How to automate backups in mysqldump from one server to an external disk

Question

I need your help in configuring mysqldump in order to automatically download backups from one server to an external disk in a fixed time (Everyday at 6:00 Pm). If mysqldump is unable to do that, can your suggest another software?

Answer 1

You can use your operating system's scheduler to automatically run the mysqldump command at your desired times, eg cron on Linux and the Task Scheduler on Windows.

To have mysqldump write to the external disk, you can mount the disk so the destination path is reachable to mysqldump and use it in the output path. To specify the output path, you can either use > redirection or the --result-file option.

Both approaches work on Linux/Unix but this distinction is important for Windows where redirection won't work properly using PowerShell. This is because redirection on PowerShell produces UTF-16 using redirection which cannot be read. The --result-file option will provide ASCII output that can be read.

Windows Examples

C:\> mysqldump.exe –e –u[username] -p[password] -h[hostname] [dbname] > [C:\path\to\mybackup.sql]
C:\> mysqldump.exe –e –u[username] -p[password] -h[hostname] [dbname] --result-file [C:\path\to\mybackup.sql]

Linux/Unix Examples

# mysqldump -u[username] -p[password] -h[hostname] [dbname] > [/path/to/mybackup.sql]
# mysqldump -u[username] -p[password] -h[hostname] [dbname] --result-file [/path/to/mybackup.sql]

More information is available here:

• Complete: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/mysqldump.html
• Quick: http://www.thegeekstuff.com/2008/09/backup-and-restore-mysql-database-using-mysqldump/

Depending on your backup requirements, you may also want to consider other options such as Percona XtraBackup , LVM snapshots (eg mylvmbackup ), etc. This Percona XtraBackup presentation has a comparison table on slide 3.