Starting with MySQL 5.1 you can enable and disable logs at runtime. This allows you to tail the general and slow query log from the command line and keep an eye on things. This can be especially useful when running with an ORM and you want to see the final queries as executed.
Enable Logging
This approach does not require a server restart. Login to MySQL as the root user via mysql -u root -p and then issue the following:
SET GLOBAL general_log = 'ON';
SET GLOBAL slow_query_log = 'ON';To disable logs, login to mysql client again and then issue:
SET GLOBAL general_log = 'OFF';
SET GLOBAL slow_query_log = 'OFF';Watching the Log File
You can use either tail -f or less -F to follow the log as it’s being written to. In order to confirm the location of the log, you can run this in MySQL:
show variables like '%log%';And then you can run something like: tail -f /var/log/syslog
Mytail : MySQL Logging Made Easy
I’ve wrapped up this into an easy to use command. This bash script mytail will enable the logs, tail them, and then when you exit with ctrl+c will disable the logs once again.
In addition, if you have a .grc.sql.conf file and grc installed from garabik/grc the log will be colorized.