Using a .php file to generate a MySQL dump

Question

Here's the information I have:

I am working with a Linux based system using MySQL and PHP5. I need to be able to generate a mysqldump from within a.php file, and then have that dump be stored in a file on the server in a location I would specify.

As I'm a PHP nooblet, I'd like someone to give me some assistance, guidance, or code, that would do what I require. This would have to be run remotely from the Internet.

Answer 1

You can use the exec() function to execute an external command.

Note: between shell_exec() and exec() , I would choose the second one, which doesn't return the output to the PHP script -- no need for the PHP script to get the whole SQL dump as a string: you only need it written to a file, and this can be done by the command itself.

That external command will:

• be a call to mysqldump , with the right parameters,
• and redirect the output to a file.

For example:

mysqldump --user=... --password=... --host=... DB_NAME > /path/to/output/file.sql

Which means your PHP code would look like this:

exec('mysqldump --user=... --password=... --host=... DB_NAME > /path/to/output/file.sql');

Of course, up to you to use the right connection information, replacing the ... with those.

Answer 2

If you want to create a backup to download it via the browser, you also can do this without using a file.

The php function passthru() will directly redirect the output of mysqldump to the browser. In this example it also will be zipped.

Pro: You don't have to deal with temp files.

Con: Won't work on Windows. May have limits with huge datasets.

<?php

$DBUSER="user";
$DBPASSWD="password";
$DATABASE="user_db";

$filename = "backup-" . date("d-m-Y") . ".sql.gz";
$mime = "application/x-gzip";

header( "Content-Type: " . $mime );
header( 'Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="' . $filename . '"' );

$cmd = "mysqldump -u $DBUSER --password=$DBPASSWD $DATABASE | gzip --best";   

passthru( $cmd );

exit(0);
?>

Answer 3

Take a look here: https://github.com/ifsnop/mysqldump-php . It is a native solution written in php.

You can install it using composer, and it is as easy as doing:

<?php

use Ifsnop\Mysqldump as IMysqldump;

try {
    $dump = new IMysqldump\Mysqldump('database', 'username', 'password');
    $dump->start('storage/work/dump.sql');
} catch (\Exception $e) {
    echo 'mysqldump-php error: ' . $e->getMessage();
}

?>

It supports advanced users, with lots of options copied from the original mysqldump.

All the options are explained at the github page, but more or less are auto-explicative:

$dumpSettingsDefault = array(
    'include-tables' => array(),
    'exclude-tables' => array(),
    'compress' => 'None',
    'no-data' => false,
    'add-drop-database' => false,
    'add-drop-table' => false,
    'single-transaction' => true,
    'lock-tables' => false,
    'add-locks' => true,
    'extended-insert' => true,
    'disable-foreign-keys-check' => false,
    'where' => '',
    'no-create-info' => false
);

Answer 4

Please reffer to the following link which contains a scriptlet that will help you: http://davidwalsh.name/backup-mysql-database-php

Note: This script may contain bugs with NULL data types

Answer 5

For security reasons, it's recommended to specify the password in a configuration file and not in the command (a user can execute a ps aux | grep mysqldump and see the password).

//create a temporary file
$file   = tempnam(sys_get_temp_dir(), 'mysqldump');

//store the configuration options
file_put_contents($file, "[mysqldump]
user={$user}
password=\"{$password}\"");

//execute the command and output the result
passthru("mysqldump --defaults-file=$file {$dbname}");

//delete the temporary file
unlink($file);

Answer 6

Here you can find a comprehensive solution to dump mysql structure and data like in PMA (and without using exec, passthru etc.):

https://github.com/antarasi/MySQL-Dump-with-Foreign-keys

It is fork of dszymczuk project with my enhancements.

The usage is simple

<?php
//MySQL connection parameters
$dbhost = 'localhost';
$dbuser = 'dbuser';
$dbpsw = 'pass';
$dbname = 'dbname';

//Connects to mysql server
$connessione = @mysql_connect($dbhost,$dbuser,$dbpsw);

//Set encoding
mysql_query("SET CHARSET utf8");
mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8' COLLATE 'utf8_general_ci'");

//Includes class
require_once('FKMySQLDump.php');


//Creates a new instance of FKMySQLDump: it exports without compress and base-16 file
$dumper = new FKMySQLDump($dbname,'fk_dump.sql',false,false);

$params = array(
    //'skip_structure' => TRUE,
    //'skip_data' => TRUE,
);

//Make dump
$dumper->doFKDump($params);

?>

works like a charm:-)

Answer 7

MajorLeo's answer point me in the right direction but it didn't worked for me. I've found this site that follows the same approach and did work.

$dir = "path/to/file/";
$filename = "backup" . date("YmdHis") . ".sql.gz";

$db_host = "host";
$db_username = "username";
$db_password = "password";
$db_database = "database";

$cmd = "mysqldump -h {$db_host} -u {$db_username} --password={$db_password} {$db_database} | gzip > {$dir}{$filename}";
exec($cmd);

header("Content-type: application/octet-stream");
header("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=\"$filename\"");

passthru("cat {$dir}{$filename}");

I hope it helps someone else!

Answer 8

As long as you are allowed to use exec() , you can execute shell commands through your PHP code.

So assuming you know how to write the mysqldump in the command line, ie

mysqldump -u [username] -p [database] > [database].sql

then you can use this as the parameter to exec() function.

exec("mysqldump -u mysqluser -p my_database > my_database_dump.sql");

Answer 9

Here's another native PHP based option: https://github.com/2createStudio/shuttle-export

Answer 10

global $wpdb;
$export_posts = $wpdb->prefix . 'export_posts';
$backupFile = $_GET['targetDir'].'export-gallery.sql';
$dbhost=DB_HOST;
$dbuser=DB_USER;
$dbpass=DB_PASSWORD;
$db=DB_NAME;
$path_to_mysqldump = "D:\xampp_5.6\mysql\bin";
$query= "D:\\xampp_5.6\mysql\bin\mysqldump.exe -u$dbuser -p$dbpass $db $export_posts> $backupFile";
exec($query);
echo $query;

Answer 11

Well, you can always use PHP's system function call.

http://php.net/manual/en/function.system.php

http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.exec.php

That runs any command-line program from PHP.

Answer 12

<?php exec('mysqldump --all-databases > /your/path/to/test.sql'); ?>

You can extend the command with any options mysqldump takes ofcourse. Use man mysqldump for more options (but I guess you knew that;))

Answer 13

To dump database using shell_exec(), below is the method:

shell_exec('mysqldump -h localhost -u username -ppassword databasename  | gzip > dbname.sql.gz');

Answer 14

None of the above codes worked for me. I am using windows. Below Code worked for me...

$sql = "SELECT * FROM  $tableName WHERE yourclause";
$result = $conn->query($sql);


if($result){

        if ($result->num_rows > 0) {

            $myfile = fopen("daily_events_$district.sql", "w") or die("Unable to open file!");

            while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {  

                $rowToString = implode("','",$row);
                $writeToFile = "INSERT INTO $tableName VALUES('$rowToString');". PHP_EOL;
                fwrite($myfile,$writeToFile);
            }
            echo "File saved successfully";
        }
    } else {
        echo "No result found";
    }

This will save file in your project folder according to your query whatever data you want.

Answer 15

• Better and easy version of PHP script: https://gist.github.com/pthavarasa/1ff1933a74eb97ae07aa0103ad8bea1d

Answer 16

<?php
    $toDay = date('d-m-Y');

    $dbhost =   "localhost";
    $dbuser =   "YOUR DB USER";
    $dbpass =   "USER PASSWORD";
    $dbname =   "DB NAME";

    exec("mysqldump --user=$dbuser --password='$dbpass' --host=$dbhost $dbname > /home/....../public_html/".$toDay."_DB.sql");


?>