Overview The Skinny

Database Proxies provide a single entry point into MySQL for the calling client applications.

Proxies are wonderful tools to handle various situations like a master role switch to another node for maintenance, or for transparency with read and write connections.

However, when the time comes to perform the switch action, all of the calling clients have been funneled through the proxy, so identification of the calling host from the database itself becomes difficult.

The Problem What is going on?

Let’s illustrate how not knowing the source of a client connection can be an issue for the database administrator…

In the following diagram, three client applications connect to a Tungsten Cluster via the Connector proxy:

…

The story of Steven Mapes, an experienced software developer who has been using SQLyog MySQL GUI since 2002.

We were so thrilled to speak with Steven Mapes for two simple reasons. One, he is an ardent user of SQLyog. Two, he has been using the tool since 2002 (we had released the GA version of SQLyog in 2002). And, it is users like Steven who make the product successful with their constant support and feedback that keeps us going.

We go down memory lane and learn some interesting facts about SQLyog that made Steven stick with the tool for more than a decade.

Steven Mapes is a self-employed software solutions provider who develops web-based polyglot solutions for clients often hosted within the cloud since 2012. Before it, he was the Head of IT for Moko Social Media in the UK. When asked about how he came across SQLyog and the need to use the tool, Steven says,”My first exposure to SQLyog was back in 2002 when the …

In the quest to secure MySQL as well as ease the number of complicated passwords to remember, many organizations are looking into external authentication, especially using LDAP. For free and open source, Percona’s PAM authentication plugin is the standard option.

tl;dr is I go through how to compile php-cli for use with auth_pam plugin.

Background
There are two plugins that can be used. From the documentation, the two plugins are:

• Full PAM plugin called auth_pam. This plugin uses dialog.so. It fully supports the PAM protocol with arbitrary communication between client and server.
• Oracle-compatible PAM called auth_pam_compat. …

As work on WarpSQL (Shard-Query 3) progresses, it has outgrown MySQL proxy.  MySQL proxy is a very useful tool, but it requires LUA scripting, and it is an external daemon that needs to be maintained.  The MySQL proxy module for Shard-Query works well, but to make WarpSQL into a real distributed transaction coordinator, moving the proxy logic inside of the server makes more sense.

The main benefit of MySQL proxy is that it allows a script to “inject” queries between the client and server, intercepting the results and possibly sending back new results to the client.  I would like similar functionality, but inside of the server.

For example, I would like to implement new SHOW commands, and these commands do not need to be implemented as actual MySQL SHOW commands under the covers.

For example, for this blog post I made a new example command called “SHOW PASSWORD”

Sometimes we have apis implemented in our application and there are different levels at which these can be tested.

1. Unit tested at model level to check the logic is working fine
2. Tested at API call level to ascertain whether all the apis as expected are working and are returning data as expected.


Today, we will be learning how to test APIs in CodeIgniter 2.x version using phpunit and Guzzle Http client.

Basically Guzzle Http client is a client used to make http client requests.

Ref: https://github.com/guzzle/guzzle

"Guzzle is a PHP HTTP client that makes it easy to send HTTP …

New SSL alternatives SSL connections in previous versions of MariaDB Connector/C based on the OpenSSL library. The OpenSSL heartbleed bug, licensing problems and the lack of supporting different transport layers were the main reasons that we decided to offer SSL alternatives. In addition to OpenSSL the following SSL libraries are supported in Connector/C 3.0: GnuTLS […]

The post New in MariaDB Connector/C 3.0 – Part I: SSL appeared first on MariaDB.org.

The CVE-2015-0204 FREAK SSL vulnerability abuses intentionally weak “EXPORT” ciphers which could be used to perform a transparent Man In The Middle attack. (We seem to be continually bombarded with not only SSL vulnerabilities but the need to name vulnerabilities with increasing odd names.)

Is your server vulnerable?

This can be tested using the following GIST

If the result is 0; the server is not providing the EXPORT cipher; and as such is not vulnerable.

Is your client vulnerable?

Point your client to https://oneiroi.co.uk:4443/test if this returns “Vulnerable” then the client is vulnerable, if you find a connection error your client should not be vulnerable for example:

root@host:/tmp$ openssl …

One of the great features of Shard-Query is the ability to use MySQL proxy to access resultsets transparently. While this is a great tool, many people have expressed reservations about using MySQL Proxy, an alpha component in their production environment.

I recognize that this is a valid concern, and have implemented an alternate method of retrieving resultsets directly in the MySQL client, without using a proxy. This means that any node can easily act as the “head” node without any extra daemon, instead of having to run many proxies.

The sq_helper() routine has been checked into the git repository and is available now.

The function takes a few parameters:

• sql to run
• shard-query schema name (empty string or null for default schema)
• schema to store temp table in
• temp table name (where results are sent to)
• return result (boolean, 1 returns …

Being a terminal fan myself, I usually find myself running queries in the mysql client instead of a UI interface as it is much faster. You get to see the results instantaneously.

One thing which is pretty tedious is editing a big query again after once running it as the whole multi-line formatted query now appears on a single line, thus reducing its readability.

But no problems, you can edit your query from a file and run the file from your mysql client terminal as many times as you want with as many edits.

To do so, follow the below steps:

1. Open your terminal and cd into the folder you want to store our sample mysql file. Then save your query in a sample file called my_query.sql

$ cd /path/to/folder
$ vim my_query.sql

Save a sample query like:

SELECT * FROM employees
WHERE type LIKE …

Chuck Bell, one of my former colleague from MySQL AB, has created a connector for Arduino to MySQL. So this allows Arduino code to be a direct client of a MySQL or MariaDB server, with Ethernet and WiFi shields supported.

With Arduino boards being used more and more, this can come in really handy – not only for retrieving (for instance) centralised configuration data, but also for logging. Useful stuff. Thanks Chuck!

Links

• Introducing MySQL Connector/Arduino 1.0.0 beta (original article)
• MySQL Connector/Arduino on Launchpad
• Freetronics (Arduino gear)