I am migrating from some MySQL 5.1 servers to MySQL 5.6 servers. The MySQL docs are a bit unclear if replication is supported between a 5.1 master and a 5.6 slave, and MySQL's documentation is unclear if this is supported.
In terms of version numbers, MySQL seems to follow the norms for semantic version numbers
- 5.1 has a "Major version" of 5, and a "release level" of 1.
- 5.6 has a "Major version" of 5, and a "release level" of 6.
- MySQL 4, MySQL 5 and MySQL 6 would all be considered "Major versions".
This is documented at https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/which-version.html :
The naming scheme in MySQL 5.6 uses release names that consist of three numbers and a suffix; for example, mysql-5.6.1-m1. The numbers within the release name are interpreted as follows:
The first number (5) is the major version and describes the file format. All MySQL 5 releases have the same file format.
The second number (6) is the release level. Taken together, the major version and release level constitute the release series number.
https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/replication-compatibility.html says replication is supported between one major version and the next highest major version. This wording is pretty ambiguous if replication is supported between 5.1 and 5.6.
MySQL supports replication from one major version to the next higher major version. For example, you can replicate from a master running MySQL 4.1 to a slave running MySQL 5.0, from a master running MySQL 5.0 to a slave running MySQL 5.1, and so on.
The updated 5.7 beta docs sort of simply that replication is only supported between release levels, although the manual uses the term "major version". What do they really mean here?
MySQL supports replication from one major version to the next higher major version. For example, you can replicate from a master running MySQL 5.0 to a slave running MySQL 5.1, from a master running MySQL 5.1 to a slave running MySQL 5.5, and so on.
Is MySQL replication supported between MySQL 5.1 and MySQL 5.6? I understand that MySQL 5.1 is EOL on most platforms, but it's still shipped with RHEL6.