Managing a MySQL Cluster involves a number of tasks, the first of which is to configure and start MySQL Cluster. This is covered in Chapter 3, MySQL Cluster Configuration, and Chapter 4, MySQL Cluster Programs.

The next few sections cover the management of a running MySQL Cluster.

For information about security issues relating to management and deployment of a MySQL Cluster, see Section 5.9, “MySQL Cluster Security Issues”.

There are essentially two methods of actively managing a running MySQL Cluster. The first of these is through the use of commands entered into the management client whereby cluster status can be checked, log levels changed, backups started and stopped, and nodes stopped and started. The second method involves studying the contents of the cluster log ndb_node_id_cluster.log; this is usually found in the management server's DataDir directory, but this location can be overridden using the LogDestination option — see Section 3.2.5, “Defining a MySQL Cluster Management Server”, for details. (Recall that node_id represents the unique identifier of the node whose activity is being logged.) The cluster log contains event reports generated by ndbd. It is also possible to send cluster log entries to a Unix system log.

Some aspects of the cluster's operation can be also be monitored from an SQL node using the SHOW ENGINE NDB STATUS statement. See SHOW ENGINE Syntax, for more information.

In MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.1 and later, detailed information about cluster operations is available in real time via an SQL interface using the ndbinfo database. For more information, see Section 5.8, “The ndbinfo MySQL Cluster Information Database”.