MySQL Enterprise Advisors are a series of scripts that gather information from your MySQL servers via the Service Manager and the Monitor Agents, analyze that information based on custom rules developed by MySQL AB, and then offer alerts and advice when necessary. As new rules are introduced, the MySQL Enterprise Advisors can be updated through the MySQL Enterprise website.

The MySQL Enterprise Advisors fall into the following categories:

An advisor category provides a set of rules designed to enforce MySQL best practices for that specific category. Rules can be targeted to run at the individual server or group level and, upon rule violation, provide alerts and expert advice on how to address and correct a problem before it becomes a costly outage.

Individual rules are defined in the items-mysql-monitor.xml file. On Windows this file is found in the C:\Program Files\mySQL\Enterprise\Agent\share\mysql-monitor-agent directory and on Unix in the /opt/mysql/enterprise/agent/share/mysql-monitor-agent directory. Find below the rule for discovering a root account with no password.

<ITEM>
  <NAME>no_root_password</NAME>
  <FIELD>no_password</FIELD>
  <SCOPE>table</SCOPE>
  <CODE>
    <![CDATA[SELECT COUNT(*) AS no_password FROM mysql.user WHERE user='root' AND password='']]>
  </CODE>
  <NAMESPACE>mysql</NAMESPACE>
  <RETURNS>INTEGER</RETURNS>
  <SOURCE>table</SOURCE>
  <INSTANCE>mysql.user</INSTANCE>
</ITEM>

Your MySQL Enterprise subscription level determines which rules are available to you. Subscription levels are cumulative, meaning that higher MySQL Enterprise levels have access to all the rules of the lower levels.

When the Dashboard is first installed, the only rules that are scheduled are those that belong to the Heat Chart group.

Go to the Advisors screen by logging in to the Dashboard and choosing the Advisors tab.