Chapter 69. mysqladmin, Administering a MySQL Server

A utility for performing administrative operations. The syntax is:

shell> mysqladmin [OPTIONS] command [command-option] command ...

You can get a list of the options your version of mysqladmin supports by executing mysqladmin --help.

The current mysqladmin supports the following commands:

create databasename Create a new database.
drop databasename Delete a database and all its tables.
extended-status Gives an extended status message from the server.
flush-hosts Flush all cached hosts.
flush-logs Flush all logs.
flush-tables Flush all tables.
flush-privileges Reload grant tables (same as reload).
kill id,id,... Kill mysql threads.
password Set a new password. Change old password to new-password.
ping Check if mysqld is alive.
processlist Show list of active threads in server, as with the SHOW PROCESSLIST statement. If the --verbose option is given, the output is like that of SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST.
reload Reload grant tables.
refresh Flush all tables and close and open log files.
shutdown Take down the server.
slave-start Start slave replication thread.
slave-stop Stop slave replication thread.
status Gives a short status message from the server.
variables Prints variables available.
version Get version information from server.

All commands can be shortened to their unique prefix. For example:

shell> mysqladmin proc stat
+----+-------+-----------+----+-------------+------+-------+------+
| Id | User  | Host      | db | Command     | Time | State | Info |
+----+-------+-----------+----+-------------+------+-------+------+
| 6  | monty | localhost |    | Processlist | 0    |       |      |
+----+-------+-----------+----+-------------+------+-------+------+
Uptime: 10077  Threads: 1  Questions: 9  Slow queries: 0
Opens: 6 Flush tables: 1  Open tables: 2
Memory in use: 1092K  Max memory used: 1116K

The mysqladmin status command result has the following columns:

ColumnDescription
Uptime Number of seconds the MySQL server has been up.
Threads Number of active threads (clients).
Questions Number of questions from clients since mysqld was started.
Slow queries Queries that have taken more than long_query_time seconds. See Slow query log.
Opens How many tables mysqld has opened.
Flush tables Number of flush ..., refresh, and reload commands.
Open tables Number of tables that are open now.
Memory in use Memory allocated directly by the mysqld code (only available when MySQL is compiled with --with-debug=full).
Max memory used Maximum memory allocated directly by the mysqld code (only available when MySQL is compiled with --with-debug=full).

If you do mysqladmin shutdown on a socket (in other words, on a the computer where mysqld is running), mysqladmin will wait until the MySQL pid-file is removed to ensure that the mysqld server has stopped properly.