Looking for more detail about --no-lock option.

MySQL & MariaDB Percona XtraBackup
1

I am considering the --no-lock option for some of my backups, but I feel like I need to understand it better before implementing it. The documentation states that it is safe to use if:

  1. You use only InnoDB tables AND
  2. You are not actively adding users, tables, stored procedures, etc. (things that change the data dictionary) AND
  3. You “DO NOT CARE” about the binary log position of the backup.

This last part of the statement is what gets my attention. Does this mean that using --no-lock causes innobackupex to NOT produce a file with the binary log position? So, backups would not be good for creating slaves, but otherwise could be restored?

Just want to make sure I understand the ramifications.

Thanks,
Dave

2

If innobackupex doesn’t lock all tables then is impossible to get the correct binary log and position because the data is still being modified. You can restore that backup on another server but not use the recorded binlog positions to create new slaves.

3

Thanks, Miguel. I assumed that must be the case, but I wanted to get confirmation. Just needed to know what limitations I might be faced with if we implement this change.

Much appreciated!