MYSQLBINLOG(1)

NAME
mysqlbinlog - utility for processing binary log files

SYNOPSIS

mysqlbinlog [options] log_file ...

DESCRIPTION

The server's binary log consists of files containing “events” that describe modifications to database contents. The server writes these files in binary format. To display their contents in text format, use the mysqlbinlog utility. You can also use mysqlbinlog to display the contents of relay log files written by a slave server in a replication setup because relay logs have the same format as binary logs. The binary log and relay log are discussed further in Section 5.2.3, “The Binary Log”, and Section 15.2.2, “Replication Relay and Status Logs”.

Invoke mysqlbinlog like this:

    shell> mysqlbinlog [options] log_file ...

For example, to display the contents of the binary log file named binlog.000003, use this command:

    shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.0000003

The output includes events contained in binlog.000003. Event information includes the SQL statement, the ID of the server on which it was executed, the timestamp when the statement was executed, how much time it took, and so forth.

Events are preceded by header comments that provide additional information. For example:

    # at 141
    #100309  9:28:36 server id 123  end_log_pos 245
      Query thread_id=3350  exec_time=11  error_code=0

In the first line, the number following at indicates the starting position of the event in the binary log file.

The second line starts with a date and time indicating when the statement started on the server where the event originated. For replication, this timestamp is propagated to slave servers. server id is the server_id value of the server where the event originated. end_log_pos indicates where the next event starts (that is, it is the end position of the current event + 1). thread_id indicates which thread executed the event. exec_time is the time spent executing the event, on a master server. On a slave, it is the difference of the end execution time on the slave minus the beginning execution time on the master. The difference serves as an indicator of how much replication lags behind the master. error_code indicates the result from executing the event. Zero means that no error occurred.

The output from mysqlbinlog can be re-executed (for example, by using it as input to mysql) to redo the statements in the log. This is useful for recovery operations after a server crash. For other usage examples, see the discussion later in this section and in Section 6.5, “Point-in-Time (Incremental) Recovery Using the Binary Log”.

Normally, you use mysqlbinlog to read binary log files directly and apply them to the local MySQL server. It is also possible to read binary logs from a remote server by using the --read-from-remote-server option. To read remote binary logs, the connection parameter options can be given to indicate how to connect to the server. These options are --host, --password, --port, --protocol, --socket, and --user; they are ignored except when you also use the --read-from-remote-server option.

mysqlbinlog supports the following options, which can be specified on the command line or in the [mysqlbinlog] and [client] groups of an option file. mysqlbinlog also supports the options for processing option files described at Section 4.2.3.3.1, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

    • --help, -?

    Display a help message and exit.

    • --character-sets-dir=path

    The directory where character sets are installed. See Section 9.5, “Character Set Configuration”.

    • --database=db_name, -d db_name

    This option causes mysqlbinlog to output entries from the binary log (local log only) that occur while db_name is been selected as the default database by USE.

    The --database option for mysqlbinlog is similar to the --binlog-do-db option for mysqld, but can be used to specify only one database. If --database is given multiple times, only the last instance is used.

    The --database option works as follows:

        • While db_name is the default database, statements are output whether they modify tables in db_name or a different database.

        • Unless db_name is selected as the default database, statements are not output, even if they modify tables in db_name.

        • There is an exception for CREATE DATABASE, ALTER DATABASE, and DROP DATABASE. The database being created, altered, or dropped is considered to be the default database when determining whether to output the statement.
        Suppose that the binary log contains these statements:

            INSERT INTO test.t1 (i) VALUES(100);
            INSERT INTO db2.t2 (j)  VALUES(200);
            USE test;
            INSERT INTO test.t1 (i) VALUES(101);
            INSERT INTO t1 (i)      VALUES(102);
            INSERT INTO db2.t2 (j)  VALUES(201);
            USE db2;
            INSERT INTO test.t1 (i) VALUES(103);
            INSERT INTO db2.t2 (j)  VALUES(202);
            INSERT INTO t2 (j)      VALUES(203);

        mysqlbinlog --database=test does not output the first two INSERT statements because there is no default database. It outputs the three INSERT statements following USE test, but not the three INSERT statements following USE db2.

        mysqlbinlog --database=db2 does not output the first two INSERT statements because there is no default database. It does not output the three INSERT statements following USE test, but does output the three INSERT statements following USE db2.

        • --debug[=debug_options], -# [debug_options]

        Write a debugging log. A typical debug_options string is 'd:t:o,file_name'. The default is 'd:t:o,/tmp/mysqlbinlog.trace'.

        • --disable-log-bin, -D

        Disable binary logging. This is useful for avoiding an endless loop if you use the --to-last-log option and are sending the output to the same MySQL server. This option also is useful when restoring after a crash to avoid duplication of the statements you have logged.

        This option requires that you have the SUPER privilege. It causes mysqlbinlog to include a SET sql_log_bin = 0 statement in its output to disable binary logging of the remaining output. The SET statement is ineffective unless you have the SUPER privilege.

        • --force-read, -f

        With this option, if mysqlbinlog reads a binary log event that it does not recognize, it prints a warning, ignores the event, and continues. Without this option, mysqlbinlog stops if it reads such an event.

        • --hexdump, -H

        Display a hex dump of the log in comments. The hex output can be helpful for replication debugging. Hex dump format is discussed later in this section. This option was added in MySQL 5.0.16.

        • --host=host_name, -h host_name

        Get the binary log from the MySQL server on the given host.

        • --local-load=path, -l path

        Prepare local temporary files for LOAD DATA INFILE in the specified directory.

            Important
            These temporary files are not automatically removed by mysqlbinlog or any other MySQL program.

        • --offset=N, -o N

        Skip the first N entries in the log.

        • --password[=password], -p[password]

        The password to use when connecting to the server. If you use the short option form (-p), you cannot have a space between the option and the password. If you omit the password value following the --password or -p option on the command line, mysqlbinlog prompts for one.

        Specifying a password on the command line should be considered insecure. See Section 5.3.2.2, “End-User Guidelines for Password Security”. You can use an option file to avoid giving the password on the command line.

        • --port=port_num, -P port_num

        The TCP/IP port number to use for connecting to a remote server.

        • --position=N

        Deprecated. Use --start-position instead. --position is removed in MySQL 5.5.

        • --protocol={TCP|SOCKET|PIPE|MEMORY}

        The connection protocol to use for connecting to the server. It is useful when the other connection parameters normally would cause a protocol to be used other than the one you want. For details on the permissible values, see Section 4.2.2, “Connecting to the MySQL Server”.

        • --read-from-remote-server, -R

        Read the binary log from a MySQL server rather than reading a local log file. Any connection parameter options are ignored unless this option is given as well. These options are --host, --password, --port, --protocol, --socket, and --user.

        This option requires that the remote server be running. It works only for binary log files on the remote server, not relay log files.

        • --result-file=name, -r name

        Direct output to the given file.

        • --set-charset=charset_name

        Add a SET NAMES charset_name statement to the output to specify the character set to be used for processing log files. This option was added in MySQL 5.0.23.

        • --short-form, -s

        Display only the statements contained in the log, without any extra information. This is for testing only, and should not be used in production systems.

        • --socket=path, -S path

        For connections to localhost, the Unix socket file to use, or, on Windows, the name of the named pipe to use.

        • --start-datetime=datetime

        Start reading the binary log at the first event having a timestamp equal to or later than the datetime argument. The datetime value is relative to the local time zone on the machine where you run mysqlbinlog. The value should be in a format accepted for the DATETIME or TIMESTAMP data types. For example:

            shell> mysqlbinlog --start-datetime="2005-12-25 11:25:56" binlog.000003

        This option is useful for point-in-time recovery. See Section 6.3, “Example Backup and Recovery Strategy”.

        • --start-position=N, -j N

        Start reading the binary log at the first event having a position equal to or greater than N. This option applies to the first log file named on the command line.

        This option is useful for point-in-time recovery. See Section 6.3, “Example Backup and Recovery Strategy”.

        • --stop-datetime=datetime

        Stop reading the binary log at the first event having a timestamp equal to or later than the datetime argument. This option is useful for point-in-time recovery. See the description of the --start-datetime option for information about the datetime value.

        This option is useful for point-in-time recovery. See Section 6.3, “Example Backup and Recovery Strategy”.

        • --stop-position=N

        Stop reading the binary log at the first event having a position equal to or greater than N. This option applies to the last log file named on the command line.

        This option is useful for point-in-time recovery. See Section 6.3, “Example Backup and Recovery Strategy”.

        • --to-last-log, -t

        Do not stop at the end of the requested binary log from a MySQL server, but rather continue printing until the end of the last binary log. If you send the output to the same MySQL server, this may lead to an endless loop. This option requires --read-from-remote-server.

        • --user=user_name, -u user_name

        The MySQL user name to use when connecting to a remote server.

        • --version, -V

        Display version information and exit.

    You can also set the following variable by using --var_name=value syntax:

        • open_files_limit

        Specify the number of open file descriptors to reserve.

    It is also possible to set variables by using --set-variable=var_name=value or -O var_name=value syntax. This syntax is deprecated.

    You can pipe the output of mysqlbinlog into the mysql client to execute the events contained in the binary log. This technique is used to recover from a crash when you have an old backup (see Section 6.5, “Point-in-Time (Incremental) Recovery Using the Binary Log”). For example:

        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000001 | mysql -u root -p

    Or:

        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.[0-9]* | mysql -u root -p

    You can also redirect the output of mysqlbinlog to a text file instead, if you need to modify the statement log first (for example, to remove statements that you do not want to execute for some reason). After editing the file, execute the statements that it contains by using it as input to the mysql program:

        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000001 > tmpfile
        shell> ... edit tmpfile ...
        shell> mysql -u root -p < tmpfile

    When mysqlbinlog is invoked with the --start-position option, it displays only those events with an offset in the binary log greater than or equal to a given position (the given position must match the start of one event). It also has options to stop and start when it sees an event with a given date and time. This enables you to perform point-in-time recovery using the --stop-datetime option (to be able to say, for example, “roll forward my databases to how they were today at 10:30 a.m.”).

    If you have more than one binary log to execute on the MySQL server, the safe method is to process them all using a single connection to the server. Here is an example that demonstrates what may be unsafe:

        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000001 | mysql -u root -p # DANGER!!
        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000002 | mysql -u root -p # DANGER!!

    Processing binary logs this way using multiple connections to the server causes problems if the first log file contains a CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE statement and the second log contains a statement that uses the temporary table. When the first mysql process terminates, the server drops the temporary table. When the second mysql process attempts to use the table, the server reports “unknown table.”

    To avoid problems like this, use a single mysql process to execute the contents of all binary logs that you want to process. Here is one way to do so:

        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000001 binlog.000002 | mysql -u root -p

    Another approach is to write all the logs to a single file and then process the file:

        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000001 >  /tmp/statements.sql
        shell> mysqlbinlog binlog.000002 >> /tmp/statements.sql
        shell> mysql -u root -p -e "source /tmp/statements.sql"

    mysqlbinlog can produce output that reproduces a LOAD DATA INFILE operation without the original data file. mysqlbinlog copies the data to a temporary file and writes a LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE statement that refers to the file. The default location of the directory where these files are written is system-specific. To specify a directory explicitly, use the --local-load option.

    Because mysqlbinlog converts LOAD DATA INFILE statements to LOAD DATA LOCAL INFILE statements (that is, it adds LOCAL), both the client and the server that you use to process the statements must be configured with the LOCAL capability enabled. See Section 5.3.5, “Security Issues with LOAD DATA LOCAL”.

        Warning

        The temporary files created for LOAD DATA LOCAL statements are not automatically deleted because they are needed until you actually execute those statements. You should delete the temporary files yourself after you no longer need the statement log. The files can be found in the temporary file directory and have names like original_file_name-#-#.

    The --hexdump option produces a hex dump of the log contents:

        shell> mysqlbinlog --hexdump master-bin.000001

    The hex output consists of comment lines beginning with #, so the output might look like this for the preceding command:

        /*!40019 SET @@session.max_insert_delayed_threads=0*/;
        /*!50003 SET @OLD_COMPLETION_TYPE=@@COMPLETION_TYPE,COMPLETION_TYPE=0*/;
        # at 4
        #051024 17:24:13 server id 1  end_log_pos 98
        # Position  Timestamp   Type   Master ID        Size      Master Pos    Flags
        # 00000004 9d fc 5c 43   0f   01 00 00 00   5e 00 00 00   62 00 00 00   00 00
        # 00000017 04 00 35 2e 30 2e 31 35  2d 64 65 62 75 67 2d 6c |..5.0.15.debug.l|
        # 00000027 6f 67 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |og..............|
        # 00000037 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 |................|
        # 00000047 00 00 00 00 9d fc 5c 43  13 38 0d 00 08 00 12 00 |.......C.8......|
        # 00000057 04 04 04 04 12 00 00 4b  00 04 1a                |.......K...|
        #       Start: binlog v 4, server v 5.0.15-debug-log created 051024 17:24:13
        #       at startup
        ROLLBACK;

    Hex dump output currently contains the following elements. This format is subject to change.

        • Position: The byte position within the log file.

        • Timestamp: The event timestamp. In the example shown, '9d fc 5c 43' is the representation of '051024 17:24:13' in hexadecimal.

        • Type: The event type code. In the example shown, '0f' indicates a FORMAT_DESCRIPTION_EVENT. The following table lists the possible type codes.
        Type | Name | Meaning
        00 | UNKNOWN_EVENT | This event should never be present in the log.
        01 | START_EVENT_V3 | This indicates the start of a log file written by MySQL 4 or earlier.
        02 | QUERY_EVENT | The most common type of events. These contain statements executed on the master.
        03 | STOP_EVENT | Indicates that master has stopped.
        04 | ROTATE_EVENT | Written when the master switches to a new log file.
        05 | INTVAR_EVENT | Used for AUTO_INCREMENT values or when the LAST_INSERT_ID() function is used in the statement.
        06 | LOAD_EVENT | Used for LOAD DATA INFILE in MySQL 3.23.
        07 | SLAVE_EVENT | Reserved for future use.
        08 | CREATE_FILE_EVENT | Used for LOAD DATA INFILE statements. This indicates the start of execution of such a statement. A temporary file is created on the slave. Used in MySQL 4 only.
        09 | APPEND_BLOCK_EVENT | Contains data for use in a LOAD DATA INFILE statement. The data is stored in the temporary file on the slave.
        0a | EXEC_LOAD_EVENT | Used for LOAD DATA INFILE statements. The contents of the temporary file is stored in the table on the slave. Used in MySQL 4 only.
        0b | DELETE_FILE_EVENT | Rollback of a LOAD DATA INFILE statement. The temporary file should be deleted on the slave.
        0c | NEW_LOAD_EVENT | Used for LOAD DATA INFILE in MySQL 4 and earlier.
        0d | RAND_EVENT | Used to send information about random values if the RAND() function is used in the statement.
        0e | USER_VAR_EVENT | Used to replicate user variables.
        0f | FORMAT_DESCRIPTION_EVENT | This indicates the start of a log file written by MySQL 5 or later.
        10 | XID_EVENT | Event indicating commit of an XA transaction.
        11 | BEGIN_LOAD_QUERY_EVENT | Used for LOAD DATA INFILE statements in MySQL 5 and later.
        12 | EXECUTE_LOAD_QUERY_EVENT | Used for LOAD DATA INFILE statements in MySQL 5 and later.
        13 | TABLE_MAP_EVENT | Reserved for future use.
        14 | WRITE_ROWS_EVENT | Reserved for future use.
        15 | UPDATE_ROWS_EVENT | Reserved for future use.
        16 | DELETE_ROWS_EVENT | Reserved for future use.

        • Master ID: The server ID of the master that created the event.

        • Size: The size in bytes of the event.

        • Master Pos: The position of the next event in the original master log file.

        • Flags: 16 flags. Currently, the following flags are used. The others are reserved for future use.
        Flag | Name | Meaning
        01 | LOG_EVENT_BINLOG_IN_USE_F | Log file correctly closed. (Used only in FORMAT_DESCRIPTION_EVENT.) If this flag is set (if the flags are, for example, '01 00') in a FORMAT_DESCRIPTION_EVENT, the log file has not been properly closed. Most probably this is because of a master crash (for example, due to power failure).
        02 |  | Reserved for future use.
        04 | LOG_EVENT_THREAD_SPECIFIC_F | Set if the event is dependent on the connection it was executed in (for example, '04 00'), for example, if the event uses temporary tables.
        08 | LOG_EVENT_SUPPRESS_USE_F | Set in some circumstances when the event is not dependent on the default database.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright © 1997, 2011, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

This documentation is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it only under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; version 2 of the License.

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You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA or see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

SEE ALSO
For more information, please refer to the MySQL Reference Manual, which may already be installed locally and which is also available online at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/.

AUTHOR
Oracle Corporation (http://dev.mysql.com/).