TiDB Lightning Requirements for the Target Database

Before using TiDB Lightning, you need to check whether the environment meets the requirements. This helps reduce errors during import and ensures import success.

Privileges of the target database

Based on the import mode and features enabled, the target database users should be granted with different privileges. The following table provides a reference.

	Feature	Scope	Required privilege	Remarks
Mandatory	Basic functions	Target table	CREATE, SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, DROP, ALTER	DROP is required only when tidb-lightning-ctl runs the checkpoint-destroy-all command
Mandatory	Basic functions	Target database	CREATE
Mandatory	Logical Import Mode	information_schema.columns	SELECT
	Physical Import Mode	mysql.tidb	SELECT
		-	SUPER
		-	RESTRICTED_VARIABLES_ADMIN,RESTRICTED_TABLES_ADMIN	Required when the target TiDB enables SEM
Recommended	Conflict detection, max-error	Schema configured for lightning.task-info-schema-name	SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP	If not required, the value must be set to ""
Optional	Parallel import	Schema configured for lightning.meta-schema-name	SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, CREATE, DROP	If not required, the value must be set to ""
Optional	checkpoint.driver = "mysql"	checkpoint.schema setting	SELECT,INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE,CREATE,DROP	Required when checkpoint information is stored in databases, instead of files

Storage space of the target database

The target TiKV cluster must have enough disk space to store the imported data. In addition to the standard hardware requirements, the storage space of the target TiKV cluster must be larger than the size of the data source x the number of replicas x 2. For example, if the cluster uses 3 replicas by default, the target TiKV cluster must have a storage space larger than 6 times the size of the data source. The formula has x 2 because:

Indexes might take extra space.
RocksDB has a space amplification effect.

It is difficult to calculate the exact data volume exported by Dumpling from MySQL. However, you can estimate the data volume by using the following SQL statement to summarize the DATA_LENGTH field in the information_schema.tables table:

-- Calculate the size of all schemas
SELECT
  TABLE_SCHEMA,
  FORMAT_BYTES(SUM(DATA_LENGTH)) AS 'Data Size',
  FORMAT_BYTES(SUM(INDEX_LENGTH)) 'Index Size'
FROM
  information_schema.tables
GROUP BY
  TABLE_SCHEMA;

-- Calculate the 5 largest tables
SELECT 
  TABLE_NAME,
  TABLE_SCHEMA,
  FORMAT_BYTES(SUM(data_length)) AS 'Data Size',
  FORMAT_BYTES(SUM(index_length)) AS 'Index Size',
  FORMAT_BYTES(SUM(data_length+index_length)) AS 'Total Size'
FROM
  information_schema.tables
GROUP BY
  TABLE_NAME,
  TABLE_SCHEMA
ORDER BY
  SUM(DATA_LENGTH+INDEX_LENGTH) DESC
LIMIT
  5;

TiDB Lightning Requirements for the Target Database

Privileges of the target database

Storage space of the target database

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