Q. How to find out more information about MySQL server status?

A. The MySQL server maintains many status variables that provide information about its operation. You can see upto date variables lists and explanation of its usages online. For example you can connect to MySQL server and execute SHOW STATUS
$ mysql -u vivek -p
mysql> show status;
Output:

+--------------------------------+------------+
| Variable_name                  | Value      |
+--------------------------------+------------+
| Aborted_clients                | 0          |
| Aborted_connects               | 4          |
| Binlog_cache_disk_use          | 0          |
| Binlog_cache_use               | 0          |
| Bytes_received                 | 208711192  |
| Bytes_sent                     | 2331972589 |
| Com_admin_commands             | 1          |
| Com_alter_db                   | 0          |
| Com_alter_table                | 0          |
....
.....
.
| Threads_connected              | 1          |
| Threads_created                | 53         |
| Threads_running                | 1          |
| Uptime                         | 143182     |
+--------------------------------+------------+
186 rows in set (0.00 sec)

However it takes some time to understand these variables. I recommend using mysqlreport which makes a friendly report of important status variables.

From the project home page:
It makes a friendly report of nearly every status value from SHOW STATUS. Unlike SHOW STATUS which simply dumps over 100 values to screen in one long list, mysqlreport interprets and formats the values and presents the basic values and many more inferred values in a human-readable format. Numerous example reports are available at the mysqlreport web page.

The benefit of mysqlreport is that it allows you to very quickly see a wide array of performance indicators for your MySQL server which would otherwise need to be calculated by hand from all the various SHOW STATUS values

How do I use mysqlreport?

First, download mysqlreport perl script:
$ wget http://hackmysql.com/scripts/mysqlreport

Now, execute mysqlreport
$ ./mysqlreport --user vivek --host localhost --port 3306 --socket /var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock --passwordOutput:

Password for database user vivek:
MySQL 4.1.20             uptime 1 15:51:22      Fri Oct 20 00:39:46 2006

__ Key _________________________________________________________________
Buffer used     2.92M of 500.00M  %Used:   0.58
  Current      94.22M            %Usage:  18.84
Write ratio      0.83
Read ratio       0.01

__ Questions ___________________________________________________________
Total         575.29k    4.01/s
Slow                0    0.00/s  %Total:   0.00  %DMS:   0.00
DMS           165.78k    1.16/s           28.82

__ Table Locks _________________________________________________________
Waited              5    0.00/s  %Total:   0.00
Immediate     174.21k    1.21/s

__ Tables ______________________________________________________________
Open               99 of 4000    %Cache:   2.48
Opened          1.82k    0.01/s

__ Connections _________________________________________________________
Max used           15 of  400      %Max:   3.75
Total          76.37k    0.53/s

__ Created Temp ________________________________________________________
Disk table      6.21k    0.04/s
Table          14.24k    0.10/s
File               22    0.00/s

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