Performing a MySql Backup Via Command Line
==========================================
:author: Aaron Ball
:email: nullspoon@iohq.net


== {doctitle}

A few months back I was running backups of the ol' web server and realized that
it was going to be a pain since I was starting to host more and more websites.
Logging into phpMyAdmin and exporting every database can be a bit cumbersome
when you have a lot of databases. With that, I wanted a good solution for
dumping my entire database server.  Thankfully, the solution is a really simple
one (if you have console access). Many thanks to the MySql devs for creating
this feature (as if they wouldn't what good is a database you can't back up
after all).

As I mentioned, this is really simple. To export all of your databases
that you have running, including create statements, run the following
command... 

----
mysqldump -u root -p --all-databases > /tmp/dumpfile.sql
----

So here's what we just did.

* *-u* root specifies the user. In this case, root is who we are logging
in.
* *-p* makes it ask for a password (it will try to log in without using
a password if this isn't used)
* *--all-databases* makes it export all databases (duh)

Ordinarily, this command outputs to the console. It's not the most useful thing
in the world unless you use the greater than. The > makes it write that output
to the specified location rather than to your console window.


Category:MySQL


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