Comments on: MySQL: How do you use symlinks with MySQL tables?

By: Manasi

Manasi — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 15:02:43 +0000

Hi All, I want to symlink databases from other location to mysql default location. Is it possible will mysql able to read them. I have read somewhere that it is possible but I am facing problem in it.

By: Webadmin rövidhírek #3 at ‹Webakadémia /›

Webadmin rövidhírek #3 at ‹Webakadémia /› — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:34:23 +0000

[...] történő reprezentációt illetően. Nem mindig jut az ember eszébe egy apró trükk, miszerint symlinkekkel “mozgathatóak” ezek a fájlok, így akár másik fizikai meghajtóra is át lehet helyezni azokat. Főként akkor jön jól a [...]

By: Sunny Walia

Sunny Walia — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:02:45 +0000

Geert,

How would you approach separating high i/o tables onto faster/separate drive(s) to enhance performance?

Thanks for the comment.

By: Guillaume Lefranc

Guillaume Lefranc — Fri, 02 May 2008 13:45:20 +0000

I use symlinks on .ibd files in production, but like the above posters said, there are some caveats. I’d prefer to have something like the ALTER TABLESPACE command for Oracle with stored path for each datafile.

By: Geert Vanderkelen

Geert Vanderkelen — Fri, 02 May 2008 10:43:39 +0000

If you can, you should always _avoid_ using symbolic links. Even if we support it for MyISAM tables, it’s BAD practice. It might be a ‘quick fix’, but once you have time you should find an other solution than symlinks!

Talking from experience.. it’s a DBA’s nightmare!

By: Oskar Skoog

Oskar Skoog — Fri, 02 May 2008 09:50:24 +0000

Using innodb with file-per-table and symlinking the .idb-files isn’t a very good idea, even if it works to start with. ALTER TABLE (and thus OPTIMIZE TABLE) creates a new file that it works with during the operation and when it’s done, it overwrites the symlink instead of following it.

(Symlinking ibdata files doesn’t make much sense, since you can specify path for them.)