How can I trace MySQL queries on my Linux server as they happen?
For example I'd love to set up some sort of listener, then request a web page and view all of the queries the engine executed, or just view all of the queries being run on a production server. How can I do this?
You can run the MySQL command SHOW FULL PROCESSLIST; to see what queries are being processed at any given time, but that probably won't achieve what you're hoping for.
The best method to get a history without having to modify every application using the server is probably through triggers. You could set up triggers so that every query run results in the query being inserted into some sort of history table, and then create a separate page to access this information.
Do be aware that this will probably considerably slow down everything on the server though, with adding an extra INSERT on top of every single query.
Edit: another alternative is the General Query Log, but having it written to a flat file would remove a lot of possibilities for flexibility of displaying, especially in real-time. If you just want a simple, easy-to-implement way to see what's going on though, enabling the GQL and then using running tail -f on the logfile would do the trick.
AgilData launched recently the Gibbs MySQL Scalability Advisor (a free self-service tool) which allows users to capture a live stream of queries to be uploaded to Gibbs. Spyglass (which is Open Source) will watch interactions between your MySQL Servers and client applications. No reconfiguration or restart of the MySQL database server is needed (either client or app).
GitHub: AgilData/gibbs-mysql-spyglass
Learn more: Packet Capturing MySQL with Rust
Install command:
curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AgilData/gibbs-mysql-spyglass/master/install.sh | bash
If you want to have monitoring and statistics, than there is a good and open-source tool Percona Monitoring and Management
But it is a server based system, and it is not very trivial for launch.
It has also live demo system for test.