Backup/Restore Mysql database

A simple approach on how to backup and restore MySQL databases.

Backup

To save an existing database it is recommended that you create a dump.

• To dump all databases you must run the command:

mysqldump --user=****** --password=****** -A > /path/to/file_dump.SQL 

• To dump several specific databases you must run the command:

mysqldump --user=****** --password=******  db_1 db_2 db_n> /path/to/file_dump.SQL

• To dump all tables from a database you must run the command:

mysqldump --user=****** --password=****** db > /path/to/file_dump.SQL

• To dump specific tables from a database you must run the command:

mysqldump --user=****** --password=****** db --tables tab1 tab2 > /path/to/file_dump.SQL

For each of the following commands you must specify a user (user) and password (password) with administrator rights on the database.

Restore your database

To restore a dump just launch the command:

mysql --user=****** --password=****** db_name < /path/to/file_dump.SQL

Note that

A database dump: is a record of the table structure and the data from a database, usually in the form of a list made of SQL statements.