Backing up a MySQL Database

As I detailed in a previous post, I installed LAMP on my Ubuntu machine (which included MySQL Database version 5.1.49-1ubuntu8.1) for the purpose of hosting a Drupal site.  I installed Drupal 6 for the purpose of playing around with Drupal and writing a blog about my experience.  It occurred to me that I should probably write about my experience with the latest version of Drupal, so I decided to upgrade to Drupal 7.  Before upgrading, I need to back up my site, and that requires backing up the MySQL database.

I had previous installed PHPMyAdmin, so I began investigating a way to back up my database using that tool.  I found an article on Drupal's website that detailed how to backup a MySQL database with PHPMyAdmin.  I followed this article and wrote about my experience below.

To start, I logged on to PHPMyAdmin as root.  I then clicked on the Export tab.

I clicked the Select All link to select all schemas and selected the SQL radio button. 

Under the Options group and under the Structure sub-group, I checked the following:

• Structure check box
• Add DROP TABLE / VIEW / PROCEDURE / FUNCTION / EVENT check box
• Add AUTO_INCREMENT value check box
• Enclose table and field names with backquotes check box

The Add IF NOT EXISTS check box was checked by default, so I left it checked.

Under the Options group and under the Data sub-group, I checked the following:

• Data check box
• Complete Inserts check box
• Use hexadecimal for BLOB check box
• selected the INSERT option in the Export type select box.

I left everything else at their default settings.

Finally, I clicked the Go button on the bottom-right corner of the screen.  This brought up a screen where I could choose the location of the file.  I selected a location and the file began to download.  

The resulting file contained all necessary statements for creating re-creating my database. 

I have not tried importing this file yet.  That remains for another article.

Thanks for reading.