I am currently working with a large customer and I am involved with servers located in two data centers, one with Solaris servers and the other one with Linux servers. The Solaris side is cleverly setup using zones and ZFS and this provides a very low virtualization overhead. I learned quite a lot about these [...]
MySQL Backup tools used by Percona Remote DBA for MySQL
As part of Percona Remote DBA for MySQL service we recognize that reliable backups are one of the most important things we can bring to the table. In my experience handling emergencies, the single worst thing that can happen is finding out you don’t have backups available when some sort of data loss or catastrophic [...]
How to use a smartphone for two-factor authentication with Percona Server for MySQL
In this post I will describe a non-trivial way to authenticate users in Percona Sever for MySQL. Percona Server comes with PAM authentication plugin, which allows you to do a lot of cool things, such as: OS authentication, LDAP authentication, even RSA Secure Server authentication (which is useful if you are required a PCI-compliance), and [...]
Using MySQL Sandbox with Percona Server
One of the most useful tools if you’re working with multiple versions of MySQL Servers is MySQL Sandbox which allows you to maintain many different versions of MySQL, Percona Server, MariaDB. If you’re just working with single sandbox you can just use MySQL Sandbox in its most basic way and it will work:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 | root@smt2:~/sandboxes# make_sandbox /tmp/Percona-Server-5.5.29-rel29.4-401.Linux.x86_64.tar.gz unpacking /tmp/Percona-Server-5.5.29-rel29.4-401.Linux.x86_64.tar.gz Executing low_level_make_sandbox --basedir=/tmp/5.5.29 \ --sandbox_directory=msb_5_5_29 \ --install_version=5.5 \ --sandbox_port=5529 \ --no_ver_after_name \ --my_clause=log-error=msandbox.err ... no_run = no_show = do you agree? ([Y],n) Y loading grants ... sandbox server started Your sandbox server was installed in $HOME/sandboxes/msb_5_5_29 |
However [...]
Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo 2013: The talks I want to see
I’ve been woefully neglectful of my responsibilities to post regularly about Percona Live MySQL Conference and Expo 2013 (PLCME 2013), but here’s some highlights of what I am planning to attend from the schedule. Read to the very bottom for the chance to win a free full pass to the conference! When picking talks to attend, [...]
Fun with the MySQL pager command
Last time I wrote about a few tips that can make you more efficient when using the command line on Unix. Today I want to focus more on pager. The most common usage of pager is to set it to a Unix pager such as less. It can be very useful to view the result [...]
Percona Toolkit by example – pt-stalk
pt-stalk recipes: Gather forensic data about MySQL when a server problem occurs It happens to us all from time to time: a server issue arises that leaves you scratching your head. That’s when Percona Toolkit’s pt-stalk comes into play, helping you diagnose the problem by capturing diagnostic data that helps you pinpoint what’s causing the [...]
Auditing login attempts in MySQL
This is a recurrent question made by our MySQL Support customers: How can I audit the login attempts in MySQL? Logging all the attempts or just the failed ones is a very important task on some scenarios. Unfortunately there are not too many audit capabilities in MySQL Community so the first option to audit MySQL’s [...]
Be productive with the MySQL command line
Even if you are using a GUI tool to connect to your MySQL servers, one day or another, you will have to deal with the command line. So it is nice to know a few tips that can really make your work easier. Note: The commands below are only available for Unix/Linux. Using pager Most [...]
Get Me Some Query Logs!
One of my favorite tools in the Percona Toolkit is pt-query-digest. This tool is indispensable for identifying your top SQL queries, and analyzing which queries are accounting for your database load. But the report you get from pt-query-digest is only as good as the log of queries you give it as input. You need a large [...]

