Automatically Backup MySQL database on linux server

Doing pretty much the same like many people.

1. The script needs to run on the machine hosting the MySql database (It is a linux machine).
   => Create a local bash or perl script (or whatever) "myscript" on this machine "A"

2. The backups must be saved onto the same server that the database is on.
   => in the script "myscript", you can just use mysqldump. From the local backup, you may create a tarball that you send via scp to your remote machine. Finally you can put your backup script into the crontab (crontab -e).

Some hints and functions to get you started as I won't post my entire script, it does not fully do the trick but not far away :

#!/bin/sh
...
MYSQLDUMP="$(which mysqldump)"   
FILE="$LOCAL_TARBALLS/$TARBALL/mysqldump_$db-$SNAPSHOT_DATE.sql"  
$MYSQLDUMP -u $MUSER -h $MHOST -p$MPASS $db > $FILE && $GZIP $GZ_COMPRESSION_LEVEL $FILE   

function create_tarball()
{
local tarball_dir=$1
tar -zpcvf $tarball_dir"_"$SNAPSHOT_DATE".tar.gz" $tarball_dir >/dev/null
return $?
}

function send_tarball()
{
local PROTOCOLE_="2"
local IPV_="4"
local PRESERVE_="p"
local COMPRESSED_="C"
local PORT="-P $DESTINATION_PORT"
local EXECMODE="B"

local SRC=$1
local DESTINATION_DIR=$2
local DESTINATION_HOST=$DESTINATION_USER"@"$DESTINATION_MACHINE":"$DESTINATION_DIR

local COMMAND="scp -$PROTOCOLE_$IPV_$PRESERVE_$COMPRESSED_$EXECMODE $PORT $SRC $DESTINATION_HOST &"

echo "remote copy command: "$COMMAND
[[ $REMOTE_COPY_ACTIVATED = "Yes" ]] && eval $COMMAND

}

Then to delete files older than "date", you can look at man find and focus on the mtime and newer options.

Edit: as said earlier, there is no particular interest in doing a local backup except a temproray file to be able send a tarball easily and delete it when sent.

Create a shell script like the one below:

#!/bin/bash
mysqldump -u username -p'password' dbname > /my_dir/db_$(date+%m-%d-%Y_%H-%M-%S).sql
find /mydir -mtime +10 -type f -delete

Replace username, password and your backup directory(my_dir). Save it in a directory(shell_dir) as filename.sh

Schedule it to run everyday using crontab -e like:

30 8 * * * /shell_dir/filename.sh

This will run everyday at 8:30 AM and backup the database. It also deletes the backup which is older than 10 days. If you don't wanna do that just delete the last line from the script.

Answer: A cron

Description:

Try creating a file something.sh with this:

 #!/bin/sh
 mysqldump -u root -p pwd --opt db1.sql > /respaldosql/db1.sql
 mysqldump -u root -p pwd --opt db2.sql > /respaldosql/db2.sql
 cd /home/youuser/backupsql/
 tar -zcvf backupsql_$(date +%d%m%y).tgz *.sql
 find -name '*.tgz' -type f -mtime +2 -exec rm -f {} \;

Give the adequate permission to the file

 chmod 700 mysqlrespaldo.sh

or

 sudo chmod 700 something.sh

and then create a cron with

 crontab -e

setting it like

 **0 1 * * *** /home/youruser/coolscripts/something.sh

Remember that the numbers or '*' characters have this structure:

Minutes (range 0-59)
Hours (0-23)
Day of month (1-31)
Month (1-12)
Day of the week (0-6 being 0=Domingo)
Absolute path to script or program to run