PT-VARIABLE-ADVISOR(1)

NAME
pt-variable-advisor - Analyze MySQL variables and advise on possible problems.

SYNOPSIS
Usage: pt-variable-advisor [OPTIONS] [DSN]

pt-variable-advisor analyzes variables and advises on possible problems.

Get SHOW VARIABLES from localhost:

  pt-variable-advisor localhost

Get SHOW VARIABLES output saved in vars.txt:

  pt-variable-advisor --source-of-variables vars.txt

RISKS
Percona Toolkit is mature, proven in the real world, and well tested, but all database tools can pose a risk to the system and the database server. Before using this tool, please:

•   Read the tool's documentation

•   Review the tool's known "BUGS"

•   Test the tool on a non-production server

•   Backup your production server and verify the backups

DESCRIPTION
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, 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 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 can cause replicas to stop fetching binary logs from their master immediately. This could increase the risk that your data will be lost if the master crashes. If the replicas have encountered a limit on relay log space, then it is possible that the latest transactions exist only on the master and no replica has retrieved them.

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.

--ask-pass
    Prompt for a password when connecting to MySQL.

--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.

--database
    short form: -D; type: string

    Connect to this database.

--config
    type: Array

    Read this comma-separated list of config files; if specified, this must be the first option on the command line.

--daemonize
    Fork to the background and detach from the shell. POSIX operating systems only.

--defaults-file
    short form: -F; type: string

    Only read mysql options from the given file. You must give an absolute pathname.

--help
    Show help and exit.

--host
    short form: -h; type: string

    Connect to host.

--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.

--password
    short form: -p; type: string

    Password to use when connecting.

--pid
    type: string

    Create the given PID file. The tool won't start if the PID file already exists and the PID it contains is different than the current PID. However, if the PID file exists and the PID it contains is no longer running, the tool will overwrite the PID file with the current PID. The PID file is removed automatically when the tool exits.

--port
    short form: -P; type: int

    Port number to use for connection.

--set-vars
    type: Array

    Set the MySQL variables in this comma-separated list of "variable=value" pairs.

    By default, the tool sets:

       wait_timeout=10000

    Variables specified on the command line override these defaults. For example, specifying "--set-vars wait_timeout=500" overrides the defaultvalue of 10000.

    The tool prints a warning and continues if a variable cannot be set.

--socket
    short form: -S; type: string

    Socket file to use for connection.

--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.

--user
    short form: -u; type: string

    User for login if not current user.

--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.

--version
    Show version and exit.

--[no]version-check
    default: yes

    Check for the latest version of Percona Toolkit, MySQL, and other programs.

    This is a standard "check for updates automatically" feature, with two additional features. First, the tool checks the version of other programs on the local system in addition to its own version. For example, it checks the version of every MySQL server it connects to, Perl, and the Perl module DBD::mysql. Second, it checks for and warns about versions with known problems. For example, MySQL 5.5.25 had a critical bug and was re-released as 5.5.25a.

    Any updates or known problems are printed to STDOUT before the tool's normal output. This feature should never interfere with the normal operation of the tool.

    For more information, visit https://www.percona.com/version-check <https://www.percona.com/version-check>.

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:

   PTDEBUG=1 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>. Include the following information in your bug report:

•   Complete command-line used to run the tool

•   Tool "--version"

•   MySQL version of all servers involved

•   Output from the tool including STDERR

•   Input files (log/dump/config files, etc.)

If possible, include debugging output by running the tool with "PTDEBUG"; see "ENVIRONMENT".

DOWNLOADING
Visit http://www.percona.com/software/percona-toolkit/ <http://www.percona.com/software/percona-toolkit/> to download the latest release of Percona Toolkit. Or, get the latest release from the command line:

   wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.tar.gz

   wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.rpm

   wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.deb

You can also get individual tools from the latest release:

   wget percona.com/get/TOOL

Replace "TOOL" with the name of any tool.

AUTHORS
Baron Schwartz and Daniel Nichter

ABOUT PERCONA TOOLKIT
This tool is part of Percona Toolkit, a collection of advanced command-line tools for MySQL developed by Percona. Percona Toolkit was forked from two projects in June, 2011: Maatkit and Aspersa. Those projects were created by Baron Schwartz and primarily developed by him and Daniel Nichter. Visit <http://www.percona.com/software/> to learn about other free, open-source software from Percona.

COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, AND WARRANTY
This program is copyright 2010-2013 Percona Ireland Ltd.

THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2; OR the Perl Artistic License. On UNIX and similar systems, you can issue `man perlgpl' or `man perlartistic' to read these licenses.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307 USA.

VERSION
pt-variable-advisor 2.2.3