I use MySQL as my database server, and thankfully, it’s been reliable and easy to use. A qualm I have, however, is that it doesn’t include a daily backup feature, unlike Microsoft SQL Server.
The good thing is that the open source community has seen this problem and created a solution for it: AutoMySQLBackup. (You can download it from here.)
According to the website on SourceForge.net:
A script to take daily, weekly and monthly backups of your MySQL databases using mysqldump. Features – Backup mutiple databases – Single backup file or to a seperate file for each DB – Compress backup files – Backup remote servers – E-mail logs – More..
Here are the quick-and-dirty set up steps (courtesy of debianhelp.co.uk):
1. Download automysqlbackup.sh and place it into your /etc/cron.daily directory like so: cp /path-to-automysqlbackup/automysqlbackup.sh /etc/cron.daily/.
2. Edit (at least) the following lines via vim automysqlbackup.sh:
USERNAME=dbuser
PASSWORD=password
DBNAMES=”DB1 DB2 DB3″
3. Make the file executable by typing: chmod u+rwx automysqlbackup.sh.
4. Create the following directory by typing: mkdir ./backups.
5. That’s it! You can either run the script via the command line: ./automysqlbackup.sh, or let it run its course since we’ve now put it in /etc/cron.daily; make sure the cron service is running, though. ;0)
Peace. \m/