Other Administrative Statements RESET PERSIST  affects the contents of the Performance Schema  persisted_variables  table because the table contents correspond to the contents of the  mysqld-auto.cnf  file. On the other hand, because  RESET PERSIST  does not change variable values, it has no effect on the contents of the Performance Schema  variables_info  table until the server is restarted. For information about  RESET  statement variants that clear the state of other server operations, see Section 13.7.8.6, “RESET Statement” . 13.7.8.8 RESTART Statement RESTART This statement stops and restarts the MySQL server. It requires the  SHUTDOWN  privilege. One use for  RESTART  is when it is not possible or convenient to gain command-line access to the MySQL server on the server host to restart it. For example,  SET PERSIST_ONLY  can be used at runtime to make configuration changes to system variables that can be set only at server startup, but the server must still be restarted for those changes to take effect. The  RESTART  statement provides a way to do so from within client sessions, without requiring command-line access on the server host. After executing a  RESTART  statement, the client can expect the current connection to be lost. If auto-reconnect is enabled, the connection is reestablished after the server restarts. Otherwise, the connection must be reestablished manually. Note A successful  RESTART  operation requires  mysqld  to be running in an environment that has a monitoring process available to detect a server shutdown performed for restart purposes: •In the presence of a monitoring process,  RESTART  causes  mysqld  to terminate such that the monitoring process can determine that it should start a new  mysqld  instance. •If no monitoring process is present,  RESTART  fails with an error. •Windows, when  mysqld  is started as a Windows service or standalone. ( mysqld  forks, and one process acts as a monitor to the other, which acts as the server.) These platforms provide the necessary monitoring support for the  RESTART  statement: To configure a monitoring environment such that  mysqld  enables the  RESTART  statement: •Unix and Unix-like systems that use systemd or  mysqld_safe  to manage  mysqld . 1. Set the  MYSQLD_PARENT_PID  environment variable to the value of the process ID of the process that starts  mysqld , before starting  mysqld . 2. When  mysqld  performs a shutdown due to use of the  RESTART  statement, it returns exit code 16. 3. When the monitoring process detects an exit code of 16, it starts  mysqld  again. Otherwise, it exits. Here is a minimal example as implemented in the  bash  shell: #!/bin/bash export MYSQLD_PARENT_PID=$$ export MYSQLD_RESTART_EXIT=16 2981