Managing table-based MySQL logs
You can direct the general and slow query logs to tables on the DB instance by creating a DB parameter group
and setting the log_output server parameter to TABLE. General queries are then logged
to the mysql.general_log table, and slow queries are logged to the mysql.slow_log
table. You can query the tables to access the log information. Enabling this logging increases the amount of data
written to the database, which can degrade performance.
Both the general log and the slow query logs are disabled by default. In order to enable logging to tables, you
must also set the general_log and slow_query_log server parameters to
1.
Log tables keep growing until the respective logging activities are turned off by resetting the appropriate parameter
to 0. A large amount of data often accumulates over time, which can use up a considerable percentage of
your allocated storage space. Amazon RDS doesn't allow you to truncate the log tables, but you can move their contents. Rotating a
table saves its contents to a backup table and then creates a new empty log table. You can manually rotate the log
tables with the following command line procedures, where the command prompt is indicated by PROMPT>:
PROMPT> CALL mysql.rds_rotate_slow_log; PROMPT> CALL mysql.rds_rotate_general_log;
To completely remove the old data and reclaim the disk space, call the appropriate procedure twice in succession.
