Isn't very complicated.<br />See this chapter of the mysql documentation.

here is what i changed in my.cnf, then rebooted.<br /><br />[safe_mysqld]<br />err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log<br />pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid<br />log-slow-queries=/var/log/mysqlslow.log<br /><br />i have one slow log and it did NOT get put in the new log file. what did i mess up?

You also need to start the mysql daemon with --log-slow-queries for it to work.

so do i need to dupe those 3 lines into<br />[mysqld]<br /><br />stanza, correct?

Yeah, that is probably necessary.

i did the following:<br />[mysqld]<br />err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log<br />pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid<br />log-slow-queries=/var/log/mysqlslow.log<br /><br />the database wouldn't start. ack!<br /><br />so i changed it to:<br />[mysqld]<br />err-log=/var/log/mysqld.log<br />log-slow-queries=/var/log/mysqlslow.log<br /><br />still wouldn't start.<br /><br />so i nuked it all and went back to without it.<br /><br />what is the correct syntax for my.cnf?

I just added one line in the mysqld section: <br /> <br />log-slow-queries = /var/lib/mysql/slow.query <br /> <br />and it works fine. <br />

pid-file=/var/run/mysqld/mysqld.pid<br /><br />This is a required line...