MySQL Bugs: #18504: Administrator kills legal configuration options that it doesn't know about

Bug #18504	Administrator kills legal configuration options that it doesn't know about
Submitted:	25 Mar 2006 1:14	Modified:	8 Sep 2006 14:50
Reporter:	Gisbert Selke (Basic Quality Contributor)	Email Updates:
Status:	Closed	Impact on me:	None
Category:	MySQL Administrator	Severity:	S2 (Serious)
Version:	1.1.18	OS:	Windows (Win XP)
Assigned to:	Vladimir Kolesnikov	CPU Architecture:	Any
Tags:	Server Configuration

Description:
Using MySQL Administrator to change server startup options will corrupt options that are present in my.ini but that MySQL Administrator doesn't know about.
At least default-collation and innodb-file-per-table are affected.
In effect, Administrator will comment out the affected lines and will overwrite the config file without alerting the user to the fact that options (some of which may be crucial to the operation of the server) have been altered.

How to repeat:
Manually edit the configuration file to include inthe innodb section the line:
  innodb-file-per-table
And the server section:
  default-collation=latin1_grman1_ci
Save. Start MySQL Administrator, go to startup options page, make some change there like, e.g., enabling logging. Save.
With an editor, re-open the configuration file and check the lines introduced manually above.
They will be commented out, bearing the additional hint "(unknown option)".

Suggested fix:
Leave unknown options alone.
Alternatively, make sure that Administrator always knows about all legal options. (Difficult to impossible.)
Alternatively, implement a service command into the server (say, "show legal_startup_options") by which Administrator (or any other admin tool) can query the server that it is talking to for the options that it should respect (if not actively manage).

Thank you for your bug report. This issue has been committed to our source repository of that product and will be incorporated into the next release.

If necessary, you can access the source repository and build the latest available version, including the bug fix. More information about accessing the source trees is available at

    http://dev.mysql.com/doc/en/installing-source.html