Tag Archives: mysql logs

Install MySQL community server on CentOS

How to install and configure latest version of MySQL on CentOS?


How to install MySQL on CentOS  in latest version




sudo yum remove mariadb -y


sudo vi /etc/yum.repos.d/mysql-community.repo

and place there following content:

name=MySQL 5.7 Community Server


Installation is pretty easy:

sudo yum install mysql-community-server -y

That's it! You have MySQL installed in latest version!

Setting root password in MySQL



sudo systemctl start mysqld


You can find it by using following command:

grep 'temporary password' /var/log/mysqld.log



mysqladmin -u root -pwG]_xj8tus password NEW_STRONG_ROOT_PASSWORD




mysql_upgrade -u root -p



Configuration of MySQL 5.7


Edit the file first:

sudo vi /etc/my.cnf


Temporary in-memory tables



Query caching



InnoDB buffer



Logging slow queries



TIMESTAMP fields behavior




sudo systemctl restart mysqld





MySQL group


sudo usermod -a -G mysql developer

Create databases and users


mysql -u root -p


CREATE DATABASE database_name_here;



In order to create user in database execute following query:









mysql -u blacksaildivision -p blacksaildivision


Start MySQL on system boot


sudo systemctl enable mysqld


MySQL query log – how to log all queries?

MySQL query log - how to enable and read the log file?Hi guys!

Today I would like to tell you a bit more about MySQL query logging. It's very useful to preview all queries that goes to your database. Sometimes you don't have to access to direct query that is generated by ORM, but you have to check what's going on? Not a problem. Enable logging in your MySQL service and get all queries.

Problem with MySQL query logging

When using Drupal I can not previewed exact query that goes to database. I checked documentation for any useful function that can print full SQL query but I didn't find anything like that. So after further investigation and checking the code I get the PDO method. So yes, now I can print SQL query but without parameters... You can get queries like:

SELECT * FROM table_name WHERE name LIKE :name

or very similar. Unfortunately I needed full query with binded parameters. Sure, I could write some short function that will bind all parameters for me, it would be easy. But sometimes there goes very large query with hell of a lot of parameters including arrays etc. I needed something more than that.

I looked for specialized software etc but hey! Why not use the database build-in logging mechanism? It can catch all the database queries that are executed to your database. It was exactly what I needed.

How to turn on MySQL query log

OK, case is very simple, basically there are 3 ways of turning on the MySQL query log in your installation.

Method 1

You can turn on log on MySQL start/restart  via command:

mysqld --general_log=1 --general_log_file=my_logs.txt

First option will turn on query log, second is path to the file where log will be saved.

Depend on the version of MySQL you're using: You should use --log parameter. More informations here: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/query-log.html

Method 2

Method 2 is very similar to method 1 above. It's hard to remember that every time you're run MySQL you should pass logging parameters if You want to turn on MySQL query log. It's easier if you put these settings into MySQL configuration file.

Open Your configuration file and append these lines in [mysqld] section:


Have in mind version of your mysql installation. Check method 1 with --log parameter. After saving changes in mysql configuration file restart MySQL service to enable logging mechanism.

*Method 3

My favorite method:) If you don't want to restart MySQL server or you want to turn logging only for single page refresh than turn off logging it's your method.

Execute queries below:

SET GLOBAL log_output = 'TABLE';
SET GLOBAL general_log = 'ON';

You will find all logs in mysql.general_log table. It's pretty useful because you can perform select operation on this table and you don't have to bother searching in text file. For me it's best method for good MySQL query log:)

If you want to log queries into file except of database table execute these queries:

SET GLOBAL log_output = 'FILE';
SET GLOBAL general_log_file = 'my_logs.txt';
SET GLOBAL general_log = 'ON';

You can execute these queries in runtime! There's no need to restart your MySQL service.

You can read more about setting global configuration options here:


Viewing MySQL query log

Log file is very easy to read. It's text file so you can open it in any editor you prefer. Open your log file, you will find there 4 columns:

  • Time - date time of query execution in yymmdd hh:mm:ss format.
  • Id - Thread Id of the connected client
  • Command -  Command type, usually Query
  • Argument - Query body executed on MySQL body

Important info

OK, so now you have the list of the queries that are executed on database. It's great to check the full query executed on database. It's really helpful especially when You don't have direct access to generated queries for example like in Drupal.

But don't forget to turn off your logging. When You have many queries executed on your database it will make query log very big and you can run out of space on your disk. Second thing is lot of write operation when logging is turned off. So it's nice to turn logging on only for debug purposes and turn off logging on production environments.