16.1.1.9. Introducing Additional Slaves to an Existing Replication Environment

To add another slave to an existing replication configuration, you can do so without stopping the master. Instead, set up the new slave by making a copy of an existing slave, except that you configure the new slave with a different server-id value.

To duplicate an existing slave:

Shut down the existing slave:

shell> mysqladmin
                    shutdown

Copy the data directory from the existing slave to the new slave. You can do this by creating an archive using tar or WinZip, or by performing a direct copy using a tool such as cp or rsync. Ensure that you also copy the log files and relay log files.

A common problem that is encountered when adding new replication slaves is that the new slave fails with a series of warning and error messages like these:
```
071118 16:44:10 [Warning] Neither --relay-log nor --relay-log-index were used; soreplication may break when this MySQL server acts as a slave and has his hostnamechanged!! Please use '--relay-log=new_slave_hostname-relay-bin' to avoid this problem.071118 16:44:10 [ERROR] Failed to open the relay log './old_slave_hostname-relay-bin.003525'(relay_log_pos 22940879)071118 16:44:10 [ERROR] Could not find target log during relay log initialization071118 16:44:10 [ERROR] Failed to initialize the master info structure
```
This is due to the fact that, if the --relay-log option is not specified, the relay log files contain the host name as part of their file names. (This is also true of the relay log index file if the --relay-log-index option is not used. See Section 16.1.4, "Replication and Binary Logging Options and Variables", for more information about these options.)

To avoid this problem, use the same value for --relay-log on the new slave that was used on the existing slave. (If this option was not set explicitly on the existing slave, use existing_slave_hostname-relay-bin.) If this is not feasible, copy the existing slave's relay log index file to the new slave and set the --relay-log-index option on the new slave to match what was used on the existing slave. (If this option was not set explicitly on the existing slave, use existing_slave_hostname-relay-bin.index.) Alternatively—if you have already tried to start the new slave (after following the remaining steps in this section) and have encountered errors like those described previously—then perform the following steps:
1. If you have not already done so, issue a STOP SLAVE on the new slave.
  
  If you have already started the existing slave again, issue a STOP SLAVE on the existing slave as well.
2. Copy the contents of the existing slave's relay log index file into the new slave's relay log index file, making sure to overwrite any content already in the file.
3. Proceed with the remaining steps in this section.
Copy the master info and relay log info repositories (see Section 16.2.2, "Replication Relay and Status Logs") from the existing slave to the new slave. These hold the current log coordinates for the master's binary log and the slave's relay log.
Start the existing slave.
On the new slave, edit the configuration and give the new slave a unique server-id not used by the master or any of the existing slaves.
Start the new slave. The slave uses the information in its master info repository to start the replication process.