Remove MySQL/MariaDB binary logs when binary logging not enabled
What happens when you get a “You are not using binary logging” error when you try to delete the binary logs that are taking up too much space in /var/lib/mysql
On my server recently I ran out of space. ncdu told me that it is mysql-bin.xxxx files on /var/lib/mysql that is taking the most space.
Since this server is not very important to me, I didn’t want binary logging. There is excellent documentation on how to get rid of these files.
So, I tried the command reset master and got this:
ERROR 1186 (HY000): Binlog closed, cannot RESET MASTER
I tried purge binary logs and although it did not error out, the files were still on the file system.
Then I checked show binary logs and saw the error:
ERROR 1381 (HY000): You are not using binary logging
Turns out what had happened was, my system was set to do binary logging in the past. But somewhere down the line binary logging got disabled.
So mysql thinks I don’t have to worry about binary logs because it is not enabled. But in reality the old log files are still there.
All I had to do to fix this was to turn binary logging back on by changing the configuration, restart mariadb, purge the files, and turn it back off.