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Importing a text file containing a list of SQL commands into MySQL is a straightforward task. All you need to do is simply feed the file contents through pipe into MySQL command line client. For example: mysql app_production < dump.sql. The reasons for doing such imports can be very different - restoring MySQL backups created with mysqldump, manually replaying binary log events or performing database migrations during software roll-outs. While the task is simple, the import may not end successfully and when this happens, how to tell what the problem was?

I had to install Percona XtraDB Cluster, I think for the first time since it was announced stable. I remembered many problems I faced with beta releases, which was understandable given they were only for a preview, but this time I hoped for significant improvements.

XtraBackup is a great piece of software from Percona, which allows creating (nearly) lock-less MySQL/InnoDB backups. The tool has been around for quite some time and recently even received a major version bump. I have relied on it many times over the years. As it turns out, using it in some configurations may lead to heavy swapping or prevent MySQL from running queries.

No space left on device - this can happen to anyone. Sooner or later you may face the situation where a database either has already or is only minutes away from running out of disk space. What many people do in such cases, they just start looking for semi-random things to remove - perhaps a backup, a few older log files, or pretty much anything that seems redundant. However this means acting under a lot of stress and without much thinking, so it would be great if there was a possibility to avoid that. Often there is. Or what if there isn't anything to remove?

MySQL 5.1 or newer can sometimes start throwing a strange message into an error log. The message states that a query was unsafe for binary logging along with some additional information. What does it mean? Is it a problem?