Recently we have released Workbench 5.2.4 Alpha. This version has some new features, and amongst them there is Workbench Administrator plugin or WBA plugin for short.
The plugin aims to ease the managing process of server instances. What we offer with WBA is a simple way to check status, configure and control one server instance. Some parts will resemble discontinued MySQL Administrator.
And here is a short summary of what we will have in WBA:
- Start/Stop server
- Edit server configuration (my.cnf)
- Manage user accounts
- Monitor user connections
- Status/Server variables browsing
- Log browsing
- Dump/Restore
In this alpha we have implemented a subset, which targets local usage only. Remote management and administration is upcoming. The subset includes:
- Add new Server Profiles
- Start/Stop the Server
- Edit Server Configuration (my.cnf)
- Monitor user connections
- Status/Server variables browsing
To launch the plugin you need to run Workbench 5.2.4, register a server instance by double-clicking the Manage Icon. Once the server instance is registered you can double click the icon of the server instance. But for the moment let’s dive into what is important to specify at the server instance creation stage.
Our target is ‘System Profile’ tab of ‘Manage Server Instances’ form. Mostly, the whole process should be simple selecting the right profile. Nevertheless, for now (I hope you still remember it is an alpha release), one of the vitally important things is to check location of ini or cnf file. Also you may check commands used to start, stop and query server status. For example OS X profile has that line to check for status: ps -cxa | grep mysqld.
All the commands specified in these entries are run as a sub-processes and sometimes they may require super-user privileges, for that purpose there is ‘use sudo’ checkbox. Normally, command run has exit code which WBA checks for to determine success of failure of the command.
When adding a new Server Profile you also need to select a Connection to the server (You should create that connection in the Connection Management dialog first). That will allow you to browse the Connections and Server Variables in the WBA. It will also be used to update the Server Status periodically every second and show the current state (that is in next alpha).
The way to change the my.cnf/my.ini config file is pretty straightforward. First, if you want a value to be written to the config file, you have to enable the checkbox left to each option. After all changes have been made, you can either press Apply or Discard button. Apply will display a Dialog which shows several things: what has changed, resulting file, commands which are used to save file. If changes are correct, press Apply on the form. That is it.
Stay tuned for the updates on WBA topic.