myctl - MySQL command line tool

MySQL command line tool for managing users, databases and privileges in one MySQL database instance. The tool is intended to ease administration from command line.

Currently the tool supports:

• Database management
• add databases, optionally restore contents from dump file
• dump database contents to a file, gzipped or raw
• remove database
• restore database contents from a dump, raw or compressed (gzip, zip, bzip2)
• Shell
• get MySQL shell
• execute an SQL statement, optionally for given database
• User management
• add users, optionally with database
• remove users, including removal of databases user has access to
• list users, including dbs user has access to
• Privilege management
• grant all privileges of a user to a database or all databases
• revoke all privileges of a user to a database or all databases

Important notes

Privilege management

The tool for simplicity sets only all/none privileges (excluding grant option). So it does not provide fine grained privilege management. This is currently not planned.

This also means that the tool will detect that the user has granted access to a particular database, if it has at least one permission to it. Moreover the -- all -- in user list is detected by the select privilege only for the given user.

Installation

To install the tool run the install command. This will ask you for some details and install the tool to the system. The tool can be installed in two ways - system-wide or for current user.

$ myctl install

To uninstall the tool from the system run the uninstall command.

System-wide installation

This will install the tool for all users and setup a system-wide configuration. A new group will be created and only users in this group will be able to use the tool. The configuration file containing possibly sensitive information will be only readable by group members. Root privileges are required for this type of installation.

User installation

This will install the tool only for current user. The tool will be installed in $HOME/bin/ directory. The directory will be created if it does not exist and you may want to manually configure your PATH for this directory. The configuration file will be created in the users home directory.

Configuration file

The configuration file provides basic configuration for myctl tool. Global configuration file is located at /etc/myctl.conf. This can be overridden by local configuration file ~/.myctl.conf. Configuration files are consisted from bash variables. The configuration file will be created by the install command, but can be also created manually. To verify the correct installation run the install command, which should in this case inform you that the tool is correctly installed.

$ myctl install
:: Tool is already installed and configured correctly. Run 'uninstall' command to remove.

Mandatory variables:

 MYSQL_USER      - MySQL administrator username
 MYSQL_PASSWD    - MySQL administrator password

Optional variables:

 MYSQL_HOST      - MySQL hostname (default: localhost)
 MYSQL_PORT      - MySQL port (default: 3309)
 DEF_HOST        - Default host/server for new user (default: localhost)
 DEF_PASSWD      - Default password for added user, myctl will ask
                   for password if not set

Invocation

The tool is invoked by specifying a management space with an command depending on the specific space. Currently these for management spaces are supported: user, db, privilege and shell. The latter accepts no commands and is intended to get you and admin mysql console or run a SQL query.

Run the tool with no parameter to get list of support management spaces. Refer to each management space help (via the -h option) to get list of supported commands and options.

For example to add 'testuser' user you would run the add command of the user management:

$ myctl user add testuser

The tool supports abbreviations of the commands. If the passed string matches one management space or command, it will work also. So for the above command you could simple write:

$ myctl us a testuser

Here us is the minimal string that matches user, due to existing uninstall command:

$ myctl u a testuser
Error: More commands match "u": uninstall user 

By default the tool asks for confirmation of dangerous operations - removal of any data. Pass the '-y' option just after the myctl command to override this behavior. So for example to remove testuser without confirmation:

$ myctl -y user del testuser
:: User 'testuser@localhost' removed

Examples

Listing database users

The user list command displays all database users with users who have some privileges to it.

$ myctl user list

The users that have no permissions to any database have '-- none --' in the privileges column. Users that have permissions to all databases have '-- all --' in the privileges column.

If you supply another parameter after the list command, this will be used for egrep on the whole user list.

So for example to list all users starting with wp_ you would use

$ myctl user list '^wp_.*@'

Adding user

Adding a user dbuser with default user password 'defaultpass' (set in DEF_PASSWD). If DEF_PASSWD would not be set the tool would ask for user password.

$ myctl user add dbuser
:: Created user 'dbuser@localhost' with password 'defaultpass'

To add a user that is able to connect from a different host (10.0.0.1 in this example) simply pass the 'host' after username separated with '@' sign

$ ./myctl user add [email protected]
:: Created user '[email protected]' with password 'defaultpass'

Adding user dbuser with password 'secretSauce##'.

$ myctl user add -p "secretSauce##" dbuser
:: Created user 'dbuser@localhost' with password 'secretSauce##'

Adding a user dbuser with default password and add create a database sampledb with all privileges for the created user.

$ myctl user add -d sampledb dbuser
:: Created user 'dbuser@localhost' with password 'defaultpass'
:: Created database 'sampledb'
:: Granted all privileges for 'dbuser@localhost' to 'sampledb'

More databases can be specified separated with commas.

$ myctl user add -d sampledb,sampledb2,sampledb3 testuser
:: Created user 'testuser@localhost' with password 'defaultpass'
:: Created database 'sampledb'
:: Granted all privileges for 'testuser@localhost' to 'sampledb'
:: Created database 'sampledb2'
:: Granted all privileges for 'testuser@localhost' to 'sampledb2'
:: Created database 'sampledb3'
:: Granted all privileges for 'testuser@localhost' to 'sampledb3'

To add user dbuser with default password, create a database sampledb with all privileges for the created user and restore dump from file 'sqldump' to the newly created database.

$ myctl user add -d sampledb -f sqldump dbuser
:: Created user 'dbuser@localhost' with password 'defaultpass'
:: Created database 'sampledb'
:: Granted all privileges for 'dbuser@localhost' to 'sampledb'
:: Restored MySQL dump '/home/user/sqldump' to database 'sampledb'

Removing user

To remove a user use the del command from the user management.

$ myctl user del dbuser
Really remove MySQL user 'dbuser@localhost' (y/n)? y
:: User 'dbuser@localhost' removed

To remove specific databases user has access to use the -d option.

$ myctl user del -d sampledb dbuser
Really remove MySQL user 'dbuser@localhost' and databases 'sampledb' (y/n)? y
:: Removed database 'sampledb'
:: User 'dbuser@localhost' removed

Sometimes is very useful to remove the user and all databases he has access to. For this the tool supports the '-D' option.

$ myctl user del -D testuser
Really remove MySQL user 'testuser@localhost' and all databases he has access to (y/n)? y
:: Removed database 'sampledb'
:: Removed database 'sampledb2'
:: Removed database 'sampledb3'
:: User 'testuser@localhost' removed

Adding database

To add a new database use the add command from the db management space.

$ myctl db add sampledb
:: Created database 'sampledb'

You can grant access to the created database to one or more existing users via the '-u' option. Users can be separated via commas. If the uses has no host/server information the default host (specified via the variable DEF_HOST) is used.

$ myctl db add -u [email protected],dbuser2 sampledb
:: Created database 'sampledb'
:: Granted all privileges for '[email protected]' to 'sampledb'
:: Granted all privileges for 'dbuser2' to 'sampledb'

Deleting database

To remove a database use the del command from the db management space.

$ myctl db del sampledb
Really remove MySQL database sampledb (y/n)? y
:: Database sampledb removed

Dumping database

To dump database use the dump command from the db management space. By default the dump is saved to the current folder and the filename is generated from the database name and current date. The dump is by default gzipped.

$ myctl db dump sampledb
:: Dumped database 'sampledb' to 'sampledb-20141012_21-38.sql.gz'

To dump to a specific file pass the filename after the database name

$ myctl db dump sampledb mydump.gz
:: Dumped database 'sampledb' to 'mydump.gz'

You can disable the compression with the -n option, the dump will be saved as raw SQL.

Restoring database

To restore database dump to an existing database use the restore command from the db management space. The compression format is auto-detected with the file(1) command.

$ myctl db restore sampledb sqldump 
:: Restored MySQL dump 'sqldump' to database 'sampledb'

You can force dropping the database contents using the r option.

$ myctl db restore -r sampledb sqldump 
:: Removed database 'sampledb' contents
:: Restored MySQL dump 'sqldump' to database 'sampledb'

Listing databases

The db list command displays all databases with users who have some privileges to it.

$ myctl db list

The databases that have no users are marked with -- none -- in the users column.

If you supply another parameter after the list command, this will be used for egrep on the whole user list.

So for example to list all users databases that have sample word use

$ myctl db list sample
Database                                Users with privileges
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
sampledb                                dbuser2@localhost [email protected] 

Granting privilege

To grant all privileges for an existing user to an existing database use the grant command from the privilege management space.

$ myctl grant dbuser@localhost sampledb
:: Granted user 'dbuser@localhost' all privileges to database 'sampledb'

To grant privilege to all databases simply run the grant command with no database. This operation will require confirmation.

$ myctl privilege grant dbuser@localhost
Do you want to add privileges to all databases for user dbuser@localhost (y/n)? y
:: Granted user 'dbuser@localhost' all privileges to all databases

Revoking privilege

To revoke all privileges for an existing user to an existing database use the revoke command from the privilege management space.

$ myctl priv revoke dbuser sampledb
:: Revoked all privileges from user 'dbuser@localhost' to database 'sampledb'

To revoke all privileges from a user skip the database specification.

$ myctl priv revoke [email protected]
Do you want to revoke privileges to all databases from user [email protected] (y/n)? y
:: Revoked all privileges from user '[email protected]' to all databases

Get MySQL shell or run SQL query

With the shell command you can get an admin MySQL shell.

$ myctl shell

You can also execute any SQL statement you like, optionally in a context of a given database using the -d option.

# run a SELECT query on database sampledb
$ myctl shell -d sampledb 'SELECT * from sampletable'