How to enable the query log in MySQL

To debug applications which use a mysql database, it comes in handy to enable the query log to get all SQL queries that were sent to the database.  Open the MySQL configuration file (my.cnf)

vi /etc/mysql/my.cnf

and add the line:

log=/var/log/mysql.log

in the [mysql] section of the file. Depending on the Linux distribution that you use, the my.cnf file can be /etc/my.cnf or /etc/mysql/my.cnf.

Afterwards restart mysql to apply the new the configuration:

/etc/init.d/mysql restart