NAME¶
pt-kill - Kill MySQL queries that match certain criteria.
SYNOPSIS¶
Usage: pt-kill [OPTIONS]
pt-kill kills MySQL connections. pt-kill connects to MySQL and gets queries from
SHOW PROCESSLIST if no FILE is given. Else, it reads queries from one or more
FILE which contains the output of SHOW PROCESSLIST. If FILE is -, pt-kill
reads from STDIN.
Kill queries running longer than 60s:
pt-kill --busy-time 60 --kill
Print, do not kill, queries running longer than 60s:
pt-kill --busy-time 60 --print
Check for sleeping processes and kill them all every 10s:
pt-kill --match-command Sleep --kill --victims all --interval 10
Print all login processes:
pt-kill --match-state login --print --victims all
See which queries in the processlist right now would match:
mysql -e "SHOW PROCESSLIST" > proclist.txt
pt-kill --test-matching proclist.txt --busy-time 60 --print
RISKS¶
The following section is included to inform users about the potential risks,
whether known or unknown, of using this tool. The two main categories of risks
are those created by the nature of the tool (e.g. read-only tools vs.
read-write tools) and those created by bugs.
pt-kill kills queries if you use the "--kill" option, so it can
disrupt your database's users, of course. You should test with the
<"--print"> option, which is safe, if you're unsure what the
tool will do.
At the time of this release, we know of no bugs that could cause serious harm to
users.
The authoritative source for updated information is always the online issue
tracking system. Issues that affect this tool will be marked as such. You can
see a list of such issues at the following URL:
http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-kill
<
http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-kill>.
See also "BUGS" for more information on filing bugs and getting help.
DESCRIPTION¶
pt-kill captures queries from SHOW PROCESSLIST, filters them, and then either
kills or prints them. This is also known as a "slow query sniper" in
some circles. The idea is to watch for queries that might be consuming too
many resources, and kill them.
For brevity, we talk about killing queries, but they may just be printed (or
some other future action) depending on what options are given.
Normally pt-kill connects to MySQL to get queries from SHOW PROCESSLIST.
Alternatively, it can read SHOW PROCESSLIST output from files. In this case,
pt-kill does not connect to MySQL and "--kill" has no effect. You
should use "--print" instead when reading files. The ability to read
a file with "--test-matching" allows you to capture SHOW PROCESSLIST
and test it later with pt-kill to make sure that your matches kill the proper
queries. There are a lot of special rules to follow, such as "don't kill
replication threads," so be careful not to kill something important!
Two important options to know are "--busy-time" and
"--victims". First, whereas most match/filter options match their
corresponding value from SHOW PROCESSLIST (e.g. "--match-command"
matches a query's Command value), the Time value is matched by
"--busy-time". See also "--interval".
Second, "--victims" controls which matching queries from each class
are killed. By default, the matching query with the highest Time value is
killed (the oldest query). See the next section, "GROUP, MATCH AND
KILL", for more details.
Usually you need to specify at least one "--match" option, else no
queries will match. Or, you can specify "--match-all" to match all
queries that aren't ignored by an "--ignore" option.
GROUP, MATCH AND KILL¶
Queries pass through several steps to determine which exactly will be killed (or
printed--whatever action is specified). Understanding these steps will help
you match precisely the queries you want.
The first step is grouping queries into classes. The "--group-by"
option controls grouping. By default, this option has no value so all queries
are grouped into one default class. All types of matching and filtering (the
next step) are applied per-class. Therefore, you may need to group queries in
order to match/filter some classes but not others.
The second step is matching. Matching implies filtering since if a query doesn't
match some criteria, it is removed from its class. Matching happens for each
class. First, queries are filtered from their class by the various "Query
Matches" options like "--match-user". Then, entire classes are
filtered by the various "Class Matches" options like
"--query-count".
The third step is victim selection, that is, which matching queries in each
class to kill. This is controlled by the "--victims" option.
Although many queries in a class may match, you may only want to kill the
oldest query, or all queries, etc.
The forth and final step is to take some action on all matching queries from all
classes. The "Actions" options specify which actions will be taken.
At this step, there are no more classes, just a single list of queries to
kill, print, etc.
OUTPUT¶
If only "--kill" is given, then there is no output. If only
"--print" is given, then a timestamped KILL statement if printed for
every query that would have been killed, like:
# 2009-07-15T15:04:01 KILL 8 (Query 42 sec) SELECT * FROM huge_table
The line shows a timestamp, the query's Id (8), its Time (42 sec) and its Info
(usually the query SQL).
If both "--kill" and "--print" are given, then matching
queries are killed and a line for each like the one above is printed.
Any command executed by "--execute-command" is responsible for its own
output and logging. After being executed, pt-kill has no control or
interaction with the command.
OPTIONS¶
Specify at least one of "--kill", "--kill-query",
"--print", "--execute-command" or "--stop".
"--any-busy-time" and "--each-busy-time" are mutually
exclusive.
"--kill" and "--kill-query" are mutually exclusive.
"--daemonize" and "--test-matching" are mutually exclusive.
- --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.
- --config
- type: Array
Read this comma-separated list of config files; if specified, this must be
the first option on the command line.
- --daemonize
- Fork to the background and detach from the shell. POSIX
operating systems only.
- --defaults-file
- short form: -F; type: string
Only read mysql options from the given file. You must give an absolute
pathname.
- --filter
- type: string
Discard events for which this Perl code doesn't return true.
This option is a string of Perl code or a file containing Perl code that
gets compiled into a subroutine with one argument: $event. This is a
hashref. If the given value is a readable file, then pt-kill reads the
entire file and uses its contents as the code. The file should not contain
a shebang (#!/usr/bin/perl) line.
If the code returns true, the chain of callbacks continues; otherwise it
ends. The code is the last statement in the subroutine other than
"return $event". The subroutine template is:
sub { $event = shift; filter && return $event; }
Filters given on the command line are wrapped inside parentheses like like
"( filter )". For complex, multi-line filters, you must put the
code inside a file so it will not be wrapped inside parentheses. Either
way, the filter must produce syntactically valid code given the template.
For example, an if-else branch given on the command line would not be
valid:
--filter 'if () { } else { }' # WRONG
Since it's given on the command line, the if-else branch would be wrapped
inside parentheses which is not syntactically valid. So to accomplish
something more complex like this would require putting the code in a file,
for example filter.txt:
my $event_ok; if (...) { $event_ok=1; } else { $event_ok=0; } $event_ok
Then specify "--filter filter.txt" to read the code from
filter.txt.
If the filter code won't compile, pt-kill will die with an error. If the
filter code does compile, an error may still occur at runtime if the code
tries to do something wrong (like pattern match an undefined value).
pt-kill does not provide any safeguards so code carefully!
It is permissible for the code to have side effects (to alter $event).
- --group-by
- type: string
Apply matches to each class of queries grouped by this SHOW PROCESSLIST
column. In addition to the basic columns of SHOW PROCESSLIST (user, host,
command, state, etc.), queries can be matched by "fingerprint"
which abstracts the SQL query in the "Info" column.
By default, queries are not grouped, so matches and actions apply to all
queries. Grouping allows matches and actions to apply to classes of
similar queries, if any queries in the class match.
For example, detecting cache stampedes (see "all-but-oldest" under
"--victims" for an explanation of that term) requires that
queries are grouped by the "arg" attribute. This creates classes
of identical queries (stripped of comments). So queries "SELECT c
FROM t WHERE id=1" and "SELECT c FROM t WHERE id=1" are
grouped into the same class, but query c<"SELECT c FROM t WHERE
id=3"> is not identical to the first two queries so it is grouped
into another class. Then when "--victims"
"all-but-oldest" is specified, all but the oldest query in each
class is killed for each class of queries that matches the match
criteria.
- --help
- Show help and exit.
- --host
- short form: -h; type: string; default: localhost
Connect to host.
- --interval
- type: time
How often to check for queries to kill. If "--busy-time" is not
given, then the default interval is 30 seconds. Else the default is half
as often as "--busy-time". If both "--interval" and
"--busy-time" are given, then the explicit
"--interval" value is used.
See also "--run-time".
- --log
- type: string
Print all output to this file when daemonized.
- --password
- short form: -p; type: string
Password to use when connecting.
- --pid
- type: string
Create the given PID file when daemonized. The file contains the process ID
of the daemonized instance. The PID file is removed when the daemonized
instance exits. The program checks for the existence of the PID file when
starting; if it exists and the process with the matching PID exists, the
program exits.
- --port
- short form: -P; type: int
Port number to use for connection.
- --run-time
- type: time
How long to run before exiting. By default pt-kill runs forever, or until
its process is killed or stopped by the creation of a
"--sentinel" file. If this option is specified, pt-kill runs for
the specified amount of time and sleeps "--interval" seconds
between each check of the PROCESSLIST.
- --sentinel
- type: string; default: /tmp/pt-kill-sentinel
Exit if this file exists.
The presence of the file specified by "--sentinel" will cause all
running instances of pt-kill to exit. You might find this handy to stop
cron jobs gracefully if necessary. See also "--stop".
- --set-vars
- type: string; default: wait_timeout=10000
Set these MySQL variables. Immediately after connecting to MySQL, this
string will be appended to SET and executed.
- --socket
- short form: -S; type: string
Socket file to use for connection.
- --stop
- Stop running instances by creating the
"--sentinel" file.
Causes pt-kill to create the sentinel file specified by
"--sentinel" and exit. This should have the effect of stopping
all running instances which are watching the same sentinel file.
- --[no]strip-comments
- default: yes
Remove SQL comments from queries in the Info column of the PROCESSLIST.
- --user
- short form: -u; type: string
User for login if not current user.
- --version
- Show version and exit.
- --victims
- type: string; default: oldest
Which of the matching queries in each class will be killed. After classes
have been matched/filtered, this option specifies which of the matching
queries in each class will be killed (or printed, etc.). The following
values are possible:
- oldest
- Only kill the single oldest query. This is to prevent
killing queries that aren't really long-running, they're just
long-waiting. This sorts matching queries by Time and kills the one with
the highest Time value.
- all
- Kill all queries in the class.
- all-but-oldest
- Kill all but the oldest query. This is the inverse of the
"oldest" value.
This value can be used to prevent "cache stampedes", the condition
where several identical queries are executed and create a backlog while
the first query attempts to finish. Since all queries are identical, all
but the first query are killed so that it can complete and populate the
cache.
- --wait-after-kill
- type: time
Wait after killing a query, before looking for more to kill. The purpose of
this is to give blocked queries a chance to execute, so we don't kill a
query that's blocking a bunch of others, and then kill the others
immediately afterwards.
- --wait-before-kill
- type: time
Wait before killing a query. The purpose of this is to give
"--execute-command" a chance to see the matching query and
gather other MySQL or system information before it's killed.
QUERY MATCHES¶
These options filter queries from their classes. If a query does not match, it
is removed from its class. The "--ignore" options take precedence.
The matches for command, db, host, etc. correspond to the columns returned by
SHOW PROCESSLIST: Command, db, Host, etc. All pattern matches are
case-sensitive by default, but they can be made case-insensitive by specifying
a regex pattern like "(?i-xsm:select)".
See also "GROUP, MATCH AND KILL".
- --busy-time
- type: time; group: Query Matches
Match queries that have been running for longer than this time. The queries
must be in Command=Query status. This matches a query's Time value as
reported by SHOW PROCESSLIST.
- --idle-time
- type: time; group: Query Matches
Match queries that have been idle/sleeping for longer than this time. The
queries must be in Command=Sleep status. This matches a query's Time value
as reported by SHOW PROCESSLIST.
- --ignore-command
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Ignore queries whose Command matches this Perl regex.
See "--match-command".
- --ignore-db
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Ignore queries whose db (database) matches this Perl regex.
See "--match-db".
- --ignore-host
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Ignore queries whose Host matches this Perl regex.
See "--match-host".
- --ignore-info
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Ignore queries whose Info (query) matches this Perl regex.
See "--match-info".
- --[no]ignore-self
- default: yes; group: Query Matches
Don't kill pt-kill's own connection.
- --ignore-state
- type: string; group: Query Matches; default: Locked
Ignore queries whose State matches this Perl regex. The default is to keep
threads from being killed if they are locked waiting for another thread.
See "--match-state".
- --ignore-user
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Ignore queries whose user matches this Perl regex.
See "--match-user".
- --match-all
- group: Query Matches
Match all queries that are not ignored. If no ignore options are specified,
then every query matches (except replication threads, unless
"--replication-threads" is also specified). This option allows
you to specify negative matches, i.e. "match every query
except..." where the exceptions are defined by specifying
various "--ignore" options.
This option is not the same as "--victims" "all".
This option matches all queries within a class, whereas
"--victims" "all" specifies that all matching queries
in a class (however they matched) will be killed. Normally, however, the
two are used together because if, for example, you specify
"--victims" "oldest", then although all queries may
match, only the oldest will be killed.
- --match-command
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Match only queries whose Command matches this Perl regex.
Common Command values are:
Query
Sleep
Binlog Dump
Connect
Delayed insert
Execute
Fetch
Init DB
Kill
Prepare
Processlist
Quit
Reset stmt
Table Dump
See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/thread-commands.html
<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/thread-commands.html> for a
full list and description of Command values.
- --match-db
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Match only queries whose db (database) matches this Perl regex.
- --match-host
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Match only queries whose Host matches this Perl regex.
The Host value often time includes the port like "host:port".
- --match-info
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Match only queries whose Info (query) matches this Perl regex.
The Info column of the processlist shows the query that is being executed or
NULL if no query is being executed.
- --match-state
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Match only queries whose State matches this Perl regex.
Common State values are:
Locked
login
copy to tmp table
Copying to tmp table
Copying to tmp table on disk
Creating tmp table
executing
Reading from net
Sending data
Sorting for order
Sorting result
Table lock
Updating
See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/general-thread-states.html
<http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/general-thread-states.html>
for a full list and description of State values.
- --match-user
- type: string; group: Query Matches
Match only queries whose User matches this Perl regex.
- --replication-threads
- group: Query Matches
Allow matching and killing replication threads.
By default, matches do not apply to replication threads; i.e. replication
threads are completely ignored. Specifying this option allows matches to
match (and potentially kill) replication threads on masters and
slaves.
- --test-matching
- type: array; group: Query Matches
Files with processlist snapshots to test matching options against. Since the
matching options can be complex, you can save snapshots of processlist in
files, then test matching options against queries in those files.
This option disables "--run-time", "--interval", and
"--[no]ignore-self".
CLASS MATCHES¶
These matches apply to entire query classes. Classes are created by specifying
the "--group-by" option, else all queries are members of a single,
default class.
See also "GROUP, MATCH AND KILL".
- --any-busy-time
- type: time; group: Class Matches
Match query class if any query has been running for longer than this time.
"Longer than" means that if you specify 10, for example, the
class will only match if there's at least one query that has been running
for greater than 10 seconds.
See "--each-busy-time" for more details.
- --each-busy-time
- type: time; group: Class Matches
Match query class if each query has been running for longer than this time.
"Longer than" means that if you specify 10, for example, the
class will only match if each and every query has been running for greater
than 10 seconds.
See also "--any-busy-time" (to match a class if ANY query has been
running longer than the specified time) and "--busy-time".
- --query-count
- type: int; group: Class Matches
Match query class if it has at least this many queries. When queries are
grouped into classes by specifying "--group-by", this option
causes matches to apply only to classes with at least this many queries.
If "--group-by" is not specified then this option causes matches
to apply only if there are at least this many queries in the entire SHOW
PROCESSLIST.
- --verbose
- short form: -v
Print information to STDOUT about what is being done.
ACTIONS¶
These actions are taken for every matching query from all classes. The actions
are taken in this order: "--print", "--execute-command",
"--kill"/"--kill-query". This order allows
"--execute-command" to see the output of "--print" and the
query before "--kill"/"--kill-query". This may be helpful
because pt-kill does not pass any information to
"--execute-command".
See also "GROUP, MATCH AND KILL".
- --execute-command
- type: string; group: Actions
Execute this command when a query matches.
After the command is executed, pt-kill has no control over it, so the
command is responsible for its own info gathering, logging, interval, etc.
The command is executed each time a query matches, so be careful that the
command behaves well when multiple instances are ran. No information from
pt-kill is passed to the command.
See also "--wait-before-kill".
- --kill
- group: Actions
Kill the connection for matching queries.
This option makes pt-kill kill the connections (a.k.a. processes, threads)
that have matching queries. Use "--kill-query" if you only want
to kill individual queries and not their connections.
Unless "--print" is also given, no other information is printed
that shows that pt-kill matched and killed a query.
See also "--wait-before-kill" and
"--wait-after-kill".
- --kill-query
- group: Actions
Kill matching queries.
This option makes pt-kill kill matching queries. This requires MySQL 5.0 or
newer. Unlike "--kill" which kills the connection for matching
queries, this option only kills the query, not its connection.
- --print
- group: Actions
Print a KILL statement for matching queries; does not actually kill queries.
If you just want to see which queries match and would be killed without
actually killing them, specify "--print". To both kill and print
matching queries, specify both "--kill" and
"--print".
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.
- •
- 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-kill ... > 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-kill
<
http://www.percona.com/bugs/pt-kill>.
Please report bugs at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/percona-toolkit
<
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/
<
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¶
Baron Schwartz and Daniel Nichter
This tool is part of Percona Toolkit, a collection of advanced command-line
tools developed by Percona for MySQL support and consulting. Percona Toolkit
was forked from two projects in June, 2011: Maatkit and Aspersa. Those
projects were created by Baron Schwartz and developed primarily by him and
Daniel Nichter, both of whom are employed by Percona. Visit
<
http://www.percona.com/software/> for more software developed by
Percona.
COPYRIGHT, LICENSE, AND WARRANTY¶
This program is copyright 2009-2011 Baron Schwartz, 2011-2012 Percona Inc.
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-kill 2.1.2