My SQL Interview Questions and Answers

MySQL - How to Cope Without COMMIT/ROLLBACK
The following mostly applies only for ISAM, MyISAM, and HEAP tables. If you only use transaction-safe tables (BDB tables) in an a update, you can do COMMIT and ROLLBACK also with MySQL.
The problem with handling COMMIT-ROLLBACK efficiently with the above table types would require a completely different table layout than MySQL uses today. The table type would also need extra threads that do automatic cleanups on the tables, and the disk usage would be much higher. This would make these table types about 2-4 times slower than they are today.
For the moment, we prefer implementing the SQL server language (something like stored procedures). With this you would very seldom really need COMMIT-ROLLBACK. This would also give much better performance.
Loops that need transactions normally can be coded with the help of LOCK TABLES, and you don't need cursors when you can update records on the fly.
We at TcX had a greater need for a real fast database than a 100% general database. Whenever we find a way to implement these features without any speed loss, we will probably do it. For the moment, there are many more important things to do. Check the TODO for how we prioritize things at the moment. (Customers with higher levels of support can alter this, so things may be reprioritized.)
The current problem is actually ROLLBACK. Without ROLLBACK, you can do any kind of COMMIT action with LOCK TABLES. To support ROLLBACK with the above table types, MySQL would have to be changed to store all old records that were updated and revert everything back to the starting point if ROLLBACK was issued. For simple cases, this isn't that hard to do (the current isamlog could be used for this purpose), but it would be much more difficult to implement ROLLBACK for ALTER/DROP/CREATE TABLE.
To avoid using ROLLBACK, you can use the following strategy:
Use LOCK TABLES ... to lock all the tables you want to access.
Test conditions.
Update if everything is okay.
Use UNLOCK TABLES to release your locks.
This is usually a much faster method than using transactions with possible ROLLBACKs, although not always. The only situation this solution doesn't handle is when someone kills the threads in the middle of an update. In this case, all locks will be released but some of the updates may not have been executed.

You can also use functions to update records in a single operation. You can get a very efficient application by using the following techniques:

Modify fields relative to their current value.
Update only those fields that actually have changed.
For example, when we are doing updates to some customer information, we update only the customer data that has changed and test only that none of the changed data, or data that depend on the changed data, has changed compared to the original row. The test for changed data is done with the WHERE clause in the UPDATE statement. If the record wasn't updated, we give the client a message: "Some of the data you have changed have been changed by another user". Then we show the old row versus the new row in a window, so the user can decide which version of the customer record he should use.

This gives us something that is similar to column locking but is actually even better, because we only update some of the columns, using values that are relative to their current values. This means that typical UPDATE statements look something like these:

UPDATE tablename SET pay_back=pay_back+'relative change';

UPDATE customer
SET
customer_date='current_date',
address='new address',
phone='new phone',
money_he_owes_us=money_he_owes_us+'new_money'
WHERE
customer_id=id AND address='old address' AND phone='old phone';

As you can see, this is very efficient and works even if another client has changed the values in the pay_back or money_he_owes_us columns.

In many cases, users have wanted ROLLBACK and/or LOCK TABLES for the purpose of managing unique identifiers for some tables. This can be handled much more efficiently by using an AUTO_INCREMENT column and either the SQL function LAST_INSERT_ID() or the C API function mysql_insert_id().

At MySQL AB, we have never had any need for row-level locking because we have always been able to code around it. Some cases really need row locking, but they are very few. If you want row-level locking, you can use a flag column in the table and do something like this:

UPDATE tbl_name SET row_flag=1 WHERE id=ID;

MySQL returns 1 for the number of affected rows if the row was found and row_flag wasn't already 1 in the original row.
You can think of it as MySQL changed the above query to:

UPDATE tbl_name SET row_flag=1 WHERE id=ID and row_flag <> 1;

MySQL - General Security
Anyone using MySQL on a computer connected to the Internet should read this section to avoid the most common security mistakes.

In discussing security, we emphasize the necessity of fully protecting the entire server host (not simply the MySQL server) against all types of applicable attacks: eavesdropping, altering, playback, and denial of service. We do not cover all aspects of availability and fault tolerance here.

MySQL uses Access Control Lists (ACLs) security for all connections, queries, and other operations that a user may attempt to perform. There is also some support for SSL-encrypted connections between MySQL clients and servers. Many of the concepts discussed here are not specific to MySQL at all; the same general ideas apply to almost all applications.

When running MySQL, follow these guidelines whenever possible:

DON'T EVER GIVE ANYONE (EXCEPT THE MySQL ROOT USER) ACCESS TO THE mysql.user TABLE! The encrypted password is the real password in MySQL. If you know this for one user you can easily login as him if you have access to his 'host'.
Learn the MySQL access privilege system. The GRANT and REVOKE commands are used for restricting access to MySQL. Do not grant any more privileges than necessary. Never grant privileges to all hosts. Checklist:
Try mysql -u root. If you are able to connect successfully to the server without being asked for a password, you have problems. Any user (not just root) can connect to your MySQL server with full privileges! Review the MySQL installation instructions, paying particular attention to the item about setting a root password.
Use the command SHOW GRANTS and check to see who has access to what. Remove those privileges that are not necessary using the REVOKE command.
Do not keep any plain-text passwords in your database. When your computer becomes compromised, the intruder can take the full list of passwords and use them. Instead use MD5() or another one-way hashing function.
Do not use passwords from dictionaries. There are special programs to break them. Even passwords like ``xfish98'' are very bad. Much better is ``duag98'' which contains the same word ``fish'' but typed one key to the left on a standard QWERTY keyboard. Another method is to use ``Mhall'' which is taken from the first characters of of each word in the sentence ``Mary had a little lamb.'' This is easy to remember and type, but hard to guess for someone who does not know it.
Invest in a firewall. This protects from at least 50% of all types of exploits in any software. Put MySQL behind the firewall or in a demilitarized zone (DMZ). Checklist:
Try to scan your ports from the Internet using a tool such as nmap. MySQL uses port 3306 by default. This port should be inaccessible from untrusted hosts. Another simple way to check whether or not your MySQL port is open is to type telnet server_host 3306 from some remote machine, where server_host is the hostname of your MySQL server. If you get a connection and some garbage characters, the port is open, and should be closed on your firewall or router, unless you really have a good reason to keep it open. If telnet just hangs, everything is OK, the port is blocked.
Do not trust any data entered by your users. They can try to trick your code by entering special or escaped character sequences in Web forms, URLs, or whatever application you have built. Be sure that your application remains secure if a user enters something like ``; DROP DATABASE mysql;''. This is an extreme example, but large security leaks and data loss may occur as a result of hackers using similar techniques, if you do not prepare for them. Also remember to check numeric data. A common mistake is to protect only strings. Sometimes people think that if a database contains only publicly available data that it need not be protected. This is incorrect. At least denial-of-service type attacks can be performed on such databases. The simplest way to protect from this type of attack is to use apostrophes around the numeric constants: SELECT * FROM table WHERE ID='234' instead of SELECT * FROM table WHERE ID=234. MySQL automatically converts this string to a number and strips all non-numeric symbols from it. Checklist:
All WWW applications:
Try to enter `'' and `"' in all your Web forms. If you get any kind of MySQL error, investigate the problem right away.
Try to modify any dynamic URLs by adding %22 (`"'), %23 (`#'), and %27 (`'') in the URL.
Try to modify datatypes in dynamic URLs from numeric ones to character ones containing characters from previous examples.
Your application should be safe against this and similar attacks.
Try to enter characters, spaces, and special symbols instead of numbers in numeric fields. Your application should remove them before passing them to MySQL or your application should generate an error. Passing unchecked values to MySQL is very dangerous!
Check data sizes before passing them to MySQL.
Consider having your application connect to the database using a different user name than the one you use for administrative purposes. Do not give your applications any more access privileges than they need.
Users of PHP:
Check out the addslashes() function.
Users of MySQL C API:
Check out the mysql_escape() API call.
Users of MySQL++:
Check out the escape and quote modifiers for query streams.
Users of Perl DBI:
Check out the quote() method.
Do not transmit plain (unencrypted) data over the Internet. These data are accessible to everyone who has the time and ability to intercept it and use it for their own purposes. Instead, use an encrypted protocol such as SSL or SSH. MySQL supports internal SSL connections as of Version 3.23.9. SSH port-forwarding can be used to create an encrypted (and compressed) tunnel for the communication.
Learn to use the tcpdump and strings utilities. For most cases, you can check whether or not MySQL data streams are unencrypted by issuing a command like the following:
shell> tcpdump -l -i eth0 -w - src or dst port 3306 | strings

(This works under Linux and should work with small modifications under other systems). Warning: If you do not see data this doesn't always actually mean that it is encrypted. If you need high security, you should consult with a security expert.

Page Numbers : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

Have a Question ? post your questions here. It will be answered as soon as possible.

Check Job Interview Questions for more Interview Questions with Answers