5.1 Introduction to Replication
MySQL 3.23.15 and up features support for one-way replication. One server acts as the master, while one or more other servers act as slaves. The master server writes updates to its binary log files, and maintains an index of the files to keep track of log rotation. These logs serve as a record of updates to be sent to slave servers. When a slave server connects to the master server, it informs the master of its last position within the logs since the last successfully propagated update. The slave catches up any updates that have occurred since then, and then blocks and waits for the master to notify it of new updates.Section 4.6.1, "Database Backups."