Files
percona-toolkit/docs/user/source/pt-variable-advisor.rst
2011-09-07 04:24:23 -03:00

1009 lines
19 KiB
ReStructuredText

.. program:: pt-variable-advisor
================================
:program:`pt-variable-advisor`
================================
.. highlight:: perl
NAME
====
:program:`pt-variable-advisor` - Analyze |MySQL| variables and advise on possible problems.
SYNOPSIS
========
Usage
-----
::
pt-variable-advisor [OPTION...] [DSN]
:program:`pt-variable-advisor` analyzes variables and advises on possible problems.
Get SHOW VARIABLES from localhost:
.. code-block:: perl
pt-variable-advisor localhost
Get SHOW VARIABLES output saved in vars.txt:
.. code-block:: perl
pt-variable-advisor --source-of-variables vars.txt
RISKS
=====
The following section is included to inform users about the potential risks,
whether known or unknown, of using this tool. The two main categories of risks
are those created by the nature of the tool (e.g. read-only tools vs. read-write
tools) and those created by bugs.
:program:`pt-variable-advisor` reads |MySQL|'s configuration and examines it and is thus
very low risk.
At the time of this release, we know of no bugs that could cause serious harm to
users.
The authoritative source for updated information is always the online issue
tracking system. Issues that affect this tool will be marked as such. You can
see a list of such issues at the following URL:
`http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-variable-advisor <http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-variable-advisor>`_.
See also :ref:`bugs` for more information on filing bugs and getting help.
DESCRIPTION
===========
:program:`pt-variable-advisor` examines \ ``SHOW VARIABLES``\ for bad values and settings
according to the "RULES" described below. It reports on variables that
match the rules, so you can find bad settings in your |MySQL| server.
At the time of this release, :program:`pt-variable-advisor` only examples
\ ``SHOW VARIABLES``\ , but other input sources are planned like \ ``SHOW STATUS``\
and \ ``SHOW SLAVE STATUS``\ .
RULES
=====
These are the rules that :program:`pt-variable-advisor` will apply to SHOW VARIABLES.
Each rule has three parts: an ID, a severity, and a description.
The rule's ID is a short, unique name for the rule. It usually relates
to the variable that the rule examines. If a variable is examined by
several rules, then the rules' IDs are numbered like "-1", "-2", "-N".
The rule's severity is an indication of how important it is that this
rule matched a query. We use NOTE, WARN, and CRIT to denote these
levels.
The rule's description is a textual, human-readable explanation of
what it means when a variable matches this rule. Depending on the
verbosity of the report you generate, you will see more of the text in
the description. By default, you'll see only the first sentence,
which is sort of a terse synopsis of the rule's meaning. At a higher
verbosity, you'll see subsequent sentences.
* ``auto_increment``
severity: note
Are you trying to write to more than one server in a dual-master or
ring replication configuration? This is potentially very dangerous and in
most cases is a serious mistake. Most people's reasons for doing this are
actually not valid at all.
* ``concurrent_insert``
severity: note
Holes (spaces left by deletes) in |MyISAM| tables might never be
reused.
* ``connect_timeout``
severity: note
A large value of this setting can create a denial of service
vulnerability.
* ``debug``
severity: crit
Servers built with debugging capability should not be used in
production because of the large performance impact.
* ``delay_key_write``
severity: warn
|MyISAM| index blocks are never flushed until necessary. If there is
a server crash, data corruption on |MyISAM| tables can be much worse than
usual.
* ``flush``
severity: warn
This option might decrease performance greatly.
* ``flush_time``
severity: warn
This option might decrease performance greatly.
* ``have_bdb``
severity: note
The BDB engine is deprecated. If you aren't using it, you should
disable it with the skip_bdb option.
* ``init_connect``
severity: note
The init_connect option is enabled on this server.
* ``init_file``
severity: note
The init_file option is enabled on this server.
* ``init_slave``
severity: note
The init_slave option is enabled on this server.
* ``innodb_additional_mem_pool_size``
severity: warn
This variable generally doesn't need to be larger than 20MB.
* ``innodb_buffer_pool_size``
severity: warn
The |InnoDB| buffer pool size is unconfigured. In a production
environment it should always be configured explicitly, and the default
10MB size is not good.
* ``innodb_checksums``
severity: warn
|InnoDB| checksums are disabled. Your data is not protected from
hardware corruption or other errors!
* ``innodb_doublewrite``
severity: warn
|InnoDB| doublewrite is disabled. Unless you use a filesystem that
protects against partial page writes, your data is not safe!
* ``innodb_fast_shutdown``
severity: warn
|InnoDB|'s shutdown behavior is not the default. This can lead to
poor performance, or the need to perform crash recovery upon startup.
* ``innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit-1``
severity: warn
|InnoDB| is not configured in strictly ACID mode. If there
is a crash, some transactions can be lost.
* ``innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit-2``
severity: warn
Setting innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit to 0 has no performance
benefits over setting it to 2, and more types of data loss are possible.
If you are trying to change it from 1 for performance reasons, you should
set it to 2 instead of 0.
* ``innodb_force_recovery``
severity: warn
|InnoDB| is in forced recovery mode! This should be used only
temporarily when recovering from data corruption or other bugs, not for
normal usage.
* ``innodb_lock_wait_timeout``
severity: warn
This option has an unusually long value, which can cause
system overload if locks are not being released.
* ``innodb_log_buffer_size``
severity: warn
The |InnoDB| log buffer size generally should not be set larger than
16MB. If you are doing large BLOB operations, |InnoDB| is not really a good
choice of engines anyway.
* ``innodb_log_file_size``
severity: warn
The |InnoDB| log file size is set to its default value, which is not
usable on production systems.
* ``innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct``
severity: note
The innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct is lower than the default. This can
cause overly aggressive flushing and add load to the I/O system.
* ``flush_time``
severity: warn
This setting is likely to cause very bad performance every
flush_time seconds.
* ``key_buffer_size``
severity: warn
The key buffer size is unconfigured. In a production
environment it should always be configured explicitly, and the default
8MB size is not good.
* ``large_pages``
severity: note
Large pages are enabled.
* ``locked_in_memory``
severity: note
The server is locked in memory with --memlock.
* ``log_warnings-1``
severity: note
Log_warnings is disabled, so unusual events such as statements
unsafe for replication and aborted connections will not be logged to the
error log.
* ``log_warnings-2``
severity: note
Log_warnings must be set greater than 1 to log unusual events such
as aborted connections.
* ``low_priority_updates``
severity: note
The server is running with non-default lock priority for updates.
This could cause update queries to wait unexpectedly for read queries.
* ``max_binlog_size``
severity: note
The max_binlog_size is smaller than the default of 1GB.
* ``max_connect_errors``
severity: note
max_connect_errors should probably be set as large as your platform
allows.
* ``max_connections``
severity: warn
If the server ever really has more than a thousand threads running,
then the system is likely to spend more time scheduling threads than
really doing useful work. This variable's value should be considered in
light of your workload.
* ``myisam_repair_threads``
severity: note
myisam_repair_threads > 1 enables multi-threaded repair, which is
relatively untested and is still listed as beta-quality code in the
official documentation.
* ``old_passwords``
severity: warn
Old-style passwords are insecure. They are sent in plain text
across the wire.
* ``optimizer_prune_level``
severity: warn
The optimizer will use an exhaustive search when planning complex
queries, which can cause the planning process to take a long time.
* ``port``
severity: note
The server is listening on a non-default port.
* ``query_cache_size-1``
severity: note
The query cache does not scale to large sizes and can cause unstable
performance when larger than 128MB, especially on multi-core machines.
* ``query_cache_size-2``
severity: warn
The query cache can cause severe performance problems when it is
larger than 256MB, especially on multi-core machines.
* ``read_buffer_size-1``
severity: note
The read_buffer_size variable should generally be left at its
default unless an expert determines it is necessary to change it.
* ``read_buffer_size-2``
severity: warn
The read_buffer_size variable should not be larger than 8MB. It
should generally be left at its default unless an expert determines it is
necessary to change it. Making it larger than 2MB can hurt performance
significantly, and can make the server crash, swap to death, or just
become extremely unstable.
* ``read_rnd_buffer_size-1``
severity: note
The read_rnd_buffer_size variable should generally be left at its
default unless an expert determines it is necessary to change it.
* ``read_rnd_buffer_size-2``
severity: warn
The read_rnd_buffer_size variable should not be larger than 4M. It
should generally be left at its default unless an expert determines it is
necessary to change it.
* ``relay_log_space_limit``
severity: warn
Setting relay_log_space_limit is relatively rare, and could cause
an increased risk of previously unknown bugs in replication.
* ``slave_net_timeout``
severity: warn
This variable is set too high. This is too long to wait before
noticing that the connection to the master has failed and retrying. This
should probably be set to 60 seconds or less. It is also a good idea to
use pt-heartbeat to ensure that the connection does not appear to time out
when the master is simply idle.
* ``slave_skip_errors``
severity: crit
You should not set this option. If replication is having errors,
you need to find and resolve the cause of that; it is likely that your
slave's data is different from the master. You can find out with
pt-table-checksum.
* ``sort_buffer_size-1``
severity: note
The sort_buffer_size variable should generally be left at its
default unless an expert determines it is necessary to change it.
* ``sort_buffer_size-2``
severity: note
The sort_buffer_size variable should generally be left at its
default unless an expert determines it is necessary to change it. Making
it larger than a few MB can hurt performance significantly, and can make
the server crash, swap to death, or just become extremely unstable.
* ``sql_notes``
severity: note
This server is configured not to log Note level warnings to the
error log.
* ``sync_frm``
severity: warn
It is best to set sync_frm so that .frm files are flushed safely to
disk in case of a server crash.
* ``tx_isolation-1``
severity: note
This server's transaction isolation level is non-default.
* ``tx_isolation-2``
severity: warn
Most applications should use the default REPEATABLE-READ transaction
isolation level, or in a few cases READ-COMMITTED.
* ``expire_log_days``
severity: warn
Binary logs are enabled, but automatic purging is not enabled. If
you do not purge binary logs, your disk will fill up. If you delete
binary logs externally to |MySQL|, you will cause unwanted behaviors.
Always ask |MySQL| to purge obsolete logs, never delete them externally.
* ``innodb_file_io_threads``
severity: note
This option is useless except on Windows.
* ``innodb_data_file_path``
severity: note
Auto-extending |InnoDB| files can consume a lot of disk space that is
very difficult to reclaim later. Some people prefer to set
innodb_file_per_table and allocate a fixed-size file for ibdata1.
* ``innodb_flush_method``
severity: note
Most production database servers that use |InnoDB| should set
innodb_flush_method to O_DIRECT to avoid double-buffering, unless the I/O
system is very low performance.
* ``innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog``
severity: warn
This option makes point-in-time recovery from binary logs, and
replication, untrustworthy if statement-based logging is used.
* ``innodb_support_xa``
severity: warn
|MySQL|'s internal XA transaction support between |InnoDB| and the
binary log is disabled. The binary log might not match |InnoDB|'s state
after crash recovery, and replication might drift out of sync due to
out-of-order statements in the binary log.
* ``log_bin``
severity: warn
Binary logging is disabled, so point-in-time recovery and
replication are not possible.
* ``log_output``
severity: warn
Directing log output to tables has a high performance impact.
* ``max_relay_log_size``
severity: note
A custom max_relay_log_size is defined.
* ``myisam_recover_options``
severity: warn
myisam_recover_options should be set to some value such as
BACKUP,FORCE to ensure that table corruption is noticed.
* ``storage_engine``
severity: note
The server is using a non-standard storage engine as default.
* ``sync_binlog``
severity: warn
Binary logging is enabled, but sync_binlog isn't configured so that
every transaction is flushed to the binary log for durability.
* ``tmp_table_size``
severity: note
The effective minimum size of in-memory implicit temporary tables
used internally during query execution is min(tmp_table_size,
max_heap_table_size), so max_heap_table_size should be at least as large
as tmp_table_size.
* ``old mysql version``
severity: warn
These are the recommended minimum version for each major release: 3.23, 4.1.20, 5.0.37, 5.1.30.
* ``end-of-life mysql version``
severity: note
Every release older than 5.1 is now officially end-of-life.
OPTIONS
=======
This tool accepts additional command-line arguments. Refer to the
"SYNOPSIS" and usage information for details.
.. option:: --ask-pass
Prompt for a password when connecting to |MySQL|.
.. option:: --charset
short form: -A; type: string
Default character set. If the value is utf8, sets *Perl* 's binmode on
``STDOUT`` to utf8, passes the mysql_enable_utf8 option to ``DBD::mysql``, and
runs SET NAMES UTF8 after connecting to |MySQL|. Any other value sets
binmode on ``STDOUT`` without the utf8 layer, and runs SET NAMES after
connecting to |MySQL|.
.. option:: --config
type: Array
Read this comma-separated list of config files; if specified, this must be the
first option on the command line.
.. option:: --daemonize
Fork to the background and detach from the shell. POSIX
operating systems only.
.. option:: --defaults-file
short form: -F; type: string
Only read mysql options from the given file. You must give an absolute
pathname.
.. option:: --help
Show help and exit.
.. option:: --host
short form: -h; type: string
Connect to host.
.. option:: --ignore-rules
type: hash
Ignore these rule IDs.
Specify a comma-separated list of rule IDs (e.g. LIT.001,RES.002,etc.)
to ignore.
.. option:: --password
short form: -p; type: string
Password to use when connecting.
.. option:: --pid
type: string
Create the given PID file when daemonized. The file contains the process
ID of the daemonized instance. The PID file is removed when the
daemonized instance exits. The program checks for the existence of the
PID file when starting; if it exists and the process with the matching PID
exists, the program exits.
.. option:: --port
short form: -P; type: int
Port number to use for connection.
.. option:: --set-vars
type: string; default: wait_timeout=10000
Set these |MySQL| variables. Immediately after connecting to |MySQL|, this string
will be appended to SET and executed.
.. option:: --socket
short form: -S; type: string
Socket file to use for connection.
.. option:: --source-of-variables
type: string; default: mysql
Read \ ``SHOW VARIABLES``\ from this source. Possible values are "mysql", "none"
or a file name. If "mysql" is specified then you must also specify a DSN
on the command line.
.. option:: --user
short form: -u; type: string
User for login if not current user.
.. option:: --verbose
short form: -v; cumulative: yes; default: 1
Increase verbosity of output. At the default level of verbosity, the
program prints only the first sentence of each rule's description. At
higher levels, the program prints more of the description.
.. option:: --version
Show version and exit.
DSN OPTIONS
===========
These DSN options are used to create a DSN. Each option is given like
\ ``option=value``\ . The options are case-sensitive, so P and p are not the
same option. There cannot be whitespace before or after the \ ``=``\ and
if the value contains whitespace it must be quoted. DSN options are
comma-separated. See the percona-toolkit manpage for full details.
* ``A``
dsn: charset; copy: yes
Default character set.
* ``D``
dsn: database; copy: yes
Default database.
* ``F``
dsn: mysql_read_default_file; copy: yes
Only read default options from the given file
* ``h``
dsn: host; copy: yes
Connect to host.
* ``p``
dsn: password; copy: yes
Password to use when connecting.
* ``p``
dsn: port; copy: yes
Port number to use for connection.
* ``S``
dsn: mysql_socket; copy: yes
Socket file to use for connection.
* ``u``
dsn: user; copy: yes
User for login if not current user.
ENVIRONMENT
===========
The environment variable \ ``PTDEBUG``\ enables verbose debugging output to ``STDERR``.
To enable debugging and capture all output to a file, run the tool like:
.. code-block:: perl
PTDEBUG=1 :program:`pt-variable-advisor` ... > FILE 2>&1
Be careful: debugging output is voluminous and can generate several megabytes
of output.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
===================
You need *Perl* , ``DBI``, ``DBD::mysql``, and some core packages that ought to be
installed in any reasonably new version of *Perl* .
BUGS
====
For a list of known bugs, see `http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-variable-advisor <http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-variable-advisor>`_.
Please report bugs at `https://bugs.launchpad.net/percona-toolkit <https://bugs.launchpad.net/percona-toolkit>`_.
AUTHORS
=======
*Baron Schwartz* and *Daniel Nichter*
COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, AND WARRANTY
================================
This program is copyright 2010-2011 Percona Inc.
Feedback and improvements are welcome.
VERSION
=======
:program:`pt-variable-advisor` 1.0.1