Racker Hacker Words of wisdom from a server administrator

MySQL replication may sound complicated, but it can be done easily. Here’s a quick 7-step guide:

1) Create a replication user on the master:

mysql> GRANT REPLICATION SLAVE ON *.* TO 'repl'@'%' IDENTIFIED BY 'password';

2) On the master server, add the following to the [mysqld] section in my.cnf and restart MySQL:

server-id = 1
relay_log=mysqldrelay
log-bin
expire_logs_days = 7

3) On the slave server, add the following to the [mysqld] sesion in my.cnf and restart MySQL:

server-id = 2

4) Create a mysqldump file on the master server which includes a global lock:

# mysqldump -u user -ppassword -FQqx --opt --master-data=1 --databases db1,db2 > databases.sql

5) Configure the slave:

# mysql -u user -ppassword
mysql> CHANGE MASTER TO MASTER_HOST='master host name', MASTER_USER='repl', MASTER PASSWORD='repl';

6) Move the dump to the slave server and import it:

mysql -u user -ppassword < databases.sql

7) Start the slave:

mysql -u user -ppassword
mysql> START SLAVE;