ndbinfo is a database storing containing information specific to MySQL Cluster, available beginning with MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.1.

This database contains a number of tables, each providing a different sort of data about MySQL Cluster node status, resource usage, and operations. You can find more detailed information about each of these tables in the next several sections.

ndbinfo is included with MySQL Cluster support in the MySQL Server; no special compilation or configuration steps are required; the tables are created by the MySQL Server when it connects to the cluster. You can verify that ndbinfo support is active in a given MySQL Server instance using SHOW PLUGINS; if ndbinfo support is enabled, you should see a row containing ndbinfo in the Name column and ACTIVE in the Status column, as shown here (emphasized text):

mysql> SHOW PLUGINS;
+------------+----------+----------------+---------+---------+
| Name       | Status   | Type           | Library | License |
+------------+----------+----------------+---------+---------+
| binlog     | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| partition  | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| ARCHIVE    | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| BLACKHOLE  | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| CSV        | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| FEDERATED  | DISABLED | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| MEMORY     | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| InnoDB     | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| MyISAM     | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| MRG_MYISAM | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| ndbcluster | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
| ndbinfo    | ACTIVE   | STORAGE ENGINE | NULL    | GPL     |
+------------+----------+----------------+---------+---------+
12 rows in set (0.00 sec)

You can also do this by checking the output of SHOW ENGINES for a row that has ndbinfo for Engine and YES for Support, as shown here (emphasized text):

mysql> SHOW ENGINES\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
      Engine: ndbcluster
     Support: YES
     Comment: Clustered, fault-tolerant tables
Transactions: YES
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 2. row ***************************
      Engine: MRG_MYISAM
     Support: YES
     Comment: Collection of identical MyISAM tables
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 3. row ***************************
      Engine: ndbinfo
     Support: YES
     Comment: MySQL Cluster system information storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 4. row ***************************
      Engine: CSV
     Support: YES
     Comment: CSV storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 5. row ***************************
      Engine: MEMORY
     Support: YES
     Comment: Hash based, stored in memory, useful for temporary tables
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 6. row ***************************
      Engine: FEDERATED
     Support: NO
     Comment: Federated MySQL storage engine
Transactions: NULL
          XA: NULL
  Savepoints: NULL
*************************** 7. row ***************************
      Engine: ARCHIVE
     Support: YES
     Comment: Archive storage engine
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 8. row ***************************
      Engine: InnoDB
     Support: YES
     Comment: Supports transactions, row-level locking, and foreign keys
Transactions: YES
          XA: YES
  Savepoints: YES
*************************** 9. row ***************************
      Engine: MyISAM
     Support: DEFAULT
     Comment: Default engine as of MySQL 3.23 with great performance
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
*************************** 10. row ***************************
      Engine: BLACKHOLE
     Support: YES
     Comment: /dev/null storage engine (anything you write to it disappears)
Transactions: NO
          XA: NO
  Savepoints: NO
10 rows in set (0.00 sec)

If ndbinfo support is enabled, then you can access ndbinfo using SQL statements in mysql or another MySQL client. For example, you can see ndbinfo listed in the output of SHOW DATABASES, as shown here:

mysql> SHOW DATABASES;
+--------------------+
| Database           |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| ndbinfo            |
| test               |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

If the mysqld process was not started with the --ndbcluster option, ndbinfo is not available and is not displayed by SHOW DATABASES. If mysqld was formerly connected to a MySQL Cluster but the cluster becomes unavailable (due to events such as cluster shutdown, loss of network connectivity, and so forth), ndbinfo and its tables remain visible, but an attempt to access any tables (other than blocks or config_params) fails with Got error 157 'Connection to NDB failed' from NDBINFO.

With the exception of the blocks and config_params tables, what we refer to as ndbinfo “tables” are actually views generated from internal NDB tables not normally visible to the MySQL Server.

All ndbinfo tables are read-only, and are generated on demand when queried. Because many of them are generated in parallel by the data nodes while other are specific to a given SQL node, they are not guaranteed to provide a consistent snapshot.

In addition, pushing down of joins is not supported on ndbinfo tables; so joining large ndbinfo tables can require transfer of a large amount of data to the requesting API node, even when the query makes use of a WHERE clause.

Beginning with MySQL Cluster NDB 7.0.22 and MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.11, ndbinfo tables are not included in the query cache. (Bug #59831)

You can select the ndbinfo database with a USE statement, and then issue a SHOW TABLES statement to obtain a list of tables, just as for any other database, like this:

mysql> USE ndbinfo;
Database changed

mysql> SHOW TABLES;
+----------------------+
| Tables_in_ndbinfo    |
+----------------------+
| blocks               |
| cluster_operations   |
| cluster_transactions |
| config_params        |
| counters             |
| diskpagebuffer       |
| logbuffers           |
| logspaces            |
| memoryusage          |
| nodes                |
| resources            |
| server_operations    |
| server_transactions  |
| threadblocks         |
| threadstat           |
| transporters         |
+----------------------+
16 rows in set (0.04 sec)

The diskpagebuffer table was added in MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.9.

The cluster_operations, cluster_transactions, server_operations, server_transactions, threadblocks, and threadstat tables were added in MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.17.

In early versions of MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1, there was an additional pools table in the ndbinfo database; however, this table was removed in MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.3.

You can execute SELECT statements against these tables, just as you would normally expect:

mysql> SELECT * FROM memoryusage;
+---------+--------------+------+-------+
| node_id | memory_type  | used | max   |
+---------+--------------+------+-------+
|       1 | Data memory  | 3230 |  6408 |
|       2 | Data memory  | 3230 |  6408 |
|       1 | Index memory |   16 | 12832 |
|       2 | Index memory |   16 | 12832 |
+---------+--------------+------+-------+
4 rows in set (0.37 sec)

More complex queries, such as the two following SELECT statements using the memoryusage table, are possible:

mysql> SELECT SUM(used) as 'Data Memory Used, All Nodes' 
     >     FROM memoryusage 
     >     WHERE memory_type = 'Data memory';
+-----------------------------+
| Data Memory Used, All Nodes |
+-----------------------------+
|                        6460 |
+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.37 sec)

mysql> SELECT SUM(max) as 'Total IndexMemory Available' 
     >     FROM memoryusage 
     >     WHERE memory_type = 'Index memory';
+-----------------------------+
| Total IndexMemory Available |
+-----------------------------+
|                       25664 |
+-----------------------------+
1 row in set (0.33 sec)

ndbinfo table and column names are case sensitive (as is the name of the ndbinfo database itself). These identifiers are in lowercase. Trying to use the wrong lettercase results in an error, as shown in this example:

mysql> SELECT * FROM nodes;
+---------+--------+---------+-------------+
| node_id | uptime | status  | start_phase |
+---------+--------+---------+-------------+
|       1 |  13602 | STARTED |           0 |
|       2 |     16 | STARTED |           0 |
+---------+--------+---------+-------------+
2 rows in set (0.04 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM Nodes;
ERROR 1146 (42S02): Table 'ndbinfo.Nodes' doesn't exist

Beginning with MySQL Cluster NDB 7.1.7, mysqldump ignores ndbinfo entirely, and excludes it from any output. This is true even when using the --databases or --all-databases option.

MySQL Cluster also maintains tables in the INFORMATION_SCHEMA information database, including the FILES table which contains information about files used for MySQL Cluster Disk Data storage. For more information, see Section 20.26, “INFORMATION_SCHEMA Tables for MySQL Cluster”.