mysql_upgrade

mysql_upgrade is a tool that checks and updates your tables to the latest version.

You should run mysql_upgrade after upgrading from one major MySQL/MariaDB release to another, such as from MySQL 5.0 to MariaDB 10.4 or MariaDB 10.4 to MariaDB 10.5. You also have to use mysql_upgrade after a direct "horizontal" migration, for example from MySQL 5.5.40 to MariaDB 5.5.40. It's also safe to run mysql_upgrade for minor upgrades, as if there are no incompatibles between versions it changes nothing.

mysql_upgrade is run after starting the new MariaDB server. Running it before you shut down the old version will not hurt anything and will allow you to make sure it works and figure out authentication for it ahead of time.

It is recommended to make a backup of all the databases before running mysql_upgrade.

In most cases, mysql_upgrade should just take a few seconds. The main work of mysql_upgrade is to:

• Update the system tables in the mysql database to the latest version (normally just add new fields to a few tables).
• Check that all tables are up to date (runs CHECK TABLE table_name FOR UPGRADE). For tables that are not up to date, runs ALTER TABLE table_name FORCE on the table to update it. A table is not up to date if:
  • The table uses an index for which there has been a collation change (rare)
  • A format change in the storage engine requires an update (very rare)

Using mysql_upgrade

mysql_upgrade [--force] [--user=# --password 
  --host=hostname --port=# --socket=#
  --protocol=tcp|socket|pipe|memory 
  --verbose] OTHER_OPTIONS]

mysql_upgrade is mainly a framework to call mysqlcheck. mysql_upgrade works by doing the following operations:

# Find out path to datadir
echo "show show variables like 'datadir'" | mysql
mysqlcheck --no-defaults --check-upgrade --auto-repair --databases mysql
mysql_fix_privilege_tables
mysqlcheck --no-defaults --all-databases --fix-db-names --fix-table-names
mysqlcheck --no-defaults --check-upgrade --all-databases --auto-repair

The connect options given to mysql_upgrade are passed along to mysqlcheck and mysql.

The mysql_fix_privilege_tables script is not actually called; it's included as part of mysql_upgrade

If you have a problem with mysql_upgrade try run it in very verbose mode:

mysql_upgrade --verbose --verbose other-options

Options

mysql_upgrade supports the following options:

Option Files

In addition to reading options from the command-line, mysql_upgrade can also read options from option files. If an unknown option is provided to mysql_upgrade in an option file, then it is ignored.

The following options relate to how MariaDB command-line tools handles option files. They must be given as the first argument on the command-line:

In MariaDB 10.2 and later, mysql_upgrade is linked with MariaDB Connector/C. However, MariaDB Connector/C does not yet handle the parsing of option files for this client. That is still performed by the server option file parsing code. See MDEV-19035 for more information.

Option Groups

mysql_upgrade reads options from the following option groups from option files:

Differences Between mysql_upgrade in MariaDB and MySQL

This is as of MariaDB 5.1.50:

• MariaDB will convert long table names properly.
• MariaDB will convert InnoDB tables (no need to do a dump/restore or ALTER TABLE).
• MariaDB will convert old archive tables to the new 5.1 format.
• "mysql_upgrade --verbose" will run "mysqlcheck --verbose" so that you get more information of what is happening. Running with 3 times --verbose will in MariaDB 10.0 print out all CHECK, RENAME and ALTER TABLE commands executed.
• The mysql.event table is upgraded live; no need to restart the server to use events if the event table has changed (MariaDB 10.0.22 and MariaDB 10.1.9).
• More descriptive output.

Speeding Up mysql_upgrade

- If you are sure that all your tables are up to date with the current version, then you can run mysql_upgrade ---upgrade-system-tables, which will only fix your system tables in the mysql database to be compatible with the latest version.

The main reason to run mysql_upgrade on all your tables is to allow it to check that:

• There has not been any change in table formats between versions.
  • This has not happened since MariaDB 5.1.
• If some of the tables are using an index for which we have changed sort order.
  • This has not happened since MariaDB 5.5.

If you are 100% sure this applies to you, you can just run mysql_upgrade with the ---upgrade-system-tables option.

Symptoms of Not Having Run mysql_upgrade When It Was Needed

• Errors in the error log that some system tables don't have all needed columns.
• Updates or searches may not find the record they are attempting to update or search for.
• CHECKSUM TABLE may report the wrong checksum for MyISAM or Aria tables.

To fix issues like this, run mysql_upgrade, mysqlcheck, CHECK TABLE and if needed REPAIR TABLE on the wrong table.

Other Uses

• mysql_upgrade will re-create any missing tables in the mysql database. It will not touch any data in existing tables.

See Also

• mysqlcheck
• CHECK TABLE
• REPAIR TABLE