Introduction

IDB Utils is a command-line toolkit and Rust library for inspecting, validating, and manipulating InnoDB database files. The CLI binary is called inno, and the library crate is idb.

IDB Utils operates directly on .ibd tablespace files, redo logs, and system tablespaces without requiring a running MySQL instance. It is written in Rust for performance and safety, parsing binary InnoDB page structures at the byte level.

Who Is This For?

IDB Utils serves three audiences:

  • CLI users (DBAs and sysadmins) -- Use the inno command to inspect tablespace files, validate checksums, compare backups, monitor live changes, extract metadata, analyze redo logs, and assess data recoverability from the terminal.
  • Library users (Rust developers) -- Import the idb crate to build custom tooling on top of InnoDB page parsing, checksum validation, SDI extraction, and redo log analysis.
  • Web users -- Use the browser-based analyzer to drag and drop .ibd files for instant visual inspection without installing anything.

Capabilities

  • Inspect tablespace files -- Parse FIL headers, page types, INDEX structures, UNDO logs, LOB pages, and SDI records.
  • Validate checksums -- Verify page integrity using CRC-32C, legacy InnoDB, and MariaDB full_crc32 algorithms.
  • Compare files -- Diff two tablespace files page-by-page to identify changes between backups or replicas.
  • Monitor changes -- Watch a tablespace file for live modifications using LSN-based change detection.
  • Extract SDI metadata -- Read MySQL 8.0+ Serialized Dictionary Information, including table definitions and column metadata.
  • Analyze redo logs -- Parse redo log file headers, checkpoint blocks, and log record blocks.
  • Assess recoverability -- Evaluate page-level damage and estimate salvageable records for data recovery planning.
  • Read encrypted tablespaces -- Decrypt tablespace pages using keyring files for inspection and validation.
  • Audit data directories -- Search for specific pages across a data directory, list tablespace IDs, and cross-check LSN consistency between ibdata1 and redo logs.
  • Intentional corruption -- Corrupt pages in a controlled manner for testing backup and recovery workflows.

Vendor Support

IDB Utils supports tablespace files from:

  • MySQL 5.7 and later (including MySQL 8.0+ SDI metadata)
  • Percona XtraDB (Percona Server for MySQL)
  • MariaDB 10.1 and later (including MariaDB full_crc32 checksums)

Vendor detection is automatic based on FSP flags and redo log headers.