Provided by: percona-toolkit_2.2.16-1_all 
NAME
pt-heartbeat - Monitor MySQL replication delay.
SYNOPSIS
Usage: pt-heartbeat [OPTIONS] [DSN] --update|--monitor|--check|--stop
pt-heartbeat measures replication lag on a MySQL or PostgreSQL server. You can use it to
update a master or monitor a replica. If possible, MySQL connection options are read from
your .my.cnf file.
Start daemonized process to update test.heartbeat table on master:
pt-heartbeat -D test --update -h master-server --daemonize
Monitor replication lag on slave:
pt-heartbeat -D test --monitor -h slave-server
pt-heartbeat -D test --monitor -h slave-server --dbi-driver Pg
Check slave lag once and exit (using optional DSN to specify slave host):
pt-heartbeat -D test --check h=slave-server
RISKS
Percona Toolkit is mature, proven in the real world, and well tested, but all database
tools can pose a risk to the system and the database server. Before using this tool,
please:
• Read the tool's documentation
• Review the tool's known "BUGS"
• Test the tool on a non-production server
• Backup your production server and verify the backups
DESCRIPTION
pt-heartbeat is a two-part MySQL and PostgreSQL replication delay monitoring system that
measures delay by looking at actual replicated data. This avoids reliance on the
replication mechanism itself, which is unreliable. (For example, "SHOW SLAVE STATUS" on
MySQL).
The first part is an "--update" instance of pt-heartbeat that connects to a master and
updates a timestamp ("heartbeat record") every "--interval" seconds. Since the heartbeat
table may contain records from multiple masters (see "MULTI-SLAVE HIERARCHY"), the
server's ID (@@server_id) is used to identify records.
The second part is a "--monitor" or "--check" instance of pt-heartbeat that connects to a
slave, examines the replicated heartbeat record from its immediate master or the specified
"--master-server-id", and computes the difference from the current system time. If
replication between the slave and the master is delayed or broken, the computed difference
will be greater than zero and potentially increase if "--monitor" is specified.
You must either manually create the heartbeat table on the master or use "--create-table".
See "--create-table" for the proper heartbeat table structure. The "MEMORY" storage
engine is suggested, but not required of course, for MySQL.
The heartbeat table must contain a heartbeat row. By default, a heartbeat row is inserted
if it doesn't exist. This feature can be disabled with the "--[no]insert-heartbeat-row"
option in case the database user does not have INSERT privileges.
pt-heartbeat depends only on the heartbeat record being replicated to the slave, so it
works regardless of the replication mechanism (built-in replication, a system such as
Continuent Tungsten, etc). It works at any depth in the replication hierarchy; for
example, it will reliably report how far a slave lags its master's master's master. And
if replication is stopped, it will continue to work and report (accurately!) that the
slave is falling further and further behind the master.
pt-heartbeat has a maximum resolution of 0.01 second. The clocks on the master and slave
servers must be closely synchronized via NTP. By default, "--update" checks happen on the
edge of the second (e.g. 00:01) and "--monitor" checks happen halfway between seconds
(e.g. 00:01.5). As long as the servers' clocks are closely synchronized and replication
events are propagating in less than half a second, pt-heartbeat will report zero seconds
of delay.
pt-heartbeat will try to reconnect if the connection has an error, but will not retry if
it can't get a connection when it first starts.
The "--dbi-driver" option lets you use pt-heartbeat to monitor PostgreSQL as well. It is
reported to work well with Slony-1 replication.
MULTI-SLAVE HIERARCHY
If the replication hierarchy has multiple slaves which are masters of other slaves, like
"master -> slave1 -> slave2", "--update" instances can be ran on the slaves as well as the
master. The default heartbeat table (see "--create-table") is keyed on the "server_id"
column, so each server will update the row where "server_id=@@server_id".
For "--monitor" and "--check", if "--master-server-id" is not specified, the tool tries to
discover and use the slave's immediate master. If this fails, or if you want monitor lag
from another master, then you can specify the "--master-server-id" to use.
For example, if the replication hierarchy is "master -> slave1 -> slave2" with
corresponding server IDs 1, 2 and 3, you can:
pt-heartbeat --daemonize -D test --update -h master
pt-heartbeat --daemonize -D test --update -h slave1
Then check (or monitor) the replication delay from master to slave2:
pt-heartbeat -D test --master-server-id 1 --check slave2
Or check the replication delay from slave1 to slave2:
pt-heartbeat -D test --master-server-id 2 --check slave2
Stopping the "--update" instance one slave1 will not affect the instance on master.
MASTER AND SLAVE STATUS
The default heartbeat table (see "--create-table") has columns for saving information from
"SHOW MASTER STATUS" and "SHOW SLAVE STATUS". These columns are optional. If any are
present, their corresponding information will be saved.
Percona XtraDB Cluster
Although pt-heartbeat should work with all supported versions of Percona XtraDB Cluster
(PXC), we recommend using 5.5.28-23.7 and newer.
If you are setting up heartbeat instances between cluster nodes, keep in mind that, since
the speed of the cluster is determined by its slowest node, pt-heartbeat will not report
how fast the cluster itself is, but only how fast events are replicating from one node to
another.
You must specify "--master-server-id" for "--monitor" and "--check" instances.
OPTIONS
Specify at least one of "--stop", "--update", "--monitor", or "--check".
"--update", "--monitor", and "--check" are mutually exclusive.
"--daemonize" and "--check" are mutually exclusive.
This tool accepts additional command-line arguments. Refer to the "SYNOPSIS" and usage
information for details.
--ask-pass
Prompt for a password when connecting to MySQL.
--charset
short form: -A; type: string
Default character set. If the value is utf8, sets Perl's binmode on STDOUT to utf8,
passes the mysql_enable_utf8 option to DBD::mysql, and runs SET NAMES UTF8 after
connecting to MySQL. Any other value sets binmode on STDOUT without the utf8 layer,
and runs SET NAMES after connecting to MySQL.
--check
Check slave delay once and exit. If you also specify "--recurse", the tool will try
to discover slave's of the given slave and check and print their lag, too. The
hostname or IP and port for each slave is printed before its delay. "--recurse" only
works with MySQL.
--check-read-only
Check if the server has read_only enabled; If it does, the tool skips doing any
inserts.
--config
type: Array
Read this comma-separated list of config files; if specified, this must be the first
option on the command line.
--create-table
Create the heartbeat "--table" if it does not exist.
This option causes the table specified by "--database" and "--table" to be created
with the following MAGIC_create_heartbeat table definition:
CREATE TABLE heartbeat (
ts varchar(26) NOT NULL,
server_id int unsigned NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
file varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, -- SHOW MASTER STATUS
position bigint unsigned DEFAULT NULL, -- SHOW MASTER STATUS
relay_master_log_file varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, -- SHOW SLAVE STATUS
exec_master_log_pos bigint unsigned DEFAULT NULL -- SHOW SLAVE STATUS
);
The heartbeat table requires at least one row. If you manually create the heartbeat
table, then you must insert a row by doing:
INSERT INTO heartbeat (ts, server_id) VALUES (NOW(), N);
or if using "--utc":
INSERT INTO heartbeat (ts, server_id) VALUES (UTC_TIMESTAMP(), N);
where "N" is the server's ID; do not use @@server_id because it will replicate and
slaves will insert their own server ID instead of the master's server ID.
This is done automatically by "--create-table".
A legacy version of the heartbeat table is still supported:
CREATE TABLE heartbeat (
id int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
ts datetime NOT NULL
);
Legacy tables do not support "--update" instances on each slave of a multi-slave
hierarchy like "master -> slave1 -> slave2". To manually insert the one required row
into a legacy table:
INSERT INTO heartbeat (id, ts) VALUES (1, NOW());
or if using "--utc":
INSERT INTO heartbeat (id, ts) VALUES (1, UTC_TIMESTAMP());
The tool automatically detects if the heartbeat table is legacy.
See also "MULTI-SLAVE HIERARCHY".
--daemonize
Fork to the background and detach from the shell. POSIX operating systems only.
--database
short form: -D; type: string
The database to use for the connection.
--dbi-driver
default: mysql; type: string
Specify a driver for the connection; "mysql" and "Pg" are supported.
--defaults-file
short form: -F; type: string
Only read mysql options from the given file. You must give an absolute pathname.
--file
type: string
Print latest "--monitor" output to this file.
When "--monitor" is given, prints output to the specified file instead of to STDOUT.
The file is opened, truncated, and closed every interval, so it will only contain the
most recent statistics. Useful when "--daemonize" is given.
--frames
type: string; default: 1m,5m,15m
Timeframes for averages.
Specifies the timeframes over which to calculate moving averages when "--monitor" is
given. Specify as a comma-separated list of numbers with suffixes. The suffix can be
s for seconds, m for minutes, h for hours, or d for days. The size of the largest
frame determines the maximum memory usage, as up to the specified number of per-second
samples are kept in memory to calculate the averages. You can specify as many
timeframes as you like.
--help
Show help and exit.
--host
short form: -h; type: string
Connect to host.
--[no]insert-heartbeat-row
default: yes
Insert a heartbeat row in the "--table" if one doesn't exist.
The heartbeat "--table" requires a heartbeat row, else there's nothing to "--update",
"--monitor", or "--check"! By default, the tool will insert a heartbeat row if one is
not already present. You can disable this feature by specifying
"--no-insert-heartbeat-row" in case the database user does not have INSERT privileges.
--interval
type: float; default: 1.0
How often to update or check the heartbeat "--table". Updates and checks begin on the
first whole second then repeat every "--interval" seconds for "--update" and every
"--interval" plus "--skew" seconds for "--monitor".
For example, if at 00:00.4 an "--update" instance is started at 0.5 second intervals,
the first update happens at 00:01.0, the next at 00:01.5, etc. If at 00:10.7 a
"--monitor" instance is started at 0.05 second intervals with the default 0.5 second
"--skew", then the first check happens at 00:11.5 (00:11.0 + 0.5) which will be
"--skew" seconds after the last update which, because the instances are checking at
synchronized intervals, happened at 00:11.0.
The tool waits for and begins on the first whole second just to make the interval
calculations simpler. Therefore, the tool could wait up to 1 second before updating
or checking.
The minimum (fastest) interval is 0.01, and the maximum precision is two decimal
places, so 0.015 will be rounded to 0.02.
If a legacy heartbeat table (see "--create-table") is used, then the maximum precision
is 1s because the "ts" column is type "datetime".
--log
type: string
Print all output to this file when daemonized.
--master-server-id
type: string
Calculate delay from this master server ID for "--monitor" or "--check". If not
given, pt-heartbeat attempts to connect to the server's master and determine its
server id.
--monitor
Monitor slave delay continuously.
Specifies that pt-heartbeat should check the slave's delay every second and report to
STDOUT (or if "--file" is given, to the file instead). The output is the current
delay followed by moving averages over the timeframe given in "--frames". For
example,
5s [ 0.25s, 0.05s, 0.02s ]
--password
short form: -p; type: string
Password to use when connecting. If password contains commas they must be escaped
with a backslash: "exam\,ple"
--pid
type: string
Create the given PID file. The tool won't start if the PID file already exists and
the PID it contains is different than the current PID. However, if the PID file
exists and the PID it contains is no longer running, the tool will overwrite the PID
file with the current PID. The PID file is removed automatically when the tool exits.
--port
short form: -P; type: int
Port number to use for connection.
--print-master-server-id
Print the auto-detected or given "--master-server-id". If "--check" or "--monitor" is
specified, specifying this option will print the auto-detected or given
"--master-server-id" at the end of each line.
--recurse
type: int
Check slaves recursively to this depth in "--check" mode.
Try to discover slave servers recursively, to the specified depth. After discovering
servers, run the check on each one of them and print the hostname (if possible),
followed by the slave delay.
This currently works only with MySQL. See "--recursion-method".
--recursion-method
type: array; default: processlist,hosts
Preferred recursion method used to find slaves.
Possible methods are:
METHOD USES
=========== ==================
processlist SHOW PROCESSLIST
hosts SHOW SLAVE HOSTS
none Do not find slaves
The processlist method is preferred because SHOW SLAVE HOSTS is not reliable.
However, the hosts method is required if the server uses a non-standard port (not
3306). Usually pt-heartbeat does the right thing and finds the slaves, but you may
give a preferred method and it will be used first. If it doesn't find any slaves, the
other methods will be tried.
--replace
Use "REPLACE" instead of "UPDATE" for --update.
When running in "--update" mode, use "REPLACE" instead of "UPDATE" to set the
heartbeat table's timestamp. The "REPLACE" statement is a MySQL extension to SQL.
This option is useful when you don't know whether the table contains any rows or not.
It must be used in conjunction with --update.
--run-time
type: time
Time to run before exiting.
--sentinel
type: string; default: /tmp/pt-heartbeat-sentinel
Exit if this file exists.
--set-vars
type: Array
Set the MySQL variables in this comma-separated list of "variable=value" pairs.
By default, the tool sets:
wait_timeout=10000
Variables specified on the command line override these defaults. For example,
specifying "--set-vars wait_timeout=500" overrides the defaultvalue of 10000.
The tool prints a warning and continues if a variable cannot be set.
--skew
type: float; default: 0.5
How long to delay checks.
The default is to delay checks one half second. Since the update happens as soon as
possible after the beginning of the second on the master, this allows one half second
of replication delay before reporting that the slave lags the master by one second.
If your clocks are not completely accurate or there is some other reason you'd like to
delay the slave more or less, you can tweak this value. Try setting the "PTDEBUG"
environment variable to see the effect this has.
--socket
short form: -S; type: string
Socket file to use for connection.
--stop
Stop running instances by creating the sentinel file.
This should have the effect of stopping all running instances which are watching the
same sentinel file. If none of "--update", "--monitor" or "--check" is specified,
"pt-heartbeat" will exit after creating the file. If one of these is specified,
"pt-heartbeat" will wait the interval given by "--interval", then remove the file and
continue working.
You might find this handy to stop cron jobs gracefully if necessary, or to replace one
running instance with another. For example, if you want to stop and restart
"pt-heartbeat" every hour (just to make sure that it is restarted every hour, in case
of a server crash or some other problem), you could use a "crontab" line like this:
0 * * * * pt-heartbeat --update -D test --stop \
--sentinel /tmp/pt-heartbeat-hourly
The non-default "--sentinel" will make sure the hourly "cron" job stops only instances
previously started with the same options (that is, from the same "cron" job).
See also "--sentinel".
--table
type: string; default: heartbeat
The table to use for the heartbeat.
Don't specify database.table; use "--database" to specify the database.
See "--create-table".
--update
Update a master's heartbeat.
--user
short form: -u; type: string
User for login if not current user.
--utc
Ignore system time zones and use only UTC. By default pt-heartbeat does not check or
adjust for different system or MySQL time zones which can cause the tool to compute
the lag incorrectly. Specifying this option is a good idea because it ensures that
the tool works correctly regardless of time zones.
If used, this option must be used for all pt-heartbeat instances: "--update",
"--monitor", "--check", etc. You should probably set the option in a "--config" file.
Mixing this option with pt-heartbeat instances not using this option will cause false-
positive lag readings due to different time zones (unless all your systems are set to
use UTC, in which case this option isn't required).
--version
Show version and exit.
--[no]version-check
default: yes
Check for the latest version of Percona Toolkit, MySQL, and other programs.
This is a standard "check for updates automatically" feature, with two additional
features. First, the tool checks the version of other programs on the local system in
addition to its own version. For example, it checks the version of every MySQL server
it connects to, Perl, and the Perl module DBD::mysql. Second, it checks for and warns
about versions with known problems. For example, MySQL 5.5.25 had a critical bug and
was re-released as 5.5.25a.
Any updates or known problems are printed to STDOUT before the tool's normal output.
This feature should never interfere with the normal operation of the tool.
For more information, visit <https://www.percona.com/version-check>.
DSN OPTIONS
These DSN options are used to create a DSN. Each option is given like "option=value".
The options are case-sensitive, so P and p are not the same option. There cannot be
whitespace before or after the "=" and if the value contains whitespace it must be quoted.
DSN options are comma-separated. See the percona-toolkit manpage for full details.
• A
dsn: charset; copy: yes
Default character set.
• D
dsn: database; copy: yes
Default database.
• F
dsn: mysql_read_default_file; copy: yes
Only read default options from the given file
• h
dsn: host; copy: yes
Connect to host.
• p
dsn: password; copy: yes
Password to use when connecting. If password contains commas they must be escaped
with a backslash: "exam\,ple"
• P
dsn: port; copy: yes
Port number to use for connection.
• S
dsn: mysql_socket; copy: yes
Socket file to use for connection.
• u
dsn: user; copy: yes
User for login if not current user.
ENVIRONMENT
The environment variable "PTDEBUG" enables verbose debugging output to STDERR. To enable
debugging and capture all output to a file, run the tool like:
PTDEBUG=1 pt-heartbeat ... > FILE 2>&1
Be careful: debugging output is voluminous and can generate several megabytes of output.
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
You need Perl, DBI, DBD::mysql, and some core packages that ought to be installed in any
reasonably new version of Perl.
BUGS
For a list of known bugs, see <http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-heartbeat>.
Please report bugs at <https://bugs.launchpad.net/percona-toolkit>. Include the following
information in your bug report:
• Complete command-line used to run the tool
• Tool "--version"
• MySQL version of all servers involved
• Output from the tool including STDERR
• Input files (log/dump/config files, etc.)
If possible, include debugging output by running the tool with "PTDEBUG"; see
"ENVIRONMENT".
DOWNLOADING
Visit <http://www.percona.com/software/percona-toolkit/> to download the latest release of
Percona Toolkit. Or, get the latest release from the command line:
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.tar.gz
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.rpm
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.deb
You can also get individual tools from the latest release:
wget percona.com/get/TOOL
Replace "TOOL" with the name of any tool.
AUTHORS
Proven Scaling LLC, SixApart Ltd, Baron Schwartz, and Daniel Nichter
ABOUT PERCONA TOOLKIT
This tool is part of Percona Toolkit, a collection of advanced command-line tools for
MySQL developed by Percona. Percona Toolkit was forked from two projects in June, 2011:
Maatkit and Aspersa. Those projects were created by Baron Schwartz and primarily
developed by him and Daniel Nichter. Visit <http://www.percona.com/software/> to learn
about other free, open-source software from Percona.
COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, AND WARRANTY
This program is copyright 2007-2015 Percona LLC and/or its affiliates, 2006 Proven Scaling
LLC and Six Apart Ltd.
Feedback and improvements are welcome.
THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING,
WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of
the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2; OR
the Perl Artistic License. On UNIX and similar systems, you can issue `man perlgpl' or
`man perlartistic' to read these licenses.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program;
if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston,
MA 02111-1307 USA.
VERSION
pt-heartbeat 2.2.16