Quick Start for TiDB Lightning

This document provides a quick guide on getting started with TiDB Lightning by importing MySQL data into a TiDB cluster.

Step 1: Prepare full backup data

First, you can use dumpling to export data from MySQL.

1. Run tiup --version to check if TiUP is already installed. If TiUP is installed, skip this step. If TiUP is not installed, run the following command:

   curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://tiup-mirrors.pingcap.com/install.sh | sh
   

2. Using TiUP to install Dumpling:

   tiup install dumpling
   

3. To export data from MySQL, you can refer to the detailed steps provided in Use Dumpling to Export Data：

   tiup dumpling -h 127.0.0.1 -P 3306 -u root -t 16 -F 256MB -B test -f 'test.t[12]' -o /data/my_database/
   

   In the above command:

   • -t 16: Export data using 16 threads.
   • -F 256MB: Split each table into multiple files, with each file approximately 256 MB in size.
   • -B test: Export from the test database.
   • -f 'test.t[12]': Export only the two tables test.t1 and test.t2.

   The full backup data exported will be saved in the /data/my_database directory.

Step 2: Deploy the TiDB cluster

Before starting the data import, you need to deploy a TiDB cluster for the import. If you already have a TiDB cluster, you can skip this step.

For the steps on deploying a TiDB cluster, refer to the Quick Start Guide for the TiDB Database Platform.

Step 3: Install TiDB Lightning

Run the following command to install the latest version of TiDB Lightning:

tiup install tidb-lightning

Step 4: Start TiDB Lightning

1. Create the configuration file tidb-lightning.toml and fill in the following settings based on your cluster information:

   [lightning]
   # Logging
   level = "info"
   file = "tidb-lightning.log"
   
   [tikv-importer]
   # Configure the import mode
   backend = "local"
   # Sets the directory for temporarily storing the sorted key-value pairs. The target directory must be empty.
   sorted-kv-dir = "/mnt/ssd/sorted-kv-dir"
   
   [mydumper]
   # Local source data directory
   data-source-dir = "/data/my_datasource/"
   
   # Configures the wildcard rule. By default, all tables in the mysql, sys, INFORMATION_SCHEMA, PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA, METRICS_SCHEMA, and INSPECTION_SCHEMA system databases are filtered.
   # If this item is not configured, the "cannot find schema" error occurs when system tables are imported.
   filter = ['*.*', '!mysql.*', '!sys.*', '!INFORMATION_SCHEMA.*', '!PERFORMANCE_SCHEMA.*', '!METRICS_SCHEMA.*', '!INSPECTION_SCHEMA.*']
   [tidb]
   # Information of the target cluster
   host = "172.16.31.2"
   port = 4000
   user = "root"
   password = "rootroot"
   # Table schema information is fetched from TiDB via this status-port.
   status-port = 10080
   # The PD address of the cluster
   pd-addr = "172.16.31.3:2379"
   

2. Run tidb-lightning. To avoid the program exiting due to the SIGHUP signal when starting the program directly in the command line using nohup, it is recommended to put the nohup command in a script. For example:

   #!/bin/bash
   nohup tiup tidb-lightning -config tidb-lightning.toml > nohup.out &
   

Step 5: Check data integrity

After the import is completed, TiDB Lightning exits automatically. If the import is successful, you can find tidb lightning exit in the last line of the log file.

If any error occurs, refer to TiDB Lightning FAQs.

Summary

This tutorial briefly introduces what TiDB Lightning is and how to quickly deploy a TiDB Lightning cluster to import full backup data to the TiDB cluster.

For detailed features and usage about TiDB Lightning, refer to TiDB Lightning Overview.