parameters."
• ansi_mode
This is ON if mysqld was started with --ansi. See Section 1.8.3, "Running MySQL in
ANSI Mode." This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.6 and removed in 3.23.41. See the
description for --sql-mode.
• back_log
The number of outstanding connection requests MySQL can have. This comes into play
when the main MySQL thread gets very many connection requests in a very short time. It
then takes some time (although very little) for the main thread to check the connection
and start a new thread. The back_log value indicates how many requests can be stacked
during this short time before MySQL momentarily stops answering new requests. You
need to increase this only if you expect a large number of connections in a short period of
time.
In other words, this value is the size of the listen queue for incoming TCP/IP connections.
Your operating system has its own limit on the size of this queue. The manual page for
the Unix listen() system call should have more details. Check your OS documentation
for the maximum value for this variable. Attempting to set back_log higher than your
operating system limit will be ineffective.
• basedir
The MySQL installation base directory. This variable can be set with the --basedir
option.
• bdb_cache_size
The size of the buffer that is allocated for caching indexes and rows for BDB tables. If you
don't use BDB tables, you should start mysqld with --skip-bdb to not waste memory for
this cache. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.14.
• bdb_home
The base directory for BDB tables. This should be assigned the same value as the datadir
variable. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.14.
• bdb_log_buffer_size
The size of the buffer that is allocated for caching indexes and rows for BDB tables. If you
don't use BDB tables, you should set this to 0 or start mysqld with --skip-bdb to not
waste memory for this cache. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.31.
• bdb_logdir
The directory where the BDB storage engine writes its log files. This variable can be set
with the --bdb-logdir option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.14.
• bdb_max_lock
The maximum number of locks you can have active on a BDB table (10,000 by default).
You should increase this if errors such as the following occur when you perform long
transactions or when mysqld has to examine many rows to calculate a query:
bdb: Lock table is out of available locks

Got error 12 from ...
This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.29.
• bdb_shared_data
This is ON if you are using --bdb-shared-data. This variable was added in MySQL
3.23.29.
• bdb_tmpdir
The value of the --bdb-tmpdir option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.14.
• bdb_version
The BDB storage engine version. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.31.
• binlog_cache_size
The size of the cache to hold the SQL statements for the binary log during a transaction.
A binary log cache is allocated for each client if the server supports any transactional
storage engines and, starting from MySQL 4.1.2, if the server has binary log enabled (--
log-bin option). If you often use big, multiple-statement transactions, you can increase
this to get more performance. The Binlog_cache_use and Binlog_cache_disk_use
status variables can be useful for tuning the size of this variable. This variable was added
in MySQL 3.23.29. See Section 4.8.4, "The Binary Log."
• bulk_insert_buffer_size
MyISAM uses a special tree-like cache to make bulk inserts faster for INSERT ...
SELECT, INSERT ... VALUES (...), (...), ..., and LOAD DATA INFILE. This
variable limits the size of the cache tree in bytes per thread. Setting it to 0 disables this
optimization. Note: This cache is used only when adding data to a non-empty table. The
default value is 8MB. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.3. This variable previously
was named myisam_bulk_insert_tree_size.
• character_set
The default character set. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.3, then removed in
MySQL 4.1.1 and replaced by the various character_set_xxx variables.
• character_set_client
The character set for statements that arrive from the client. This variable was added in
MySQL 4.1.1.
• character_set_connection
The character set used for literals that do not have a character set introducer, for some
functions, and for number-to-string conversion. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• character_set_database
The character set used by the default database. The server sets this variable whenever the
default database changes. If there is no default database, the variable has the same value
as character_set_server. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• character_set_results
The character set used for returning query results to the client. This variable was added in
MySQL 4.1.1.
• character_set_server
The server default character set. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• character_set_system
The character set used by the server for storing identifiers. The value is always utf8.
• character_sets
The supported character sets. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.15.
• collation_connection
The collation of the connection character set. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• collation_database
The collation used by the default database. The server sets this variable whenever the
default database changes. If there is no default database, the variable has the same value
as collation_server. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• collation_server
The server default collation. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• concurrent_inserts
If ON (the default), MySQL allows INSERT and SELECT statements to run concurrently for
MyISAM tables that have no free blocks in the middle. You can turn this option off by
starting mysqld with --safe or --skip-new. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.7.
• connect_timeout
The number of seconds the mysqld server waits for a connect packet before responding
with Bad handshake.
• datadir
The MySQL data directory. This variable can be set with the --datadir option.
• default_week_format
The default mode value to use for the WEEK() function. This variable is available as of
MySQL 4.0.14.
• delay_key_write
This option applies only to MyISAM tables. It can have one of the following values to
affect handling of the DELAY_KEY_WRITE table option that can be used in CREATE TABLE
statements.
Option Description
DELAYED_KEY_WRITE
OFF
is ignored.
MySQL honors the
DELAY_KEY_WRITE
ON option for CREATE
TABLE. This is the
default value.
All new opened tables
are treated as if they
ALL were created with the
DELAY_KEY_WRITE
option enabled.
If DELAY_KEY_WRITE is enabled, this means that the key buffer for tables with this option
are not flushed on every index update, but only when a table is closed. This will speed up
writes on keys a lot, but if you use this feature, you should add automatic checking of all
MyISAM tables by starting the server with the --myisam-recover option (for example,
--myisam-recover=BACKUP, FORCE). See Section 4.2.1, "mysqld Command-Line
Options," and Section 8.1.1, "MyISAM Startup Options."
Note that --external-locking doesn't offer any protection against index corruption for
tables that use delayed key writes.
• delayed_insert_limit
After inserting delayed_insert_limit delayed rows, the INSERT DELAYED handler

thread checks whether there are any SELECT statements pending. If so, it allows them to
execute before continuing to insert delayed rows.
• delayed_insert_timeout
How long an INSERT DELAYED handler thread should wait for INSERT statements before
terminating.
• delayed_queue_size
How many rows to queue when handling INSERT DELAYED statements. If the queue
becomes full, any client that issues an INSERT DELAYED statement will wait until there is
room in the queue again.
• flush
This is ON if you have started mysqld with the --flush option. This variable was added
in MySQL 3.22.9.
• flush_time
If this is set to a non-zero value, all tables will be closed every flush_time seconds to
free up resources and sync unflushed data to disk. We recommend this option only on
Windows 9x or Me, or on systems with minimal resources available. This variable was
• ft_boolean_syntax
The list of operators supported by boolean full-text searches performed using IN

BOOLEAN MODE. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.1.
The default variable value is '+ -><()~*:""&|'. The rules for changing the value are as
follows:
o Operator function is determined by position within the string.

o The replacement value must be 14 characters.
o Each character must be an ASCII non-alphanumeric character.
o Either the first or second character must be a space.
o No duplicates are allowed except the phrase quoting operators in positions 11 and
12. These two characters are not required to be the same, but they are the only two
that may be.
o Positions 10, 13, and 14 (which by default are set to ':', '&', and '|') are reserved
for future extensions.
• ft_max_word_len
The maximum length of the word to be included in a FULLTEXT index. This variable was
Note: FULLTEXT indexes must be rebuilt after changing this variable. Use REPAIR TABLE
tbl_name QUICK.
• ft_min_word_len
The minimum length of the word to be included in a FULLTEXT index. This variable was
tbl_name QUICK.
• ft_query_expansion_limit
The number of top matches to use for full-text searches performed using WITH QUERY
EXPANSION. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1.
• ft_stopword_file
The file from which to read the list of stopwords for full-text searches. All the words
from the file are used; comments are not honored. By default, a built-in list of stopwords
is used (as defined in the myisam/ft_static.c file). Setting this variable to the empty
string ('') disables stopword filtering. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.10.
tbl_name QUICK.
• group_concat_max_len
The maximum allowed result length for the GROUP_CONCAT() function. This variable was
• have_bdb
YES if mysqld supports BDB tables. DISABLED if --skip-bdb is used. This variable was
• have_innodb
YES if mysqld supports InnoDB tables. DISABLED if --skip-innodb is used. This variable
was added in MySQL 3.23.37.
• have_isam
YES if mysqld supports ISAM tables. DISABLED if --skip-isam is used. This variable was
• have_raid
YES if mysqld supports the RAID option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.30.
• have_openssl
YES if mysqld supports SSL (encryption) of the client/server protocol. This variable was
• init_connect
A string to be executed by the server for each client that connects. The string consists of
one or more SQL statements. To specify multiple statements, separate them by semicolon
characters. For example, each client begins by default with autocommit mode enabled.
There is no global server variable to specify that autocommit should be disabled by
default, but init_connect can be used to achieve the same effect:
SET GLOBAL init_connect='SET AUTOCOMMIT=0';
This variable can also be set on the command line or in an option file. To set the variable
as just shown using an option file, include these lines:
[mysqld]
init_connect='SET AUTOCOMMIT=0'
• init_file
The name of the file specified with the --init-file option when you start the server.
This is a file containing SQL statements that you want the server to execute when it
starts. Each statement must be on a single line and should not include comments. This
variable was added in MySQL 3.23.2.
• init_slave
This variable is similar to init_connect, but is a string to be executed by a slave server

each time the SQL thread starts. The format of the string is the same as for the
init_connect variable. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.2.
• innodb_xxx
The InnoDB system variables are listed in Section 9.5, "InnoDB Startup Options."
• interactive_timeout
The number of seconds the server waits for activity on an interactive connection before
closing it. An interactive client is defined as a client that uses the CLIENT_INTERACTIVE
option to mysql_real_connect(). See also wait_timeout.
• join_buffer_size
The size of the buffer that is used for full joins (joins that do not use indexes). The buffer
is allocated one time for each full join between two tables. Increase this value to get a
faster full join when adding indexes is not possible. (Normally the best way to get fast
joins is to add indexes.)
• key_buffer_size
Index blocks for MyISAM and ISAM tables are buffered and are shared by all threads.
key_buffer_size is the size of the buffer used for index blocks. The key buffer is also
known as the key cache.
Increase the value to get better index handling (for all reads and multiple writes) to as
much as you can afford. Using a value that is 25% of total memory on a machine that
mainly runs MySQL is quite common. However, if you make the value too large (for
example, more than 50% of your total memory) your system might start to page and
become extremely slow. MySQL relies on the operating system to perform filesystem
caching for data reads, so you must leave some room for the filesystem cache.
For even more speed when writing many rows at the same time, use LOCK TABLES.
You can check the performance of the key buffer by issuing a SHOW STATUS statement
and examining the Key_read_requests, Key_reads, Key_write_requests, and
Key_writes status variables.
The Key_reads/Key_read_requests ratio should normally be less than 0.01. The

Key_writes/Key_write_requests ratio is usually near 1 if you are using mostly
updates and deletes, but might be much smaller if you tend to do updates that affect many
rows at the same time or if you are using the DELAY_KEY_WRITE table option.
The fraction of the key buffer in use can be determined using key_buffer_size in
conjunction with the Key_blocks_used status variable and the buffer block size. From
MySQL 4.1.1 on, the buffer block size is available from the key_cache_block_size
server variable. The fraction of the buffer in use is:
(Key_blocks_used * key_cache_block_size) /
key_buffer_size
• Before MySQL 4.1.1, key cache blocks are 1024 bytes, so the fraction of the key buffer
in use is:
(Key_blocks_used * 1024) / key_buffer_size
See Section 6.4.6, "The MyISAM Key Cache."
• key_cache_age_threshold
This value controls the demotion of buffers from the hot sub-chain of a key cache to the
warm sub-chain. Lower values cause demotion to happen more quickly. The minimum
value is 100. The default value is 300. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.1. See
Section 6.4.6, "The MyISAM Key Cache."
• key_cache_block_size
The size in bytes of blocks in the key cache. The default value is 1024. This variable was
added in MySQL 4.1.1. See Section 6.4.6, "The MyISAM Key Cache."
• key_cache_division_limit
The division point between the hot and warm sub-chains of the key cache buffer chain.
The value is the percentage of the buffer chain to use for the warm sub-chain. Allowable
values range from 1 to 100. The default value is 100. This variable was added in MySQL
4.1.1. See Section 6.4.6, "The MyISAM Key Cache."
• language
The language used for error messages.
• large_file_support
Whether mysqld was compiled with options for large file support. This variable was
• local_infile
Whether LOCAL is supported for LOAD DATA INFILE statements. This variable was added
in MySQL 4.0.3.
• locked_in_memory
Whether mysqld was locked in memory with --memlock. This variable was added in
MySQL 3.23.25.
• log
Whether logging of all queries to the general query log is enabled. See Section 4.8.2,
"The General Query Log."
• log_bin
Whether the binary log is enabled. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.14. See
Section 4.8.4, "The Binary Log."
• log_slave_updates
Whether updates received by a slave server from a master server should be logged to the
slave's own binary log. Binary logging must be enabled on the slave for this to have any
effect. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.17. See Section 5.8, "Replication Startup
Options."
• log_slow_queries
Whether slow queries should be logged. "Slow" is determined by the value of the
long_query_time variable. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.2. See Section 4.8.5,
"The Slow Query Log."
• log_update
Whether the update log is enabled. This variable was added in MySQL 3.22.18. Note that
the binary log is preferable to the update log, which is unavailable as of MySQL 5.0. See
Section 4.8.3, "The Update Log."
• long_query_time
If a query takes longer than this many seconds, the Slow_queries status variable is
incremented. If you are using the --log-slow-queries option, the query is logged to the
slow query log file. This value is measured in real time, not CPU time, so a query that is
under the threshold on a lightly loaded system might be above the threshold on a heavily
loaded one. See Section 4.8.5, "The Slow Query Log."
• low_priority_updates
If set to 1, all INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, and LOCK TABLE WRITE statements wait until
there is no pending SELECT or LOCK TABLE READ on the affected table. This variable
previously was named sql_low_priority_updates. It was added in MySQL 3.22.5.
• lower_case_table_names
If set to 1, table names are stored in lowercase on disk and table name comparisons are
not case sensitive. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.6. If set to 2 (new in 4.0.18),
table names are stored as given but compared in lowercase. From MySQL 4.0.2, this
option also applies to database names. From 4.1.1, it also applies to table aliases.
You should not set this variable to 0 if you are running MySQL on a system that does not
have case-sensitive filenames (such as Windows or Mac OS X). New in 4.0.18: If this
variable is 0 and the filesystem on which the data directory is located does not have case-
sensitive filenames, MySQL automatically sets lower_case_table_names to 2.
• max_allowed_packet
The maximum size of one packet. The message buffer is initialized to
net_buffer_length bytes, but can grow up to max_allowed_packet bytes when
needed. This value by default is small, to catch big (possibly wrong) packets. You must
increase this value if you are using big BLOB columns. It should be as big as the biggest
BLOB you want to use. The protocol limit for max_allowed_packet is 16MB before
MySQL 4.0 and 1GB thereafter.
• max_binlog_cache_size
If a multiple-statement transaction requires more than this amount of memory, you will
get the error Multi-statement transaction required more than
'max_binlog_cache_size' bytes of storage. This variable was added in MySQL
3.23.29.
• max_binlog_size
If a write to the binary log exceeds the given value, rotate the binary logs. You cannot set
this variable to more than 1GB or to less than 4096 bytes. (The minimum before MYSQL
4.0.14 is 1024 bytes.) The default value is 1GB. This variable was added in MySQL
3.23.33.
Note if you are using transactions: A transaction is written in one chunk to the binary log,
hence it is never split between several binary logs. Therefore, if you have big
transactions, you might see binary logs bigger than max_binlog_size.
If max_relay_log_size is 0, the value of max_binlog_size applies to relay logs as

well. max_relay_log_size was added in MySQL 4.0.14.
• max_connect_errors
If there are more than this number of interrupted connections from a host, that host is
blocked from further connections. You can unblock blocked hosts with the FLUSH HOSTS
statement.
• max_connections
The number of simultaneous client connections allowed. Increasing this value increases
the number of file descriptors that mysqld requires. See Section 6.4.8, "How MySQL
Opens and Closes Tables," for comments on file descriptor limits. Also see Section
A.2.6, "Too many connections."
• max_delayed_threads
Don't start more than this number of threads to handle INSERT DELAYED statements. If
you try to insert data into a new table after all INSERT DELAYED threads are in use, the
row will be inserted as if the DELAYED attribute wasn't specified. If you set this to 0,
MySQL never creates a thread to handle DELAYED rows; in effect, this disables DELAYED
entirely. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.0.
• max_error_count
The maximum number of error, warning, and note messages to be stored for display by
SHOW ERRORS or SHOW WARNINGS. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.0.
• max_heap_table_size
This variable sets the maximum size to which MEMORY (HEAP) tables are allowed to grow.
The value of the variable is used to calculate MEMORY table MAX_ROWS values. Setting this
variable has no effect on any existing MEMORY table, unless the table is re-created with a
statement such as CREATE TABLE or TRUNCATE TABLE, or altered with ALTER TABLE. This
• max_insert_delayed_threads
This variable is a synonym for max_delayed_threads. It was added in MySQL 4.0.19.
• max_join_size
Don't allow SELECT statements that probably will need to examine more than
max_join_size row combinations or are likely to do more than max_join_size disk
seeks. By setting this value, you can catch SELECT statements where keys are not used
properly and that would probably take a long time. Set it if your users tend to perform
joins that lack a WHERE clause, that take a long time, or that return millions of rows.
Setting this variable to a value other than DEFAULT resets the SQL_BIG_SELECTS value to
0. If you set the SQL_BIG_SELECTS value again, the max_join_size variable is ignored.
If a query result already is in the query cache, no result size check is performed, because
the result has already been computed and it does not burden the server to send it to the
client.
This variable previously was named sql_max_join_size.
• max_relay_log_size
If a write by a replication slave to its relay log exceeds the given value, rotate the relay
log. This variable enables you to put different size constraints on relay logs and binary
logs. However, setting the variable to 0 makes MySQL use max_binlog_size for both
binary logs and relay logs. You must set max_relay_log_size to between 4096 bytes
and 1GB (inclusive), or to 0. The default value is 0. This variable was added in MySQL
4.0.14. See Section 5.3, "Replication Implementation Details."
• max_seeks_for_key
Limit the assumed maximum number of seeks when looking up rows based on a key. The
MySQL optimizer will assume that no more than this number of key seeks will be
required when searching for matching rows in a table by scanning a key, regardless of the
actual cardinality of the key. By setting this to a low value (100?), you can force MySQL
to prefer keys instead of table scans. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.14.
• max_sort_length
The number of bytes to use when sorting BLOB or TEXT values. Only the first
max_sort_length bytes of each value are used; the rest are ignored.
• max_tmp_tables
The maximum number of temporary tables a client can keep open at the same time. (This
option doesn't yet do anything.)
• max_user_connections
The maximum number of simultaneous connections allowed to any given MySQL

account. A value of 0 means "no limit." This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.34.
• max_write_lock_count
After this many write locks, allow some read locks to run in between. This variable was
• myisam_data_pointer_size
Default pointer size in bytes to be used by CREATE TABLE for MyISAM tables when no
MAX_ROWS option is specified. This variable cannot be less than 2 or larger than 8. The
default value is 4. This variable was added in MySQL 4.1.2. See Section A.2.11, "The
table is full."
• myisam_max_extra_sort_file_size
If the temporary file used for fast MyISAM index creation would be larger than using the
key cache by the amount specified here, prefer the key cache method. This is mainly used
to force long character keys in large tables to use the slower key cache method to create
the index. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.37. Note: The value is given in
megabytes before 4.0.3 and in bytes thereafter.
• myisam_max_sort_file_size
The maximum size of the temporary file MySQL is allowed to use while re-creating a
MyISAM index (during REPAIR TABLE, ALTER TABLE, or LOAD DATA INFILE). If the file
size would be bigger than this value, the index will be created using the key cache
instead, which is slower. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.37. Note: The value is
given in megabytes before 4.0.3 and in bytes thereafter.
• myisam_recover_options
The value of the --myisam-recover option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.36.
• myisam_repair_threads
If this value is greater than 1, MyISAM table indexes are created in parallel (each index in
its own thread) during the Repair by sorting process. The default value is 1. Note:
Multi-threaded repair is still alpha quality code. This variable was added in MySQL
4.0.13.
• myisam_sort_buffer_size
The buffer that is allocated when sorting MyISAM indexes during a REPAIR TABLE or
when creating indexes with CREATE INDEX or ALTER TABLE. This variable was added in
MySQL 3.23.16.
• named_pipe
On Windows, indicates whether the server supports connections over named pipes. This
• net_buffer_length
The communication buffer is reset to this size between queries. This should not normally
be changed, but if you have very little memory, you can set it to the expected length of
SQL statements sent by clients. If statements exceed this length, the buffer is
automatically enlarged, up to max_allowed_packet bytes.
• net_read_timeout
The number of seconds to wait for more data from a connection before aborting the read.
When the server is reading from the client, net_read_timeout is the timeout value
controlling when to abort. When the server is writing to the client, net_write_timeout
is the timeout value controlling when to abort. See also slave_net_timeout. This
• net_retry_count
If a read on a communication port is interrupted, retry this many times before giving up.
This value should be set quite high on FreeBSD because internal interrupts are sent to all
threads. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.7.
• net_write_timeout
The number of seconds to wait for a block to be written to a connection before aborting
the write. See also net_read_timeout. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.20.
• open_files_limit
The number of files that the operating system allows mysqld to open. This is the real
value allowed by the system and might be different from the value you gave mysqld as a
startup option. The value is 0 on systems where MySQL can't change the number of open
files. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.20.
• pid_file
The pathname of the process ID (PID) file. This variable can be set with the --pid-file
option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.23.
• port
The port on which the server listens for TCP/IP connections. This variable can be set with
the --port option.
• protocol_version
The version of the client/server protocol used by the MySQL server. This variable was
• query_alloc_block_size
The allocation size of memory blocks that are allocated for objects created during query
parsing and execution. If you have problems with memory fragmentation, it might help to
increase this a bit. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.16.
• query_cache_limit
Don't cache results that are bigger than this. The default value is 1MB. This variable was
• query_cache_min_res_unit
The minimum size for blocks allocated by the query cache. The default value is 4KB.
Tuning information for this variable is given in Section 4.10.3, "Query Cache
Configuration." This variable is present from MySQL 4.1.
• query_cache_size
The amount of memory allocated for caching query results. The default value is 0, which
disables the query cache. Note that this amount of memory will be allocated even if
query_cache_type is set to 0. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.1.
• query_cache_type
Set query cache type. Setting the GLOBAL value sets the type for all clients that connect
thereafter. Individual clients can set the SESSION value to affect their own use of the
query cache.
Option Description
0 or OFF Don't cache or retrieve results. Note that this will not deallocate the query cache
buffer. To do that, you should set query_cache_size to 0.
1 or ON Cache all query results except for those that begin with SELECT SQL_NO_CACHE.
2 or Cache results only for queries that begin with SELECT SQL_CACHE.
DEMAND
• query_cache_wlock_invalidate
Normally, when one client acquires a WRITE lock on a MyISAM table, other clients are not
blocked from issuing queries for the table if the query results are present in the query
cache. Setting this variable to 1 causes acquisition of a WRITE lock for a table to
invalidate any queries in the query cache that refer to the table. This forces other clients
that attempt to access the table to wait while the lock is in effect. This variable was added
in MySQL 4.0.19.
• query_prealloc_size
The size of the persistent buffer used for query parsing and execution. This buffer is not
freed between queries. If you are running complex queries, a larger
query_prealloc_size value might be helpful in improving performance, because it can
reduce the need for the server to perform memory allocation during query execution
operations.

• range_alloc_block_size
The size of blocks that are allocated when doing range optimization. This variable was
• read_buffer_size
Each thread that does a sequential scan allocates a buffer of this size for each table it
scans. If you do many sequential scans, you might want to increase this value. This
variable was added in MySQL 4.0.3. Previously, it was named record_buffer.
• read_only
When the variable is set to ON for a replication slave server, it causes the slave to allow no
updates except from slave threads or from users with the SUPER privilege. This can be
useful to ensure that a slave server accepts no updates from clients. This variable was
• read_rnd_buffer_size
When reading rows in sorted order after a sort, the rows are read through this buffer to
avoid disk seeks. Setting the variable to a large value can improve ORDER BY performance
by a lot. However, this is a buffer allocated for each client, so you should not set the
global variable to a large value. Instead, change the session variable only from within
those clients that need to run large queries. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.3.
Previously, it was named record_rnd_buffer.
• safe_show_database
Don't show databases for which the user has no database or table privileges. This can
improve security if you're concerned about people being able to see what databases other
users have. See also skip_show_database.
This variable was removed in MySQL 4.0.5. Instead, use the SHOW DATABASES privilege
to control access by MySQL accounts to database names.
• secure_auth
If the MySQL server has been started with the --secure-auth option, it blocks
connections from all accounts that have passwords stored in the old (pre-4.1) format. In
that case, the value of this variable is ON, otherwise it is OFF.
You should enable this option if you want to prevent all usage of passwords in old format
(and hence insecure communication over the network). This variable was added in
MySQL 4.1.1.
Server startup will fail with an error if this option is enabled and the privilege tables are
in pre-4.1 format.
When used as a client-side option, the client refuses to connect to a server if the server
requires a password in old format for the client account.
• server_id
The value of the --server-id option. It is used for master and slave replication servers.
• skip_external_locking
This is OFF if mysqld uses external locking. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.3.
Previously, it was named skip_locking.
• skip_networking
This is ON if the server allows only local (non-TCP/IP) connections. On Unix, local
connections use a Unix socket file. On Windows, local connections use a named pipe. On
NetWare, only TCP/IP connections are supported, so do not set this variable to ON. This
• skip_show_database
This prevents people from using the SHOW DATABASES statement if they don't have the
SHOW DATABASES privilege. This can improve security if you're concerned about people
being able to see what databases other users have. See also safe_show_database. This
variable was added in MySQL 3.23.4. As of MySQL 4.0.2, its effect also depends on the
SHOW DATABASES privilege: If the variable value is ON, the SHOW DATABASES statement is
allowed only to users who have the SHOW DATABASES privilege, and the statement
displays all database names. If the value is OFF, SHOW DATABASES is allowed to all users,
but displays each database name only if the user has the SHOW DATABASES privilege or
some privilege for the database.
• slave_net_timeout
The number of seconds to wait for more data from a master/slave connection before
aborting the read. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.40.
• slow_launch_time
If creating a thread takes longer than this many seconds, the server increments the
Slow_launch_threads status variable. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.15.
• socket
On Unix, this is the Unix socket file used for local client connections. On Windows, this
is the name of the named pipe used for local client connections.
• sort_buffer_size
Each thread that needs to do a sort allocates a buffer of this size. Increase this value for
faster ORDER BY or GROUP BY operations. See Section A.4.4, "Where MySQL Stores
Temporary Files."
• sql_mode
The current server SQL mode. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.41. See Section
4.2.2, "The Server SQL Mode."
• storage_engine
This variable is a synonym for table_type. It was added in MySQL 4.1.2.
• table_cache
The number of open tables for all threads. Increasing this value increases the number of
file descriptors that mysqld requires. You can check whether you need to increase the
table cache by checking the Opened_tables status variable. See Section 4.2.4, "Server
Status Variables." If the value of Opened_tables is large and you don't do FLUSH
TABLES a lot (which just forces all tables to be closed and reopened), then you should
increase the value of the table_cache variable.
For more information about the table cache, see Section 6.4.8, "How MySQL Opens and
Closes Tables."
• table_type
The default table type (storage engine). To set the table type at server startup, use the
--default-table-type option. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.0. See Section
4.2.1, "mysqld Command-Line Options."
• thread_cache_size
How many threads the server should cache for reuse. When a client disconnects, the
client's threads are put in the cache if there aren't already thread_cache_size threads
there. Requests for threads are satisfied by reusing threads taken from the cache if
possible, and only when the cache is empty is a new thread created. This variable can be
increased to improve performance if you have a lot of new connections. (Normally this
doesn't give a notable performance improvement if you have a good thread
implementation.) By examining the difference between the Connections and
Threads_created status variables (see Section 4.2.4, "Server Status Variables," for
details) you can see how efficient the thread cache is. This variable was added in MySQL
3.23.16.
• thread_concurrency
On Solaris, mysqld calls thr_setconcurrency() with this value. This function allows
applications to give the threads system a hint about the desired number of threads that
should be run at the same time. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.7.
• thread_stack
The stack size for each thread. Many of the limits detected by the crash-me test are
dependent on this value. The default is large enough for normal operation. See Section
6.1.4, "The MySQL Benchmark Suite."
• timezone
The time zone for the server. This is set from the TZ environment variable when mysqld
is started. The time zone also can be set by giving a --timezone argument to
mysqld_safe. This variable was added in MySQL 3.23.15. See Section A.4.6, "Time
Zone Problems."
• tmp_table_size
If an in-memory temporary table exceeds this size, MySQL automatically converts it to

an on-disk MyISAM table. Increase the value of tmp_table_size if you do many
advanced GROUP BY queries and you have lots of memory.
• tmpdir
The directory used for temporary files and temporary tables. Starting from MySQL 4.1,
this variable can be set to a list of several paths that are used in round-robin fashion.
Paths should be separated by colon characters (':') on Unix and semicolon characters (';')
on Windows, NetWare, and OS/2.
This feature can be used to spread the load between several physical disks. If the MySQL
server is acting as a replication slave, you should not set tmpdir to point to a directory on
a memory-based filesystem or to a directory that is cleared when the server host restarts.
A replication slave needs some of its temporary files to survive a machine restart so that
it can replicate temporary tables or LOAD DATA INFILE operations. If files in the
temporary file directory are lost when the server restarts, replication will fail.
• transaction_alloc_block_size
The allocation size of memory blocks that are allocated for storing queries that are part of
a transaction to be stored in the binary log when doing a commit. This variable was added
in MySQL 4.0.16.
• transaction_prealloc_size
The size of the persistent buffer for transaction_alloc_blocks that is not freed
between queries. By making this big enough to fit all queries in a common transaction,
you can avoid a lot of malloc() calls. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.16.
• tx_isolation
The default transaction isolation level. This variable was added in MySQL 4.0.3.
• version
The version number for the server.
• wait_timeout
The number of seconds the server waits for activity on a non-interactive connection
before closing it.
On thread startup, the session wait_timeout value is initialized from the global
wait_timeout value or from the global interactive_timeout value, depending on the
type of client (as defined by the CLIENT_INTERACTIVE connect option to
mysql_real_connect()). See also interactive_timeout.
Please check back next week for the continuation of this article.
DISCLAIMER: The content provided in this article is not warranted or guaranteed by Developer
Shed, Inc. The content provided is intended for entertainment and/or educational purposes in
order to introduce to the reader key ideas, concepts, and/or product reviews. As such it is
incumbent upon the reader to employ real-world tactics for security and implementation of best
practices. We are not liable for any negative consequences that may result from implementing any
information covered in our articles or tutorials. If this is a hardware review, it is not recommended
to open and/or modify your hardware.

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MySQL Database Administration

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What are the main MySQL server programs?

What are the main MySQL server programs?

What is the purpose of mysqld_safe?

What is the purpose of mysqld_safe?

MySQL Database Administration

MySQL Database Administration

4.1 The MySQL Server and Server Startup Scripts

4.1.1 Overview of the Server-Side Scripts and Utilities

MySQL Database Administration - 4.1.2 The mysqld-max Extended MySQL Server

The distribution to use depends on your platform:

This option adds a -max suffix to the mysqld version string.

This define enables symbolic link support for Windows.

System BDB Support

mysql> SHOW ENGINES;

mysql> SHOW VARIABLES LIKE 'have_%';

MySQL Database Administration - 4.1.3 The mysqld_safe Server Startup Script

Note: Before MySQL 4.0, mysqld_safe is named safe_mysqld. To preserve backward

By default, mysqld_safe tries to start an executable named mysqld-max if it exists, or mysqld

mysqld_safe supports the following options:

The path to the MySQL installation directory.

The path to the data directory.

Do not read any option files.

The path to the process ID file.

The port number to use when listening for TCP/IP connections.

The Unix socket file to use for local connections.

1. Runs a number of system and option checks.

MySQL Database Administration - 4.1.4 The mysql.server Server Startup Script

4.1.5 The mysqld_multi Program for Managing Multiple MySQL Servers

To invoke mysqld_multi, use the following syntax:

shell> mysqld_multi [options] {start|stop|report}

This command starts a single server using option group [mysqld17]:

shell> mysqld_multi start 17

shell> mysqld_multi start 8,10-13

shell> mysqld_multi --example

mysqld_multi supports the following options:

Display a sample option file.

Display a help message and exit.

The mysqladmin binary to be used to stop servers.

The username of the MySQL account to use when invoking mysqladmin.

Some notes about mysqld_multi:

• -> TO 'multi_admin'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED

• the binary release)

# This file should probably be in your home dir

See Section 3.3.2, "Using Option Files."

MySQL Database Administration - 4.2 Configuring the MySQL Server

This section discusses MySQL server configuration topics:

• Startup options that the server supports

4.2.1 mysqld Command-Line Options

The IP address to bind to.

Write the error log messages to stderr/stdout even if --log-error is specified. On

The path to the data directory.

This option is a synonym for --default-table-type. It is available as of MySQL 4.1.2.

• --delay-key-write[= OFF | ON | ALL]

This option was named --warnings before MySQL 4.0.

The following options affect how the repair works:

This option is available as of MySQL 3.23.25.

o TIMESTAMP is returned as a string with the format 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS'.

The path to the process ID file used by mysqld_safe.

The port number to use when listening for TCP/IP connections.

Skip some optimization stages.