MySQL replication allows you to have an exact copy of a database from a master server on another server (slave), and all updates to the database on the master server are immediately replicated to the database on the slave server so that both databases are in sync. This is not a backup policy because an accidentally issued DELETE command will also be carried out on the slave; but replication can help protect against hardware failures though.
Configure The Master
First we have to edit /etc/mysql/my.cnf. We have to enable networking for MySQL, and MySQL should listen on all IP addresses, therefore we comment out these lines (if existant):
#skip-networking #bind-address = 127.0.0.1
Furthermore we have to tell MySQL for which database it should write logs (these logs are used by the slave to see what has changed on the master), which log file it should use, and we have to specify that this MySQL server is the master. We put the following lines into /etc/mysql/my.cnf:
log-bin = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log server-id = 1
Then we restart MySQL:
[root@host]# /etc/init.d/mysql restart
Then we log into the MySQL database as root and create a user with replication privileges:
[root@host]# mysql -uroot -p Enter password: mysql> GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'slave_user'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY ''; mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES; mysql> USE exampledb; FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK; SHOW MASTER STATUS;
Write down this information, we will need it later on the slave!
Then leave the MySQL shell:
mysql> quit;
There are two possibilities to get the existing tables and data from exampledb from the master to the slave. The first one is to make a database dump, the second one is to use the LOAD DATA FROM MASTER; command on the slave. The latter has the disadvantage the the database on the master will be locked during this operation, so if you have a large database on a high-traffic production system, this is not what you want, and I recommend to follow the first method in this case. However, the latter method is very fast, so I will describe both here.
If you want to follow the first method, then do this:
[root@host]# mysqldump -u root -p --opt exampledb > exampledb.sql
This will create an SQL dump of exampledb in the file exampledb.sql. Transfer this file to your slave server!
If you want to go the LOAD DATA FROM MASTER; way then there is nothing you must do right now.
Finally we have to unlock the tables in exampledb:
[root@host]# mysql -u root -p Enter password: mysql> UNLOCK TABLES; mysql> quit;
Now the configuration on the master is finished.
Configure The Slave
On the slave we first have to create the database exampledb:
[root@host]# mysql -u root -p Enter password: mysql> CREATE DATABASE exampledb; mysql> quit;
If you have made an SQL dump of exampledb on the master and have transferred it to the slave, then it is time now to import the SQL dump into our newly created exampledb on the slave:
[root@host]# mysql -u root -p exampledb < /path/to/exampledb.sql
If you want to go the LOAD DATA FROM MASTER; way then there is nothing you must do right now.
Now we have to tell MySQL on the slave that it is the slave, that the master is 192.168.0.100, and that the master database to watch is exampledb. Therefore we add the following lines to /etc/mysql/my.cnf:
server-id=2 master-host=192.168.0.100 master-user=slave_user master-password=secret master-connect-retry=60
Then we restart MySQL:
[root@host]# /etc/init.d/mysql restart
If you have not imported the master exampledb with the help of an SQL dump, but want to go the LOAD DATA FROM MASTER; way, then it is time for you now to get the data from the master exampledb:
[root@host]# mysql -u root -p Enter password: mysql> LOAD DATA FROM MASTER; mysql> quit;
If you have phpMyAdmin installed on the slave you can now check if all tables/data from the master exampledb is also available on the slave exampledb.
Finally, we must do this:
[root@host]# mysql -u root -p Enter password: mysql> SLAVE STOP;
In the next command (still on the MySQL shell) you have to replace the values appropriately:
mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='192.168.0.100', MASTER_USER='slave_user', MASTER_PASSWORD='', MASTER_LOG_FILE='mysql-bin.006', MASTER_LOG_POS=183;
That's it! Now whenever exampledb is updated on the master, all changes will be replicated to exampledb on the slave. Test it!
Here are two examples of the my.cnf file on the master and slave servers:
On the Master:
[mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock max_allowed_packet=512000000 open-files-limit=5000 table_cache=2000 max_connections=1000 key_buffer_size=2048M sort_buffer_size=24M query-cache-type=1 query-cache-size=512M sort_buffer=24M read_rnd_buffer_size=3M read_buffer_size=1M tmp_table_size=64M interactive_timeout=288000 log-bin server-id=83 ft_min_word_len=2 ft_stopword_file=/var/lib/mysql/stopwords.txt myisam_max_sort_file_size=16G myisam_max_extra_sort_file_size=16G myisam_sort_buffer_size=24M max_binlog_size=256M log-slow-queries = /var/log/mysql_slow.log long_query_time = 1 log-slow-queries = /var/log/mysql-slow.log long_query_time = 1 [mysql.server] user=mysql [safe_mysqld] err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid [myisamchk] ft_min_word_len=2 ft_stopword_file=/var/lib/mysql/stopwords.txt
On the Slave:
[mysqld] datadir=/var/lib/mysql socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock max_allowed_packet=512000000 open-files-limit=5000 table_cache=2000 sort_buffer_size=4M key_buffer_size=2048M query-cache-type=1 query-cache-size=512M sort_buffer=4M read_rnd_buffer_size=3M tmp_table_size=64M max_connections=500 interactive_timeout=288000 server-id=84 replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.indexTasks replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.indexClusterTasks replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.indexPages replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.adRequestsRollup replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.textAdsRollup replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.%Log% replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.%Archive% replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.tmp% replicate-wild-ignore-table=%.pageContents% master-host=db10m.int master-user=replicationuser master-password=3y9nR16k ft_min_word_len=2 ft_stopword_file=/var/lib/mysql/stopwords.txt set-variable = myisam_max_sort_file_size=16G set-variable = myisam_max_extra_sort_file_size=16G set-variable = sort_buffer_size=4M set-variable = myisam_sort_buffer_size=4M slave-skip-errors=1062 read-only max_binlog_size=256M log-slow-queries = /var/log/mysql_slow.log long_query_time = 1 [mysql.server] user=mysql [safe_mysqld] err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid [myisamchk] ft_min_word_len=2 ft_stopword_file=/var/lib/mysql/stopwords.txt
