Dear MySQL users,
MySQL Server 5.4.2-beta, a new version of the popular Open Source Database Management System, has been released. Bear in mind that this is a beta release, and as with any other pre-production release, caution should be taken when installing on production level systems or systems with critical data. For production level systems using 5.1, we would like to direct your attention to the product description of MySQL Enterprise at: http://mysql.com/products/enterprise/ MySQL 5.4 is based on MySQL 5.1 but includes several high-impact changes to address scalability and performance issues in MySQL Server. These changes exploit advances in hardware and CPU design and enable better utilization of existing hardware. MySQL 5.4 currently has Beta status. For an overview of what's new in MySQL 5.4, please see http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.4/en/news-5-4-x.html For information on installing MySQL 5.4.2 on new servers, please see the MySQL 5.1 installation documentation http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.4/en/installing.html For upgrading from previous MySQL releases, please see the important upgrade considerations at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql-5.4-features/en/index.html Some other pointers you might like to follow are http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.4/en/mysql-nutshell.html http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.4/en/configuration-changes-5-4.html http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.4/en/upgrading-from-previous-series.html MySQL Server is available in source and binary form for a number of platforms from our download pages at http://dev.mysql.com/downloads/ Not all mirror sites may be up to date at this point in time, so if you can't find this version on some mirror, please try again later or choose another download site. We welcome and appreciate your feedback, bug reports, bug fixes, patches, etc.: http://forge.mysql.com/wiki/Contributing The following section lists the changes in the MySQL source code since the previous released version of MySQL 5.4. It may also be viewed online at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.4/en/news-5-4-2.html Enjoy! Jörg Brühe The MySQL build team at Sun Microsystems ========== Functionality added or changed: * As of MySQL 5.4.2, the InnoDB Plugin is included in MySQL 5.4 releases. This version of InnoDB Plugin is 1.0.4 and is considered of Beta quality. It becomes the built-in version of InnoDB, replacing the version previously included as the built-in version. A number of performance and scalability enhancements were made to the previous built-in version of InnoDB in MySQL 5.4.0 and 5.4.1. InnoDB Plugin also provides improvements in these areas, and in addition offers new features and capabilities for flexibility and ease of use. Among these features are enhanced reliability, "Fast index creation," table and index compression, file format management, new INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables, capacity tuning, multiple background I/O threads, and group commit. For information about these features, see the InnoDB Plugin Manual at http://www.innodb.com/products/innodb_plugin/plugin-documentation. For general information about using InnoDB in MySQL, see Section 13.6, "The InnoDB Storage Engine". These system variables were added with InnoDB 1.0.4: innodb_adaptive_flushing Controls adaptive flushing of dirty pages innodb_change_buffering Controls insert buffering innodb_file_format The format for new InnoDB tables innodb_file_format_check Whether to perform file format compatibility checking innodb_read_ahead_threshold Controls sensitivity of linear readahead innodb_spin_wait_delay Maximum delay between polls for a spin lock innodb_stats_sample_pages How many index pages to sample for statistics calculations innodb_strict_mode Whether InnoDB returns errors rather than warnings for certain exceptional conditions (analogous to strict SQL mode) innodb_use_sys_malloc Whether InnoDB uses its own or the OS memory allocator innodb_version The current version of InnoDB More information about these new system variables can be found in the InnoDB Plugin manual referenced earlier. These system variables have been made dynamic and can be modified at runtime: innodb_adaptive_hash_index (global) innodb_file_per_table (global) innodb_io_capacity (global) innodb_lock_wait_timeout (global, session) These system variables were removed, along with the functionality that they represented, such as the lock-free method for handing InnoDB thread concurrency: innodb_extra_dirty_writes innodb_max_merged_io innodb_thread_concurrency_timer_based The minimum value of these system variables was changed: innodb_additional_mem_pool_size minimum 2MB -> 512KB innodb_buffer_pool_size minimum 64MB -> 5MB innodb_log_buffer_size minimum 2MB -> 256KB innodb_log_file_size minimum 32MB -> 1MB These changes in minimum values tend to undo changes made in MySQL 5.4.0. The default value of this system variable was changed: innodb_sync_spin_loops default 20 -> 30 These status variables were removed: Innodb_heap_enabled Innodb_wake_ups This status variable was renamed: Innodb_have_sync_atomic -> Innodb_have_atomic_builtins * The minimum value for table_open_cache was increased from 64 to 400. (Bug#45475: http://bugs.mysql.com/45475) * On Linux, the performance of MySQL Server can be improved by using a different malloc() implementation, developed by Google and called tcmalloc. The gain is noticeable with a higher number of simultaneous users. MySQL 5.4.1 was linked against this library, which improved performance but imposed some restrictions. As a result of these restrictions, MySQL 5.4.2 uses a different approach: + The server is linked against the default malloc() provided by the respective platform. + The user or administrator can install Google's tcmalloc_minimal if desired. Some distributions provide it in a google-perftools package or with a similar name, or you can download it from Google at http://code.google.com/p/google-perftools/ + If the MySQL server is then started with an environment variable like this (with the correct path name) the server will use tcmalloc with no other change needed: LD_PRELOAD=/your/local/path/to/libtcmalloc_minimal.so The MySQL team is considering whether to modify the start script mysqld_safe so that it will check whether tcmalloc is installed and set the variable if that shared library is found. Feedback about this possible change is welcome! Bugs fixed: * open_binary_frm() performed a version test incorrectly, resulting in Valgrind errors. (Bug#46652: http://bugs.mysql.com/46652) * A problem of compiler register misallocation on 32-bit Linux was corrected. (Bug#45131: http://bugs.mysql.com/45131) * Some deprecation warning messages indicated feature removal in MySQL 5.2 rather than MySQL 6.0. (Bug#44676: http://bugs.mysql.com/44676) * During incorporation of a Google patch to SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS in MySQL 5.4.0, the TRANSACTIONS section of the output was inadvertently omitted. This section has been restored. (Bug#44671: http://bugs.mysql.com/44671) * The my-innodb-heavy-4G.cnf sample option file contained a setting for the no longer existing innodb_file_io_threads system variable. This has been replaced with settings for the innodb_write_io_threads and innodb_read_io_threads system variables with which innodb_file_io_threads has been replaced. (Bug#44470: http://bugs.mysql.com/44470) * Creating a new instance after previously removing an instance would fail to complete the installation properly because the security settings could not be applied correctly. (Bug#44428: http://bugs.mysql.com/44428) * A deprecation warning message tested for an incorrect version number and caused an assertion failure. (Bug#44394: http://bugs.mysql.com/44394) * During installation on Windows, the MySQL Instance Configuration Wizard window could be opened at a size too small to be usable. (Bug#38723: http://bugs.mysql.com/38723) * When performing an installation on Windows using the GUI installer, the installer would fail to wait long enough during installation for the MySQL service to be installed, which would cause the installation to fail and may cause security settings, such as the root password to not be applied correctly. (Bug#30525: http://bugs.mysql.com/30525) -- Joerg Bruehe, MySQL Build Team, joerg.bru...@sun.com Sun Microsystems GmbH, Komturstraße 18a, D-12099 Berlin Geschaeftsfuehrer: Thomas Schroeder, Wolfgang Engels, Wolf Frenkel Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrates: Martin Haering Muenchen: HRB161028 -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql?unsub=arch...@jab.org
