Innotop is a Perl script created to extract important information about the internal workings of the InnoDB storage engine. Starting from version 5.4, we gained access to information about active transactions, locks, InnoDB Buffer Pool status, etc., through tables added to the MySQL catalog, also known and represented by the information_schema database.
Reading these tables can be a thankless and futile task for those who don’t have much experience with MySQL. Worse still would be trying to use the show engine InnoDB status command. I confess that in the early years of MySQL, the result of this command, to me, looked a lot like the alien signal hidden in satellite frequencies during the Earth invasion in the movie “Independence Day.” Some things intrigued me about this movie: 1) Why was the movie title never translated? 2) How did the “Fly Guy” (Jeff Goldblum) connect to the invaders’ system: Bluetooth or Wi-Fi? 3) Guys, for the love of Jesus Christ, the invaders didn’t have a firewall and still wanted to conquer Earth? No way.
I’ve rambled enough; let’s get back to what matters: installing innotop!
I’ll assume we’re using Linux, out of passion: CentOS. What are the dependencies, the prerequisites for installing innotop?
- PERL
– Run the command below to check if Perl is installed:
pgsqlCopyEdit# perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.8 built for x86_64-linux-thread-multi
Copyright 1987-2006, Larry Wall
Perl may be copied only under the terms of either the Artistic License or the GNU General Public License, which may be found in the Perl 5 source kit.
Complete documentation for Perl, including FAQ lists, should be found on this system using “man perl” or “perldoc perl”. If you have access to the Internet, point your browser at http://www.perl.org/, the Perl Home Page.
In my case, I have Perl v5.8.8 installed. The version doesn’t matter; if you receive a message similar to mine, you’re ready to continue.
– Run the command below to install Perl if it’s not installed:
mathematicaCopyEdityum install perl
Loaded plugins: fastestmirror
Loading mirror speeds from cached hostfile
Setting up Install Process
Package 4:perl-5.8.8-32.el5_5.2.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Resolving Dependencies
--> Running transaction check
---> Package perl.i386 4:5.8.8-32.el5_5.2 set to be updated
--> Finished Dependency Resolution
Dependencies Resolved
===========================================================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
===========================================================
Installing: perl i386 4:5.8.8-32.el5_5.2 extras 12 M
Transaction Summary
===========================================================
Install 1 Package(s)
Upgrade 0 Package(s)
Total download size: 12 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Just confirm with yes and let the installation run. Remember that yum is the package manager for Red Hat-based distributions like CentOS. Other distributions may use apt-get, aptitude, urpmi, pkg-get, etc.
Once Perl is installed, we need to install the modules required for innotop to work. There are two ways to do this; I’ll choose the simplest and least costly:
Run the following commands in order, and be patient as some may take a while because they download and install packages:
arduinoCopyEdit# perl -MCPAN -eshell
If this is your first time running this command, be prepared to answer several questions to configure your Perl environment properly.
This command will take you inside the Perl shell. Once inside, run these commands:
shellCopyEditcpan> install Term::ReadKey
cpan> install DBI
cpan> install DBD::mysql
If all goes well, Perl will be installed and configured correctly so that innotop can perform its role properly.
Next step! Get innotop by downloading it:
shellCopyEdit# wget http://sourceforge.net/projects/innotop/files/innotop/1.6.0/innotop-1.6.0.tar.gz/download
- Note: I’m downloading version 1.6.0, but when you install yours, it’s a good idea to check the project page for a newer version.
Now, let’s unzip and install it in my favorite directory, /opt. You can install it wherever you prefer.
shellCopyEdit# cd /opt
# gunzip innotop-1.6.0.tar.gz
# tar -xvf innotop-1.6.0.tar
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