PT-SIFT(1)

📦
version 3.7.1_4 · 5 versions
, in arch rolling

💅 pt-sift — like, the manual page, bestie

okay so this is a page from the User Contributed Perl Documentation collection, and the tool is called pt-sift. Think of it as the little tour guide that walks you through everything pt-stalk captured while your MySQL server was having a whole meltdown. 🫶

✨ NAME ✨

pt-sift — it browses the files created by pt-stalk. that's it, that's the job. 🎀

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

Usage: pt-sift FILE|PREFIX|DIRECTORY

So pt-sift browses files that pt-stalk made. Here's the vibe check on how it picks what to look at:

  • no options at all? it browses all the pt-stalk files in /var/lib/pt-stalk — but only if that directory actually exists. if it doesn't, it just uses the current working directory instead. lowkey convenient. ✨
  • you gave it a FILE? it browses files with the same prefix, in that file's directory. 🦋
  • you gave it a PREFIX? it browses files in /var/lib/pt-stalk (or the current working directory) that share that prefix. 🎀
  • you gave it a DIRECTORY? it browses all the pt-stalk files in there. periodt. 💅

😭 RISKS 😭

ngl, Percona Toolkit is mature, proven in the real world, and well tested — but like, all database tools can pose a risk to your system and your database server. that's just the truth. so before you use this tool, please, for the love of everything:

  • Read the tool's documentation 📖
  • Review the tool's known BUGS (they're right down there, bestie)
  • Test the tool on a non-production server 🙈
  • Backup your production server and verify the backups — verifying is the whole point, don't skip it 💀

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so here's what actually happens. pt-sift downloads other tools that it might need — like pt-diskstats — and then it makes a list of the unique timestamp prefixes of all the files in the directory, as written by the pt-stalk tool. iconic behavior honestly. 👑

Then:

  • if you specified a timestamp on the command line, it starts with that sample of data 🌈
  • otherwise it starts by showing you a list of the timestamps and prompting you to pick one ⭐

and after that? it displays a summary of the selected sample, and you get to navigate and inspect with keystrokes. main character energy. 🎀

⌨️ the keystroke commands ⌨️

  • d — sets the action to start the pt-diskstats tool on the sample's disk performance statistics. 💾
  • i — sets the action to view the first INNODB STATUS sample in less.
  • m — displays the first 4 samples of SHOW STATUS counters side by side with the pt-mext tool. four whole samples, side by side, slay.
  • n — summarizes the first sample of netstat data in two ways: by originating host, and by connection state. two ways!! multitasking icon. 🧚
  • j — select the next timestamp as the active sample. ➡️
  • k — select the previous timestamp as the active sample. ⬅️
  • q — quit the program. bye bestie 👋
  • 1 — sets the action for each sample to the default, which is to view a summary of the sample.
  • (this one has no key printed in the manual, bestie, i'm just reporting what it says) — sets the action to just list the files in the sample. 🍓
  • * — sets the action to view all of the sample's files in the less program. all of them. every single one. 💜

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

so few options, we love a low-maintenance king:

  • --help — show help and exit. 🫶
  • --version — show version and exit. ✨

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

this tool does not use any environment variables. like, none. zero. a clean slate. 🧚

⭐ SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS ⭐

this tool requires Bash v3 and the following programs: pt-diskstats, pt-pmp, pt-mext, and pt-align.

and if these programs are not in your PATH, they will be fetched from the Internet if curl is available. yes, it'll go get them itself. resourceful. 💅

💀 BUGS 💀

for a list of known bugs, see <https://jira.percona.com/projects/PT/issues>.

please report bugs at <https://jira.percona.com/projects/PT>. and include the following info in your bug report, otherwise the maintainers are gonna be like "???" 😭

  • Complete command-line used to run the tool
  • Tool --version
  • MySQL version of all servers involved
  • Output from the tool including STDERR
  • Input files (log/dump/config files, etc.)

if possible, include debugging output by running the tool with PTDEBUG; see ENVIRONMENT. 👀

🙈 ATTENTION 🙈

Using PTDEBUG might expose passwords. When debug is enabled, all command line parameters are shown in the output.

fr fr, be careful with that one. don't paste your debug output into the group chat. 💀

🔥 DOWNLOADING 🔥

visit <http://www.percona.com/software/percona-toolkit/> to download the latest release of Percona Toolkit. or, get the latest release from the command line:

wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.tar.gz
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.rpm
wget percona.com/get/percona-toolkit.deb

you can also get individual tools from the latest release:

wget percona.com/get/TOOL

replace TOOL with the name of any tool. any of them. go wild. 🌸

👑 AUTHORS 👑

Baron Schwartz

💜 ABOUT PERCONA TOOLKIT 💜

this tool is part of Percona Toolkit, a collection of advanced command-line tools for MySQL developed by Percona. Percona Toolkit was forked from two projects in June, 2011: Maatkit and Aspersa. those projects were created by Baron Schwartz and primarily developed by him and Daniel Nichter.

visit <http://www.percona.com/software/> to learn about other free, open-source software from Percona. 🫶

This program is copyright 2011-2026 Percona LLC and/or its affiliates, 2010-2011 Baron Schwartz.

THIS PROGRAM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

like, no promises, bestie. 😭

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, version 2; OR the Perl Artistic License. On UNIX and similar systems, you can issue man perlgpl or man perlartistic to read these licenses.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License, version 2 along with this program; if not, see <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.

🦋 VERSION 🦋

pt-sift 3.7.1-4

and that's the whole page, bestie!! this beauty is pt-sift version 3.7.1-4, living in the Percona Toolkit docs, generated with perl v5.42.2 and dated 2026-09-01. go forth and sift 💅✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from