Utility Statements On Windows, the forking used to implement  RESTART  makes determining the server process to attach to for debugging more difficult. To alleviate this, starting the server with  --gdb  suppresses forking, in addition to its other actions done to set up a debugging environment. In non-debug settings,  --no-monitor  may be used for the sole purpose of suppressing forking the monitor process. For a server started with either  -- gdb  or  --no-monitor , executing  RESTART  causes the server to simply exit without restarting. The  Com_restart  status variable tracks the number of  RESTART  statements. Because status variables are initialized for each server startup and do not persist across restarts,  Com_restart  normally has a value of zero, but can be nonzero if  RESTART  statements were executed but failed. This statement stops the MySQL server. It requires the  SHUTDOWN  privilege. SHUTDOWN  provides an SQL-level interface to the same functionality available using the  mysqladmin shutdown  command or the  mysql_shutdown() C API function. The  Com_shutdown  status variable tracks the number of  SHUTDOWN  statements. Because status variables are initialized for each server startup and do not persist across restarts,  Com_shutdown  normally has a value of zero, but can be nonzero if  SHUTDOWN  statements were executed but failed. Another way to stop the server is to send it a  SIGTERM  signal, which can be done by  root  or the account that owns the server process.  SIGTERM  enables server shutdown to be performed without having to connect to the server. See Section 4.10, “Unix Signal Handling in MySQL” . The  DESCRIBE  and  EXPLAIN  statements are synonyms, used either to obtain information about table structure or query execution plans. For more information, see Section 13.7.7.5, “SHOW COLUMNS Statement” , and Section 13.8.2, “EXPLAIN Statement” . 13.8 Utility Statements 13.8.1 DESCRIBE Statement 13.8.2 EXPLAIN Statement 13.7.8.9 SHUTDOWN Statement {EXPLAIN | DESCRIBE | DESC} tbl_name  [ col_name  |  wild ] {EXPLAIN | DESCRIBE | DESC} [ explain_type ] { explainable_stmt  | FOR CONNECTION  connection_id } {EXPLAIN | DESCRIBE | DESC} ANALYZE [FORMAT = TREE]  select_statement explain_type : { FORMAT =  format_name } format_name : { 2982 SHUTDOWN while true ; do bin/mysqld  mysqld options here if [ $? -ne $MYSQLD_RESTART_EXIT ]; then break fi done