If a replication source server does not write a statement to its binary log, the statement is not replicated. If the server does log the statement, the statement is sent to all replicas and each replica determines whether to execute it or ignore it.

On the source, you can control which databases to log changes for by using the --binlog-do-db and --binlog-ignore-db options to control binary logging. For a description of the rules that servers use in evaluating these options, see Section 19.2.5.1, “Evaluation of Database-Level Replication and Binary Logging Options”. You should not use these options to control which databases and tables are replicated. Instead, use filtering on the replica to control the events that are executed on the replica.

On the replica side, decisions about whether to execute or ignore statements received from the source are made according to the --replicate-* options that the replica was started with. (See Section 19.1.6, “Replication and Binary Logging Options and Variables”.) The filters governed by these options can also be set dynamically using the CHANGE REPLICATION FILTER statement. The rules governing such filters are the same whether they are created on startup using --replicate-* options or while the replica server is running by CHANGE REPLICATION FILTER. Note that replication filters cannot be used on Group Replication-specific channels on a MySQL server instance that is configured for Group Replication, because filtering transactions on some servers would make the group unable to reach agreement on a consistent state.

In the simplest case, when there are no --replicate-* options, the replica executes all statements that it receives from the source. Otherwise, the result depends on the particular options given.

Database-level options (--replicate-do-db, --replicate-ignore-db) are checked first; see Section 19.2.5.1, “Evaluation of Database-Level Replication and Binary Logging Options”, for a description of this process. If no database-level options are used, option checking proceeds to any table-level options that may be in use (see Section 19.2.5.2, “Evaluation of Table-Level Replication Options”, for a discussion of these). If one or more database-level options are used but none are matched, the statement is not replicated.

For statements affecting databases only (that is, CREATE DATABASE, DROP DATABASE, and ALTER DATABASE), database-level options always take precedence over any --replicate-wild-do-table options. In other words, for such statements, --replicate-wild-do-table options are checked if and only if there are no database-level options that apply.

To make it easier to determine what effect a given set of options has, it is recommended that you avoid mixing do-* and ignore-* options, or options containing wildcards with options which do not.

If any --replicate-rewrite-db options were specified, they are applied before the --replicate-* filtering rules are tested.

Beginning with MySQL 8.0.31, filtering rules are applied before performing any privilege checks; if a transaction is filtered out, no privilege check is performed for that transaction, and thus no error can be raised by it. See Section 19.5.1.29, “Replica Errors During Replication”, for more information.