Backup datbases and tables in Mysql

Backup all databases uncompressed from the command line (not from within MySQL):

backup: mysqldump -u root -pmypass --all-databases > alldatabases.sql

restore full: mysql -u username -pmypass < alldatabases.sql (no space in between -p and mypass)

restore single: mysql -u username -pmypass mydb < mydb.sql (no space in between -p and mypass)

Backup all databases compressed from the command line (not from within MySQL):

With bzip2: mysqldump --all-databases | bzip2 -c > databasebackup.sql.bz2 (use bunzip2 to uncompress)

With gzip: mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > databasebackup.sql.gz (use gunzip to uncompress)


Mini script to backup all databases and tables using gzip:

#!/bin/sh
date=`date -I`
mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > /var/backup/dbbackup-$date.sql.gz

Backup a specific database only:
mysqldump -u username -pmypass databasename > backupfile.sql

Backup database structure only
mysqldump --no-data --databases databasename > structurebackup.sql


Backup a specific database and specific tables within that database only:
mysqldump --add-drop-table -u username -pmypass databasename table_1 table_2 > databasebackup.sql

The syntax for the command to issue is:
mysqldump -u [username] -p[password] [databasename] [table1 table2 ....] > backupfilename.sql

Backing up only the database structure of specific databases, not the actual data:
mysqldump --no-data --databases db1 db2 db3 > structurebackup.sql