The foreign_key_checks, unique_checks, and sql_auto_is_null variables are all replicated.

sql_mode is also replicated except for the NO_DIR_IN_CREATE mode. However, when mysqlbinlog parses a SET @@sql_mode = mode statement, the full mode value, including NO_DIR_IN_CREATE, is passed to the receiving server.

The storage_engine system variable is not replicated, regardless of the logging mode; this is intended to facilitate replication between different storage engines.

The read_only system variable is not replicated. In addition, the enabling this variable has different effects with regard to temporary tables, table locking, and the SET PASSWORD statement in different MySQL versions.

Starting from MySQL 5.0.3 (master and slave), replication works even if the master and slave have different global character set variables. Starting from MySQL 5.0.4 (master and slave), replication works even if the master and slave have different global time zone variables.

Session variables are not replicated properly when used in statements that update tables. For example, the following sequence of statements will not insert the same data on the master and the slave:

SET max_join_size=1000;
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES(@@max_join_size);

This does not apply to the common sequence, which replicates correctly as of MySQL 5.0.4.

SET time_zone=...;
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES(CONVERT_TZ(..., ..., @@time_zone));

Update statements that refer to user-defined variables (that is, variables of the form @var_name) are replicated correctly in MySQL 5.0. However, this is not true for versions prior to 4.1. Note that user variable names are case insensitive starting in MySQL 5.0. You should take this into account when setting up replication between MySQL 5.0 and older versions.

In MySQL 5.0.46 and later, the following session variables are written to the binary log and honored by the replication slave when parsing the binary log, regardless of the logging format:

It is strongly recommended that you always use the same setting for the lower_case_table_names system variable on both master and slave. In particular, when a case-sensitive file system is used, and this variable set to 1 on the slave, but to a different value on the master, names of databases are not converted to lowercase, which can cause replication to fail. This is a known issue, which is fixed in MySQL 5.6.