Help with mysql memory settings, error logs

[Nick Belnap]

Newbie here, trying to troubleshoot in the dark. A database server we've inherited fills up the logs files and thus the disk in short order once we start getting these errors in the syslog:

InnoDB: Warning: difficult to find free blocks from the buffer pool (61269 search iterations)! Consider increasing the buffer pool size.
It is also possible that in your Unix version fsync is very slow, or completely frozen inside the OS kernel. Then upgrading to a newer version of your operating system may help. Look at the number of fsyncs in diagnostic info below. Pending flushes (fsync) log: 0; buffer pool: 0 358485290 OS file reads, 900930 OS file writes, 543031 OS fsyncs

There are 68 (I think) separate databases on the server. There is a file ibdata1 that is about 10 GB. I don't know the size of the database files themselves as I cannot ls the directories they live in because of permissions.

I did figure out how to list current mysql variables and this the result:

+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| Variable_name | Value |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+
| auto_increment_increment | 1 |
| auto_increment_offset | 1 |
| automatic_sp_privileges | ON |
| back_log | 50 |
| basedir | /usr/ |
| binlog_cache_size | 32768 |
| bulk_insert_buffer_size | 8388608 |
| character_set_client | latin1 |
| character_set_connection | latin1 |
| character_set_database | latin1 |
| character_set_filesystem | binary |
| character_set_results | latin1 |
| character_set_server | latin1 |
| character_set_system | utf8 |
| character_sets_dir | /usr/share/mysql/charsets/ |
| collation_connection | latin1_swedish_ci |
| collation_database | latin1_swedish_ci |
| collation_server | latin1_swedish_ci |
| completion_type | 0 |
| concurrent_insert | 1 |
| connect_timeout | 5 |
| datadir | /var/lib/mysql/ |
| date_format | %Y-%m-%d |
| datetime_format | %Y-%m-%d %H:%i:%s |
| default_week_format | 0 |
| delay_key_write | ON |
| delayed_insert_limit | 100 |
| delayed_insert_timeout | 300 |
| delayed_queue_size | 1000 |
| div_precision_increment | 4 |
| keep_files_on_create | OFF |
| engine_condition_pushdown | OFF |
| expire_logs_days | 10 |
| flush | OFF |
| flush_time | 0 |
| ft_boolean_syntax | + -><()~*:""&| |
| ft_max_word_len | 84 |
| ft_min_word_len | 4 |
| ft_query_expansion_limit | 20 |
| ft_stopword_file | (built-in) |
| group_concat_max_len | 1024 |
| have_archive | YES |
| have_bdb | NO |
| have_blackhole_engine | YES |
| have_compress | YES |
| have_crypt | YES |
| have_csv | YES |
| have_dynamic_loading | YES |
| have_example_engine | NO |
| have_federated_engine | YES |
| have_geometry | YES |
| have_innodb | YES |
| have_isam | NO |
| have_merge_engine | YES |
| have_ndbcluster | DISABLED |
| have_openssl | DISABLED |
| have_ssl | DISABLED |
| have_query_cache | YES |
| have_raid | NO |
| have_rtree_keys | YES |
| have_symlink | YES |
| hostname | sprocketgps |
| init_connect | |
| init_file | |
| init_slave | |
| innodb_additional_mem_pool_size | 1048576 |
| innodb_autoextend_increment | 8 |
| innodb_buffer_pool_awe_mem_mb | 0 |
| innodb_buffer_pool_size | 8388608 |
| innodb_checksums | ON |
| innodb_commit_concurrency | 0 |
| innodb_concurrency_tickets | 500 |
| innodb_data_file_path | ibdata1:10M:autoextend |
| innodb_data_home_dir | |
| innodb_doublewrite | ON |
| innodb_fast_shutdown | 1 |
| innodb_file_io_threads | 4 |
| innodb_file_per_table | OFF |
| innodb_flush_log_at_trx_commit | 1 |
| innodb_flush_method | |
| innodb_force_recovery | 0 |
| innodb_lock_wait_timeout | 50 |
| innodb_locks_unsafe_for_binlog | OFF |
| innodb_log_arch_dir | |
| innodb_log_archive | OFF |
| innodb_log_buffer_size | 1048576 |
| innodb_log_file_size | 5242880 |
| innodb_log_files_in_group | 2 |
| innodb_log_group_home_dir | ./ |
| innodb_max_dirty_pages_pct | 90 |
| innodb_max_purge_lag | 0 |
| innodb_mirrored_log_groups | 1 |
| innodb_open_files | 300 |
| innodb_rollback_on_timeout | OFF |
| innodb_support_xa | ON |
| innodb_sync_spin_loops | 20 |
| innodb_table_locks | ON |
| innodb_thread_concurrency | 8 |
| innodb_thread_sleep_delay | 10000 |
| interactive_timeout | 28800 |
| join_buffer_size | 126976 |
| key_buffer_size | 402653184 |
| key_cache_age_threshold | 300 |
| key_cache_block_size | 1024 |
| key_cache_division_limit | 100 |
| language | /usr/share/mysql/english/ |
| large_files_support | ON |
| large_page_size | 0 |
| large_pages | OFF |
| lc_time_names | en_US |
| license | GPL |
| local_infile | ON |
| locked_in_memory | OFF |
| log | OFF |
| log_bin | OFF |
| log_bin_trust_function_creators | OFF |
| log_error | |
| log_queries_not_using_indexes | OFF |
| log_slave_updates | OFF |
| log_slow_queries | OFF |
| log_warnings | 1 |
| long_query_time | 10 |
| low_priority_updates | OFF |
| lower_case_file_system | OFF |
| lower_case_table_names | 0 |
| max_allowed_packet | 16776192 |
| max_binlog_cache_size | 18446744073709551615 |
| max_binlog_size | 104857600 |
| max_connect_errors | 10 |
| max_connections | 886 |
| max_delayed_threads | 20 |
| max_error_count | 64 |
| max_heap_table_size | 16777216 |
| max_insert_delayed_threads | 20 |
| max_join_size | 18446744073709551615 |
| max_length_for_sort_data | 1024 |
| max_prepared_stmt_count | 16382 |
| max_relay_log_size | 0 |
| max_seeks_for_key | 18446744073709551615 |
| max_sort_length | 1024 |
| max_sp_recursion_depth | 0 |
| max_tmp_tables | 32 |
| max_user_connections | 0 |
| max_write_lock_count | 18446744073709551615 |
| multi_range_count | 256 |
| myisam_data_pointer_size | 6 |
| myisam_max_sort_file_size | 9223372036854775807 |
| myisam_recover_options | OFF |
| myisam_repair_threads | 1 |
| myisam_sort_buffer_size | 8388608 |
| myisam_stats_method | nulls_unequal |
| ndb_autoincrement_prefetch_sz | 32 |
| ndb_force_send | ON |
| ndb_use_exact_count | ON |
| ndb_use_transactions | ON |
| ndb_cache_check_time | 0 |
| ndb_connectstring | |
| net_buffer_length | 16384 |
| net_read_timeout | 30 |
| net_retry_count | 10 |
| net_write_timeout | 60 |
| new | OFF |
| old_passwords | OFF |
| open_files_limit | 1024 |
| optimizer_prune_level | 1 |
| optimizer_search_depth | 62 |
| pid_file | /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid |
| port | 3306 |
| preload_buffer_size | 32768 |
| profiling | OFF |
| profiling_history_size | 15 |
| protocol_version | 10 |
| query_alloc_block_size | 8192 |
| query_cache_limit | 2097152 |
| query_cache_min_res_unit | 4096 |
| query_cache_size | 33554432 |
| query_cache_type | ON |
| query_cache_wlock_invalidate | OFF |
| query_prealloc_size | 8192 |
| range_alloc_block_size | 2048 |
| read_buffer_size | 2093056 |
| read_only | OFF |
| read_rnd_buffer_size | 262144 |
| relay_log_purge | ON |
| relay_log_space_limit | 0 |
| rpl_recovery_rank | 0 |
| secure_auth | OFF |
| secure_file_priv | |
| server_id | 0 |
| skip_external_locking | ON |
| skip_networking | OFF |
| skip_show_database | OFF |
| slave_compressed_protocol | OFF |
| slave_load_tmpdir | /tmp/ |
| slave_net_timeout | 3600 |
| slave_skip_errors | OFF |
| slave_transaction_retries | 10 |
| slow_launch_time | 2 |
| socket | /var/run/mysqld/mysqld.sock |
| sort_buffer_size | 2097144 |
| sql_big_selects | ON |
| sql_mode | |
| sql_notes | ON |
| sql_warnings | OFF |
| ssl_ca | |
| ssl_capath | |
| ssl_cert | |
| ssl_cipher | |
| ssl_key | |
| storage_engine | MyISAM |
| sync_binlog | 0 |
| sync_frm | ON |
| system_time_zone | MST |
| table_cache | 64 |
| table_lock_wait_timeout | 50 |
| table_type | MyISAM |
| thread_cache_size | 16 |
| thread_stack | 1048576 |
| time_format | %H:%i:%s |
| time_zone | SYSTEM |
| timed_mutexes | OFF |
| tmp_table_size | 33554432 |
| tmpdir | /tmp |
| transaction_alloc_block_size | 8192 |
| transaction_prealloc_size | 4096 |
| tx_isolation | REPEATABLE-READ |
| updatable_views_with_limit | YES |
| version | 5.0.51a-3ubuntu5.1 |
| version_comment | (Ubuntu) |
| version_compile_machine | x86_64 |
| version_compile_os | debian-linux-gnu |
| wait_timeout | 28800 |
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------+

It looks like this server has 8 GB of RAM. At the moment I have 12 GB of free disk space.

Anyone have any pointers or suggestions?