title: how to prevent mysql from createing mysql-bin.00000x files?
body: <p>I see that mysql creates a lot of files that are named like mysql-bin.000001, mysql-bin.000002, mysql-bin.000003 etc.
  I've found <a href="http://qnalist.com/questions/4184346/mysql-bin-00000x" rel="nofollow">here</a> that my log_bin setting is "ON".
  I'm wondering how I can set this to off and if that's a smart thing to do.
  I've tried this: <code>set log_bin = "OFF";</code> but it resulted to this: <code>ERROR 1238 (HY000): Variable 'log_bin' is a read only variable</code></p>
  
  <p>On multiple websites I've found <a href="http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/what-is-mysql-binary-log/" rel="nofollow">this</a> solution and changed it in "/etc/my.cnf":</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Disable MySQL binlogging</p>
    
    <p>If you are not replicating, you can disable binlogging by changing
    your my.ini or my.cnf file. Open your my.ini or /etc/my.cnf
    (/etc/mysql/my.cnf), enter:</p>
    
    <p><code># vi /etc/my.cnf</code></p>
    
    <p>Find a line that reads "log_bin" and remove or comment it as follows:</p>
    
    <p><code># log_bin                        = /var/log/mysql/mysql-bin.log</code></p>
    
    <p>You also need to remove or comment following lines:</p>
    
    <p><code># expire_logs_days        = 10</code></p>
    
    <p><code># max_binlog_size         = 100M</code></p>
    
    <p>Close and save the file.</p>
    
    <p>Finally, restart mysql server:</p>
    
    <p><code># service mysql restart</code></p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>But this doesn't seem to have any affect at all.
  As far as I could find, these files mainly exist for replication, but I'm not replicating anything.</p>