The slow query log consists of all SQL statements that took more
than long_query_time seconds to
execute and (as of MySQL 5.1.21) required at least
min_examined_row_limit rows to be
examined. The time to acquire the initial table locks is not
counted as execution time. mysqld writes a
statement to the slow query log after it has been executed and
after all locks have been released, so log order might be
different from execution order. The default value of
long_query_time is 10. As of
MySQL 5.1.21, the minimum value is 0, and a resolution of
microseconds is supported when logging to a file. However, the
microseconds part is ignored and only integer values are written
when logging to tables. Prior to MySQL 5.1.21, the minimum value
is 1, and the value for this variable must be an integer.
Control the slow query log as follows:
Before 5.1.6, the slow query log destination is always a file. To enable the log, start mysqld with the
--log-slow-queries[=option.file_name]As of MySQL 5.1.6, the destination can be a file or a table, or both. Start mysqld with the
--log-slow-queries[=option to enable the slow query log, and optionally usefile_name]--log-outputto specify the log destination (as described in Section 5.2.1, “Selecting General Query and Slow Query Log Output Destinations”).As of MySQL 5.1.12, as an alternative to
--log-slow-queries, use--slow_query_log[={0|1}]to specify the initial slow query log state. In this case, the default slow query log file name is used. With no argument or an argument of 1,--slow_query_logenables the log. With an argument of 0, this option disables the log.As of MySQL 5.1.29, use
--slow_query_log[={0|1}]to enable or disable the slow query log, and optionally--slow_query_log_file=to specify a log file name. Thefile_name--log-slow-queriesoption is deprecated.
If you specify no name for the slow query log file, the default
name is
host_name-slow.log
For runtime control of the slow query log, use the global
slow_query_log and
slow_query_log_file system
variables. Set slow_query_log to
0 (or OFF) to disable the log or to 1 (or
ON) to enable it. Set
slow_query_log_file to specify
the name of the log file. If a log file already is open, it is
closed and the new file is opened.
When the slow query log is enabled, output is written to any
destinations specified by the
--log-output option or
log_output system variable. If
you enable the log, the server opens the log file and writes
startup messages to it. However, further logging of queries to the
file does not occur unless the FILE log
destination is selected. If the destination is
NONE, no queries are written even if the slow
query log is enabled. Setting the log file name has no effect on
logging if the log destination value does not contain
FILE.
The slow query log can be used to find queries that take a long time to execute and are therefore candidates for optimization. However, examining a long slow query log can become a difficult task. To make this easier, you can process a slow query log file using the mysqldumpslow command to summarize the queries that appear in the log. See Section 4.6.8, “mysqldumpslow — Summarize Slow Query Log Files”.
In MySQL 5.1, queries that do not use indexes are
logged in the slow query log if the
--log-queries-not-using-indexes
option is specified. See Section 5.1.2, “Server Command Options”.
MySQL Enterprise. Excessive table scans are indicative of missing or poorly optimized indexes. Using an advisor specifically designed for the task, the MySQL Enterprise Monitor can identify such problems and offer advice on resolution. For more information, see http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.
In MySQL 5.1, the
--log-slow-admin-statements server
option enables you to request logging of slow administrative
statements such as OPTIMIZE TABLE,
ANALYZE TABLE, and
ALTER TABLE to the slow query log.
Queries handled by the query cache are not added to the slow query log, nor are queries that would not benefit from the presence of an index because the table has zero rows or one row.
Prior to MySQL 5.1.45, replication slaves did not write replicated
queries to the slow query log, even if the same queries were
written to the slow query log on the master. (Bug#23300) In MySQL
5.1.45 and later, this behavior can be overridden using the
--log-slow-slave-statements option.
The slow query log should be protected because logged statements might contain passwords. See Section 5.3.2.1, “Administrator Guidelines for Password Security”.
User Comments
Please note that the mysql slow query log will not show the SQL of your slow queries if your application uses prepared statement.
You may want to turn on General Query Log instead.
When I turned on the slow_query.log, and told it to also log queries that do not use indexes my log started to fill up with SHOW COLLATION; and SHOW VARIABLES; statement.
It can cause your log file to grow VERY quickly.
Here are instructions on getting mysqldumpslow to work in your environment if you have my.cnf in a non-standard (eg, non /etc) locale. Please note this is for Unix only.
1. Make sure it can find perl in /usr/local/bin/perl
2. Make sure you've got the slow log running first
3. Copy the slow log to datadir and name it specifically: servername-slow.log (eg, servername-slow.log). This assumes your actual slowlog is located somewhere else. If it is located by default in datadir then you still must make a copy of it, named hostname-slow.log in datadir directory.
4. Make a copy of mysqldumpslow in the $MYSQL_HOME/bin directory, and name it: mysqldumpslow_new and be sure it is chmod 750
5. Edit the mysqldumpslow_new as described in the next item.
6. Assuming you don't place your server's my.cnf in /etc, you must tell my_print_defaults where datadir and basedir are because they can't be set directly in mysqldumpslow nor can they be passed as a parameter on the command line to mysqldumpslow.
This is done by altering the command line option to my_print_defaults, the results of which are fed into the mysqldumpslow perl script to establish datadir, basedir, and a few other variables. The following line in
mysqldumpslow_new should be changed.
Change from:
my $defaults = `my_print_defaults mysqld`;
to:
my $defaults = `my_print_defaults -c /location/where/config_file_lives/my.cnf mysqld`;
Make sure the my.cnf pointed to in the -c option has datadir and basedir set under [mysqld] section.
7. To run the program now, simply type:
./mysqldumpslow_new -s c -t 3
8. You have now displayed output from the slow query log telling you the top 3 slow queries on the system.
Andrea Gangini posted that slow queries made via prepared statements do not post to the slow query log. This is not exactly true.
In the case of MySQL 5.0.22 when accessed through JDBC (Java 1.5.0), slow queries constructed via PreparedStatement always appear in the slow query log. Slow queries constructed normally (via Statement), sometimes appear. I suspect that PreparedStatements bypass the query cache and so are always reported in the log whereas regular Statements are checked against the query cache. If the results are taken from the query cache and not by accessing the tables, the query does not appear in slow query log. Testing regular Statements with the SQL_CACHE and SQL_NO_CACHE hints seems to confirm this. (Remember MySQL does not expend much effort trying to recognise queries it's already seen - if the query strings aren't exactly the same, don't expect to get help from the query cache.)
Chris
If you see many trivial queries being logged here, you may have log-long-format enabled.
This logs all queries not using indexes in the slow query logs, which includes queries so trivial that using the index would be slower.
Replication queries which are slow aren't saved in the slow logs. If a Slave is behaving badly and the only thing that shows up in the slow logs are queries which are not normally a problem, then replication queries may be causing problems. Check the timetamp in the replication logs and compare them to the slow logs.
Syntax for /etc/my.cnf in Red Hat 9:
[mysqld]
set-variable=long_query_time=1
log-slow-queries=/var/log/mysql/log-slow-queries.log
You must create the file manually and change owners this way:
mkdir /var/log/mysql
touch /var/log/mysql/log-slow-queries.log
chown mysql.mysql -R /var/log/mysql
If you are loading a large database dump created using mysqldump in the normal way, be aware that if an insert statement takes longer than long_query_time, the ENTIRE huge insert statement (with all its individual rows) will be logged to the slow query file. This can significantly extend the time it takes to load the database.
An example:
[mysqld]
log-slow-queries = slow.log
long_query_time = 20
log-queries-not-using-indexes
- The first line under [mysqld] turns on slow query log and logs all slow queries to slow.log in the MySQL data directory.
- The second line indicates that any queries that took more than 20 seconds to execute need to be logged.
- The last line tells MySQL to log *any* queries that do not use indexes regardless of the setting in the second line.
If you like you can set the long_query_time very high so that only the queries that do not use indexes are logged (and no 'general' slow queries).
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