This guide walks through starting Binsight against a local directory containing one or more MySQL binlog files.
Step 1: Point to Binlogs
If you already have binlogs on disk (for example, at /var/lib/mysql, or downloaded from an Amazon RDS S3 binlog backup), locate the folder containing files named mysql-bin.000001, binlog.000002, or similar.
Alternatively, if you want to test Binsight with sample data right now, clone the repo and use the included test fixtures:
Terminal
git clone https://github.com/adrijshikhar/binsight.git
cd binsight
binsight serve internal/parser/testdata/
Step 2: Start the Web UI
Run binsight serve followed by the path to the binlog directory:
Terminal
$ binsight serve /var/lib/mysql
Binsight will index the files, print its diagnostic banner, and bind to http://127.0.0.1:8080:
CLI Output
[INFO] Discovered 4 binlog files in /var/lib/mysql
[INFO] SQLite cache initialized at ~/.binsight/index.db
[INFO] Indexing mysql-bin.000142 (124,591 events)... done in 240ms
[INFO] Binsight web console running at http://127.0.0.1:8080
Step 3: Explore the UI
Open your browser to http://localhost:8080. You will see:
- Left Sidebar: List of discovered binlog files sorted chronologically, with file size and event count.
- Overview Tab: Summary metrics including total transactions, byte volume, mutation kind distribution (Insert vs. Update vs. Delete), and top mutated tables.
- Events Tab: Virtualized stream of decoded binlog events with instant filter by Table, Database, and Event Type.
- Drawer Inspector: Click any event row to slide open the forensics drawer containing row-image diffs, byte hex inspector, and metadata.
Step 4: Keyboard Shortcuts
Binsight is built keyboard-first for incident triage:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| j / k | Navigate next / previous event row |
| Enter | Open inspection drawer for active row |
| Esc | Close active drawer or modal |
| / | Focus search filter bar |
| t | Toggle between flat events and transaction grouping |