inno -- CLI Overview

inno is the command-line interface for IDB Utils, an InnoDB file analysis toolkit. It provides 30 subcommands for inspecting, validating, comparing, and manipulating InnoDB tablespace files, redo logs, binary logs, and system tablespaces.

Installation

# From crates.io
cargo install innodb-utils

# From Homebrew
brew install ringo380/tap/inno

Subcommand Reference

Inspection & Parsing

Command	Description
`inno parse`	Parse .ibd file, display page headers and type summary
`inno pages`	Detailed page structure analysis (INDEX, UNDO, LOB, SDI)
`inno dump`	Hex dump of raw page bytes
`inno sdi`	Extract SDI metadata from MySQL 8.0+ tablespaces
`inno schema`	Extract schema and reconstruct DDL from tablespace metadata
`inno export`	Export record data as CSV, JSON, or hex dump
`inno info`	Inspect ibdata1, compare LSNs, query MySQL

Validation & Health

Command	Description
`inno checksum`	Validate page checksums (CRC-32C, legacy, MariaDB full_crc32)
`inno health`	Per-index B+Tree health metrics (fill factor, fragmentation, bloat)
`inno verify`	Verify structural integrity of a tablespace
`inno validate`	Validate tablespace against live MySQL
`inno compat`	Check upgrade compatibility between MySQL versions
`inno audit`	Audit data directory for integrity, health, or checksum mismatches

Comparison & Monitoring

Command	Description
`inno diff`	Compare two tablespace files page-by-page
`inno watch`	Monitor a tablespace for page-level changes in real time
`inno find`	Search a data directory for pages by number
`inno tsid`	List or find tablespace IDs

Recovery & Repair

Command	Description
`inno recover`	Assess page-level recoverability and count salvageable records
`inno repair`	Recalculate and fix corrupt page checksums
`inno undelete`	Recover deleted records from tablespace
`inno corrupt`	Intentionally corrupt pages for testing
`inno defrag`	Defragment tablespace, reorder INDEX pages
`inno transplant`	Copy specific pages from a donor into a target tablespace
`inno simulate`	Simulate InnoDB crash recovery levels 1-6

Log & Transaction Analysis

Command	Description
`inno log`	Analyze InnoDB redo log files
`inno undo`	Analyze undo tablespace structure
`inno binlog`	Analyze MySQL binary log files
`inno timeline`	Unified modification timeline from redo, undo, and binary logs

Backup Analysis

Command	Description
`inno backup diff`	Compare page LSNs between backup and current tablespace
`inno backup chain`	Validate XtraBackup backup chain LSN continuity

Utilities

Command	Description
`inno completions`	Generate shell completions for bash, zsh, fish, powershell

Global Flags

These flags are available on every subcommand:

Flag	Default	Description
`--color <auto\|always\|never>`	`auto`	Control colored terminal output. `auto` enables color when stdout is a terminal.
`--format <text\|json\|csv>`	`text`	Output format. Overrides per-subcommand `--json` flag. CSV support varies by subcommand.
`-o, --output <file>`	stdout	Write output to a file instead of printing to stdout.
`--audit-log <path>`	none	Append structured audit events (NDJSON) to the specified file. Used by write operations (repair, corrupt, defrag, transplant).

Common Flags

Most subcommands also accept these flags (see individual pages for specifics):

Flag	Description
`--json`	Emit structured JSON output instead of human-readable text. All subcommands support this.
`-v, --verbose`	Show additional detail (per-page checksums, FSEG internals, MLOG record types, etc.).
`--page-size <size>`	Override the auto-detected page size. Accepts `4096`, `8192`, `16384` (default), `32768`, or `65536`.
`--keyring <path>`	Path to a MySQL keyring file for decrypting encrypted tablespaces.

Common Patterns

Page size auto-detection

By default, inno reads the FSP header flags from page 0 to determine the tablespace page size. If page 0 is corrupt or the file uses a non-standard size, use --page-size to override detection.

JSON output

Every subcommand supports --json for machine-readable output. JSON structs are serialized with serde_json and optional fields are omitted when empty. This makes inno suitable for integration into scripts and pipelines:

inno checksum -f table.ibd --json | jq '.invalid_pages'

Encrypted tablespaces

For tablespaces encrypted with MySQL's InnoDB tablespace encryption, provide the keyring file with --keyring. The tablespace key is extracted from the encryption info on page 0, decrypted using the master key from the keyring, and applied transparently to all page reads. Subcommands that support --keyring include parse, pages, dump, checksum, diff, watch, recover, and sdi.

Exit codes

0 -- Success.
1 -- An error occurred, or (for inno checksum) invalid checksums were detected.

IDB Utils Documentation