The test is basically the same you already did for non-blocking `mysqldump --master-data --single-transaction` used to provision a slave, but using XtraBackup instead of mysqldump.
So the test would be similar to your existing mysqldump test. But while the master is running, we would use non-blocking XtraBackup to take a snapshot. This snapshot we would then restore onto a new slave. The slave would then be configured with CHANGE MASTER TO, I believe one gets the correct binlog position to start from in the log file of XtraDB and/or slave mysqld (I need to check up on details). Then the test proceeds as the mysqldump case, letting the slave catch up and checking that replication is ok etc.
Done, a test was created and installed in buildbot, where it passes. I am using xtradb from RPM.
Now, to do this we would need to be able to use XtraBackup. I am wondering if it wouldn't make sense to at the same time include XtraBackup into MariaDB? XtraBackup seems to me quite mature already, and a very good product besides. It is arguably long overdue for us to include it.
So if we include XtraBackup in mariadb-5.2-rpl (/5.3), I think this should be possible to setup without too much trouble (I can provide specific details/scripts for how to actually run XtraBackup and setup slave start position, I just need to research that a bit).
Including XtraBackup means including in MariaDB a yet another piece of software that, even if it is of reasonable quality, has a different development and release cycle: - we have 3 different innnodb directories, innodb, innodb_plugin and xtradb - they have 3 different xtrabackup binaries, one for 5.0, one for 5.1 and one for 5.5 - they provide 5 patches to patch Innodb with. As discussed in IRC, I tried the most intuitive combination and it did not patch correctly. I did not try your renaming trick; - in launchpad, they have a bunch of trees: a trunk tree , a 1.6 tree and a windows tree, both of which have seen pushes in the last 1 week Philip Stoev