How to Backup Databases with MySQL­Dumper

The backup, MySQL­Dumper is a popular al­ter­na­tive to ph­p­MyAd­min, the most common pre-installed program. A great advantage of the dumper: it can be used to manage very large databases, back up several databases si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and also restore them. A local backup is carried out, which means that no data is saved on an external server or in the Cloud. Unlike plugins and other ex­ten­sions, the Dumper functions in­de­pen­dent­ly of the content man­age­ment system being used.

The most important features at a glance:

• simple backup and restora­tion of MySQL databases
• e-mail no­ti­fi­ca­tion after a suc­cess­ful backup
• automatic dispatch of backups via FTP
• pos­si­bil­i­ty of managing several backup files
• multipart-backup
• SQL browser
• supplied Perl script
• directory pro­tec­tion

Avoiding timeout errors

A big problem regarding backups and PHP: PHP scripts are usually aborted after a runtime of 30 seconds and therefore most tools can usually only establish a backup up to a given maximum size. If the script is aborted, a full backup copy cannot be created. MySQL­Dumper avoids this timeout error by only selecting a certain number of data sets from the table. The program then memorizes the point at which the backup has stopped. It then picks up again from this same point after the timeout and thus avoids a server ter­mi­na­tion. The same principle is also used when restoring data.

Below we have explained step-by-step how to install MySQL­Dumper. Thanks to a practical set-up assistant, the in­stal­la­tion will run quickly and easily and won’t burden you with any technical hurdles or dif­fi­cul­ties.

1. Download and upload

The in­stal­la­tion is simple and doesn’t require any special technical knowledge. In order to start the MySQL­Dumper in­stal­la­tion, you have to download the current version of the program in the form of a ZIP archive. The current version of MySQL­Dumper is available to download on GitHub. After the ZIP archive has been unzipped the files can be uploaded to the web space via FTP (e.g. with the free FileZilla programm).

2. Open the program in the browser

After the upload you can simply call up the program via your web browser. The address under which the MySQL­Dumper is filed depends on the register that the files have been deposited in (HTML file or in its own subfolder).

3. Set-up assistant

The dumper’s set-up assistant leads the user step-by-step through the in­stal­la­tion and con­fig­u­ra­tion process. After you have selected language pref­er­ences and confirmed the in­stal­la­tion process, you have to adjust some database pa­ra­me­ters. The following in­for­ma­tion is needed:

• database host name
• database user
• database password

The program needs this in­for­ma­tion to connect to your MySQL server. You can skip the remaining database boxes such as the port and socket.

4. Create a con­nec­tion to MySQL database

If all entered pa­ra­me­ters are correct, a no­ti­fi­ca­tion will appear informing you that the database was found. All available databases are listed in the window. Click on “save and continue in­stal­la­tion”. The rest of the set-up happens au­to­mat­i­cal­ly.

5. Create di­rec­to­ries

For the last step, MySQL­Dumper creates several di­rec­to­ries, which normally happens au­to­mat­i­cal­ly. If this doesn’t work, you can create a “work” folder in FileZilla and then create further “backup”, “config” and “log” sub­fold­ers.

Now the in­stal­la­tion is complete and the MySQL­Dumper home page will open.

On the developer site you will find helpful video tutorials for each in­di­vid­ual step. Here is a video tutorial for the MySQL­Dumper in­stal­la­tion:

Con­fig­u­ra­tion

The basic settings of the program can generally be accepted. If you have certain re­quire­ments or are working with es­pe­cial­ly large and extensive amounts of data, you can perform ad­di­tion­al settings. The general settings can be found by clicking on “general” in the menu. You also have the option of com­press­ing the log file of the MySQL­Dumper and in­di­cat­ing the maximum size. It is also possible to adjust the maximum limit of the utilized internal memory allocated to the script execution.

Restora­tion settings:

• delete the database before the restora­tion
• trouble shooting pref­er­ences
• ignoring enable keys (with regards to large databases)

The backup can be created after the con­fig­u­ra­tion. In the left nav­i­ga­tion bar, you find the “backup” option. This is how to proceed:

1. Enter comments

This feature lets you comment on or name in­di­vid­ual backups, which is es­pe­cial­ly useful when creating several backups. For example, the remark “backup December 2015” informs you of when your database was last backed-up.

2. Choose resources

You can choose which areas of your database should be backed up. If you want a complete backup, click “select all”.

3. Start the backup

Click on “start backup” and the program will begin to create the backup copy. The current process is shown in the browser window and depending on the size of the data, it can take several seconds or sometimes even minutes.

If the process is completed, a cor­re­spond­ing no­ti­fi­ca­tion will appear in the browser window. Under “file ad­min­is­tra­tion” you can find a list of all created backups which are grouped together based on the different databases.

From this overview you can see:

• whether the database was com­pressed
• which script was used
• when the backup was created
• whether a multi-part backup was created
• how big the backup is
• how many tables or entries it contains