Trying to understand SHOW SLAVE STATUS in MySQL I have a Master-Slave replication setup and it looks like that it is running fine. Below is a result of SHOW SLAVE STATUS command:

show slave STATUS\G;
*************************** 1. row ***************************
               Slave_IO_State: Waiting for master to send event
                  Master_Host: *.*.*.*
                  Master_User: repliV1
                  Master_Port: 3306
                Connect_Retry: 60
              Master_Log_File: mysql-bin.000001
          Read_Master_Log_Pos: 10726644
               Relay_Log_File: mysqld-relay-bin.000056
                Relay_Log_Pos: 231871
        Relay_Master_Log_File: mysql-bin.000001
             Slave_IO_Running: Yes
            Slave_SQL_Running: Yes
              Replicate_Do_DB: data1
          Replicate_Ignore_DB:
           Replicate_Do_Table:
       Replicate_Ignore_Table:
      Replicate_Wild_Do_Table:
  Replicate_Wild_Ignore_Table:
                   Last_Errno: 0
                   Last_Error:
                 Skip_Counter: 0
          Exec_Master_Log_Pos: 10726644
              Relay_Log_Space: 232172
              Until_Condition: None
               Until_Log_File:
                Until_Log_Pos: 0
           Master_SSL_Allowed: No
           Master_SSL_CA_File:
           Master_SSL_CA_Path:
              Master_SSL_Cert:
            Master_SSL_Cipher:
               Master_SSL_Key:
        Seconds_Behind_Master: 0
Master_SSL_Verify_Server_Cert: No
                Last_IO_Errno: 0
                Last_IO_Error:
               Last_SQL_Errno: 0
               Last_SQL_Error:


I would like to understand further about the Relay_Log_File, Relay_Log_Pos and Relay_Master_Log_File.

My questions are:


Is it true that the relay log file is one which is being read and stored locally for the replication to run ?
What about the relay_master_log_file then; how is it different from the Master_Log_File?
What are both of these values, viz., Read_Master_Log_Pos and Relay_Log_Pos ? Why are they showing up even though the replication is complete and in sync ?
Is it true that these files are in binary format, and hence I cannot view them ?
I want to understand further is the Relay_Log_File, Relay_Log_Pos and Relay_Master_Log_File.


From SHOW SLAVE STATUS\G, get two values


Relay_Log_File : Current relay log accepting new entries during replication
Relay_Log_Pos : Current position of the current relay log accepting new entries during replication
Relay_Master_Log_File : Relay log file containing the last successfully executed SQL statement on the Master that was executed on the Slave.
Master_Log_File : The log on the Master that corresponds to the current relay log file and current relay log position



  The files are in binary so not able to view them right


Yes, you can view the relay logs. Since they have the same structure as a regular binary log, just run the mysqlbinlog program. For example to view the SQL within any of you relay logs, such as the last one, do this:

mysqlbinlog mysqld-relay-bin.000056 &gt; /root/SQLForCurrentRelayLog.txt
less /root/SQLForCurrentRelayLog.txt