Purging Database Replication Logs

The MySQL database’s binary logs can accumulate over time and consume significant disk space. By default, these logs are set to automatically purge every 3 days. However, if you need to manually purge them to free up space, you can follow these steps:

1. Manually create a database backup

First, we want to create a database backup to ensure we have a restore point in case anything goes wrong.

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\action directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\actions\create-backup.bat.
2. Double-click on the create-backup.bat script to run it.

Tip

Note the name of the backup file that was created, because we’ll need it in the next step.

2. Export the backup to the host machine in case of failure

Copy the file from the porta container to the host machine. This will ensure you have a local copy of the backup outside the WSL environment.

1. Open Powershell
2. Run the following command, and replace:
   • filename.zip : with the name of the backup you created in step 1
   • D:\destination\path : with the location you want to save the backup

   docker cp porta:/var/www/storage/app/Porta-Backups/filename.zip D:\destination\path

Tip

If you don’t remember the filename, or it was not output after the backup, you can view the list of existing backups by running the following in Powershell:

docker exec -it porta ls -al storage/app/Porta-Backups/

3. Purge the MySQL binary logs

Tip

Checks Before Purging

It would be helpful to note the typical number of binlog files being generated per day to confirm they are still the culprit for taking up space. You can check these files using the Docker Desktop UI:

1. In the left sidebar, navigate to Volumes
2. Search for and select porta-db-volume
3. Scroll through these files to view the binlog files

As of December 5th 2025:

• The maximum size of binlog files should be about 500MB.
  • It’s ok if this size is occasionally exceeded, but every file well over 500MB indicates something wrong.
• There should be no binlog files older than 3 days.
• It would be normal to see 3-6 binlogs created per day.

3a. Stop replication on the machine

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\action directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\actions.
2. Double-click on the STOP-repl.bat script to run it.

3b. Manually purge MySQL binary logs created more than 3 days ago

Caution

If replication is running, the PURGE command will be run for all databases in the group, but the var changes will not.

We will use SET sql_log_bin = {OFF|ON} to run the PURGE on the current database only.

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run\sysadmin\CLI.
2. Double-click on the access-mysql.bat script to run it and access the MySQL shell.
3. In the MySQL shell, run the following commands to remove logs older than 3 days.
   • Remember to edit the date in the command to 3 days ago so that it includes any logs more than 3 days old:

   • SET sql_log_bin=OFF;

     PURGE BINARY LOGS BEFORE '2025-12-05 00:00:00';

     SET sql_log_bin=ON;

Caution

Encountering ERROR 1227 (42000): Access denied; you need (at least one of) the SUPER or BINLOG_ADMIN privilege(s) for this operation

In this case, we’ll need to access the MySQL server manually:

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run\sysadmin\CLI.
2. Double-click on the access-db-shell.bat script to run it and access the server shell.
3. Log in to MySQL as the root user by running mysql -u root -p.
4. When prompted for a password, type your database password and hit Enter to submit
   • You will be greeted by a mysql> prompt, which means we have successfully logged in.
5. Run the above SET sql_log_bin and PURGE commands again (see step 3 above).
6. Continue following the steps of this guide.

4. Decrease the binlog expire time

Tip

If our expiration time is already set correctly, then we can skip this step. To confirm that settings are correct, we can check the current value by doing the following:

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run\sysadmin\CLI.
2. Double-click on the access-mysql.bat script to run it and access the MySQL shell.
3. In the MySQL shell, run the command SELECT @@binlog_expire_logs_seconds; to view the current expiration time in seconds.
4. If the value is greater than 259200 (note the number of digits), then proceed with the steps below to change it.

You will see a result like the following:

+------------------------------+
| @@binlog_expire_logs_seconds |
+------------------------------+
|                   259200000  |
+------------------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-run\sysadmin\CLI.
2. Double-click on the access-mysql.bat script to run it and access the MySQL shell.
3. In the MySQL shell, run the command SET PERSIST binlog_expire_logs_seconds=259200;

5. Start replication on the machine

1. Navigate to the porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\action directory.
   • In Porta version 2.3.115+, this will instead be porta-onprem-bundle\porta-helpers\porta-database\actions.
2. Double-click on the START-repl.bat script to run it.