In MySQL, how can I delete/flush/clear all the logs that are not necessary?

Question

I have tried several commands (FLUSH LOGS, PURGE MASTER) but none deletes the log files (when previously activated) or the log tables (mysql/slow_log.CSV and mysql/general_log.CSV and their .frm and .CSM counterparts).

SHOW BINARY LOGS returns "You are not using binary logging".

Edit: I found this simple solution to clear the table logs (but not yet the file logs using a mysql command):

TRUNCATE mysql.general_log;
TRUNCATE mysql.slow_log;

Answer 1

FLUSH LOGS just closes and reopens log files. If the log files are large, it won't reduce them. If you're on Linux, you can use mv to rename log files while they're in use, and then after FLUSH LOGS, you know that MySQL is writing to a new, small file, and you can remove the old big files.

Binary logs are different. To eliminate old binlogs, use PURGE BINARY LOGS. Make sure your slaves (if any) aren't still using the binary logs. That is, run SHOW SLAVE STATUS to see what binlog file they're working on, and don't purge that file or later files.

Also keep in mind that binlogs are useful for point-in-time recovery in case you need to restore from backups and then reapply binlogs to bring the database up to date. If you need to use binlogs in this manner, don't purge the binlogs that have been written since your last backup.

Answer 2

If you are on amazon RDS, executing this twice will do the trick:

PROMPT> CALL mysql.rds_rotate_slow_log;
PROMPT> CALL mysql.rds_rotate_general_log;

Source: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_LogAccess.Concepts.MySQL.html

Answer 3

It seems binary logging is not enabled in your server .And i guess you want to delete the old log files which were used/created at the time of binary logging is enabled . you can delete them manually using 'rm' command if you want . if you want to enable the binary logging you can do the same by updating the configuaration file ( but it needs restart of the server if it is already running) . You can refer below links. http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/replication-options-binary-log.html#option_mysqld_log-bin http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/replication-options-binary-log.html#sysvar_log_bin