Using MyFlash: A MySQL Flashback Tool for Rolling Back DML Operations

MyFlash is an open‑source MySQL flashback tool from Meituan‑Dianping that can roll back DML (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE) operations to a specific point in time.

Limitations

Binary log format must be ROW and binlog_row_image = FULL .

Only MySQL versions 5.6 and 5.7 are supported.

Only DML operations can be rolled back.

Installation

cd /data
wget https://github.com/Meituan-Dianping/MyFlash/archive/master.zip
unzip master.zip
mv MyFlash-master MyFlash
cd MyFlash
yum install gcc glib2-devel -y
gcc -w `pkg-config --cflags --libs glib-2.0` source/binlogParseGlib.c -o binary/flashback

Usage

flashback [OPTION...]

Common options:

--databaseNames : comma‑separated list of databases to roll back (default: all).

--tableNames : comma‑separated list of tables to roll back (default: all).

--start-position / --stop-position : binlog positions to define the rollback range.

--start-datetime / --stop-datetime : timestamps (format %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S ) to define the rollback range.

--sqlTypes : comma‑separated list of SQL types to roll back (e.g., INSERT,UPDATE,DELETE ).

--maxSplitSize : maximum size (in MB) of split files after parsing.

--binlogFileNames : comma‑separated list of binlog files to process.

--outBinlogFileNameBase : prefix for generated rollback binlog files (default: binlog_output_base.flashback ).

--logLevel : log level ( debug , warning , error ).

--include-gtids / --exclude-gtids : GTID filters for rollback.

Test Case

The article walks through a scenario where a table d1.t1 receives UPDATE and DELETE statements, shows the binlog before and after the changes, and then uses MyFlash to roll back those operations.

mysql> select * from d1.t1;
+------+
| id   |
+------+
| 1 |
| 2 |
| 3 |
| 4 |
| 5 |
| 10 |
| 6 |
| 7 |
| 8 |
| 9 |
+------+

Rollback command:

./binary/flashback --databaseNames="d1" --tableNames="t1" --start-datetime="2020-11-29 17:22:30" --stop-datetime="2020-11-29 17:24:30" --sqlTypes="UPDATE,DELETE" --binlogFileNames=/opt/mysql/log/binlog/3308/mysql-bin.000001 --outBinlogFileNameBase=test.sql

After generating the reverse binlog, the article shows how to apply it with mysqlbinlog . Because the source instance runs with GTID mode enabled, the --skip-gtids option is required to avoid the error @@SESSION.GTID_NEXT cannot be set to ANONYMOUS .

mysqlbinlog --skip-gtids test.sql.flashback | mysql -S /tmp/mysqld.sock -uroot -proot

Finally, the data is verified to match the state before the UPDATE operation, confirming a successful rollback.

Reference: MyFlash GitHub README