I've prepared this mysql config file tuning tutorial for you - it has pretty much all you need to know about configuring MySQL for best performance.

On the agenda:

1. Essentials of MySQL Configuration
2. Differences between:
- MySQL versions (5.1, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7) and
- Distros (Community MySQL, Percona Server, MariaDB, WebScaleSQL)
3. 17 Key Settings for High Performance MySQL Server

And a bonus section: how to look at MySQL status variables.

Enjoy!


P.S. Some links from the video:

Article by Laurynas Biveinis about WebScaleSQL:

https://www.percona.com/blog/2014/05/...

My my.cnf template download: http://www.speedemy.com/17

On innodb_io_capacity: http://www.speedemy.com/17-key-mysql-...

More on MySQL handler counters: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/e...

On using Threads_running: http://www.speedemy.com/mysql-trouble...

Cacti: http://www.cacti.net
Zabbix: http://www.zabbix.org

Percona Monitoring Plugins: https://www.percona.com/software/mysq...

Percona Toolkit: https://www.percona.com/software/mysq...

Innotop manual: http://innotop.googlecode.com/svn/htm...
Innotop source: https://github.com/innotop/innotop

If I forgot to include some link, please be kind and report that in the comments so I update this.