Comments on: Reducing MySQL Memory Usage for Low End Boxes

By: George

George — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 02:53:42 +0000

Just a note skip-bdb is deprecated in latest mysql versions and adding it to my.cnf may result in mysql server not starting or restarting. So remove it.

For MariaDB 5.2 mysql folks add skip-pbxt if you don’t use PBXT storage engine.

By: Yash

Yash — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 03:38:58 +0000

I know this is an old post, but the LxAdmin my.cnf that I blindly copied and pasted didn’t work (mysql wouldn’t start), so I took the Debian mysql-small.cnf, modified it a bit, and now I have MySQL down to 5.2 meg RSS :).
Here is my “my.cnf” –

# The following options will be passed to all MySQL clients
[client]
#password = your_password
port = 3306
socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock

# Here follows entries for some specific programs

# The MySQL server
[mysqld]
port = 3306
socket = /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock
skip-locking
key_buffer = 16K
max_allowed_packet = 1M
table_cache = 4
sort_buffer_size = 64K
read_buffer_size = 256K
read_rnd_buffer_size = 256K
net_buffer_length = 2K
thread_stack = 64K

# Don’t listen on a TCP/IP port at all. This can be a security enhancement,
# if all processes that need to connect to mysqld run on the same host.
# All interaction with mysqld must be made via Unix sockets or named pipes.
# Note that using this option without enabling named pipes on Windows
# (using the “enable-named-pipe” option) will render mysqld useless!
#
#skip-networking
server-id = 1

# Uncomment the following if you want to log updates
#log-bin=mysql-bin

# Uncomment the following if you are NOT using BDB tables
skip-bdb

# Uncomment the following if you are using InnoDB tables
#innodb_data_home_dir = /var/lib/mysql/
#innodb_data_file_path = ibdata1:10M:autoextend
#innodb_log_group_home_dir = /var/lib/mysql/
#innodb_log_arch_dir = /var/lib/mysql/
# You can set .._buffer_pool_size up to 50 – 80 %
# of RAM but beware of setting memory usage too high
#innodb_buffer_pool_size = 16M
#innodb_additional_mem_pool_size = 2M
# Set .._log_file_size to 25 % of buffer pool size
#innodb_log_file_size = 5M
#innodb_log_buffer_size = 8M
#innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit = 1
#innodb_lock_wait_timeout = 50
skip-innodb
[mysqldump]
quick
max_allowed_packet = 16M

[mysql]
no-auto-rehash
# Remove the next comment character if you are not familiar with SQL
#safe-updates

[isamchk]
key_buffer = 1M
sort_buffer_size = 1M

[myisamchk]
key_buffer = 1M
sort_buffer_size = 1M

[mysqlhotcopy]
interactive-timeout

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 00:05:10 +0000

Sometimes, it won’t run since it can’t find bdb to disable. It will just hang. Check /var/log/mysql/mysql.err for more info.

By: Yomero

Yomero — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 09:05:38 +0000

Pfff, Innodb is insanely fat.

By: calvin

calvin — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 07:46:08 +0000

I’m using configuration from this:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/high-traffic-database-tips?replies=3

now my6SQL in my vps only using 71 MB ram. I hope nothing goes wrong though…

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 04:47:23 +0000

Just a little error noted: the my-small.cnf in Debian 5 is locate in the directory /usr/share/doc/mysql-server-5.0/examples not /usr/share/doc/my-server-5.0/examples (note missing 'sql'). Perhaps you could update the post? Thanks for a great tip though.

By: AceLNMP [aT] 誰的部落格

AceLNMP [aT] 誰的部落格 — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 09:06:21 +0000

[...] LowEndBox 的 Reducing MySQL Memory Usage for Low End Boxes 這篇文章來設定記憶體小於 256MB 的 VPS，另外MySQL [...]

By: Philip Sahli

Philip Sahli — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 08:09:09 +0000

I found two free mysql hoster:
- freemysql.net –> very slow…
- db4free –> fast, not yet sure if its very stable because its designate for testers and developers.

By: David

David — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 00:54:23 +0000

Theo, memory alocate sounds like yer outta ram yes..

mysql is probably not suitable for a 128 ram’ed VPS (out of the box).. personally i’ve got my VPS running plenty of sites+email+spam filters+nginx+apache the lot.. but you need to be alert and monitor your RAM.

I suggest you try the following:
check your ram when you start/stop services: free
monitor your ram/cpu longterm: sysstat
try something else than mysql: sqlite, pmwiki etc
not to forget looking at the attached mysql.cnf in the article.

By: Theo

Theo — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 18:47:49 +0000

Hello, i bought a vps with 128mb ram..

The first commands i executed:
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install mysql-server mysql-client

And i got Memory Alocate Problem.. I pressed Ctrl+C..Did the mysql installed ok or will i have problems?

By: junkiest

junkiest — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:08:07 +0000

i have a problem about that on my VPS.
with 128 RAM but it won’t run.
can you give me the example my.conf ?

i’m really need
thanks

By: invar

invar — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 13:51:23 +0000

PunBB/Flux also supports SQLite

By: Nilesh

Nilesh — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 17:38:03 +0000

flat file (sqlite2) DB engine forum = phpBB3

By: weakish

weakish — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:05:30 +0000

Thanks for your information. IMO, E-Blah seems the best of them.

By: LowEndAdmin

LowEndAdmin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:33:06 +0000

As of flat file forums — according to ForumMatrix, these are the candidates:

http://www.forummatrix.org/compare/E-Blah+Vistix+YaBB

By: LowEndAdmin

LowEndAdmin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:21:14 +0000

Thanks for the suggestion. Personally I found file-based apps are also easier to backup than DB-backed, but then the choice would be a bit limiting.

By: weakish

weakish — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:32:36 +0000

Good article. Another good idea is to avoid MySQL. There is some nice blog system on flat file system. Flatpress(php), blosxom (perl), pyblosxom (python), blosxomy (ruby). And wiki systems: dokuwiki (php), Oddmuse (perl), MoinMoin (python).

Though I haven’t heard of any forum on flat file.