From: Martijn Tonies
Date: September 27 2007 6:56am
Subject: Re: Ouch! ibdata files deleted. Why no catastrophe?
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/209277
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> On Wed, 2007-09-26 at 10:55 -0400, Jerry Schwartz wrote:
>
> > I don't know Linux that well, but I know that HP-UX lets you do most
> > anything to an open file, including deleting it. The file will continue
to
> > exist as long as it is open by at least one process. If I remember
> > correctly, this is all about the inode use count vs. the directory
entry, or
> > something like that. The file will actually be safe so long as it is not
> > closed by the last user.
>
> It sounds like Linux is the same.
>
> > Those files will go away as soon as they are closed, so the database
should
> > be dumped before shutting down mysqld.
>
> Done :)
>
> Thanks to all those who responded.
>
> I did a full backup last night and shut down mysql. At this point the
> innodb files were then completely deleted ( disappeared from the output
> of 'lsof' ) and the filesystem saw the extra space.
>
> I removed my /var/lib/mysql, reconfigured things, and imported, and
> everything went fine.

That's good to hear :-)

I am, btw, surprised that MySQL doesn't place a lock on the files.

Martijn Tonies
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