MySQL Bugs: #13094: Documentation bugs about MySQL Cluster

Bug #13094	Documentation bugs about MySQL Cluster
Submitted:	9 Sep 2005 19:55	Modified:	25 Sep 2005 2:05
Reporter:	Jeremy Cole (Basic Quality Contributor)	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Server: Documentation	Severity:	S2 (Serious)
Version:	n/a	OS:	n/a
Assigned to:	Jon Stephens	CPU Architecture:	Any
Triage:	D4 (Minor)

Description:
In the MySQL Cluster setup instructions here:

  http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/multi-config.html

There are quite a few bugs.  Namely:

* There are comments on the ends of the lines of my.cnf and config.ini.  This is invalid in MySQL, meaning one cannot cut and paste any of the example configurations.

* In the config.ini example, there is a 'datadir' line for the [MYSQLD] section, but  ndb_mgmd will not start if that line is present.  Is it an error?

* mysqld cannot actually be started following these instructions.  Permissions haven't been adjusted for the data directory, and mysqld will refuse to start as root.  A chown command and user=mysql configuration line need to be present somewhere.

How to repeat:
n/a

This bug report contains three errors:
- Error #1 is not an error. You *can* have comments at the end of lines.
- Error #2 is not an error either.
- Error #3 might be an error. If so, the documentation needs to be changed.

The Documenting status is not for documentation bugs but for bugs that require a changelog entry. Changing status to Verified.

Error 1:
I can't test right now, but I believe we got an error message indicating that the comments were not parsed out correctly from config.ini.

Error 2:
[MYSQLD]DataDir is missing from the following URL if it truly does exist.  However, at least in 4.1 it does not, and causes config.ini to fail.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/mysql-cluster-api-definition.html

Comments:

Someone from MySQL should try following the Cluster setup instructions with 4.1 and 5.0 and make sure it is adequately documented.

Thank you for taking the time to write to us, but this is not
a bug. Please double-check the documentation available at
http://www.mysql.com/documentation/ and the instructions on
how to report a bug at http://bugs.mysql.com/how-to-report.php

Additional info:

Issue #3 (users/groups/ownership of directories) is already covered under the heading "Storage and SQL Node Installation". 

I do not believe that issues #1 & #2 are really issues, either, but I am asking NDB QA to verify.

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been addressed in the
documentation. The updated documentation will appear on our website
shortly, and will be included in the next release of the relevant
product(s).

Additional info:

1. The real issue with the comment in the config files is that you can't have a comment on the same line as a [section-header].

2. You don't set a DataDir for SQL nodes in config.ini - this is done in the SQL node's own my.cnf.

3. Installation in the relevant Manual section assumes RPM install, which means startup is handled via /etc/init.d.

I've updated the Manual to reflect all of this info. Thanks very much for your help!