Backups and MySQL

[Mr. Brightside]

I've just setup a backup system for my server using rsync, that backs up the whole filesystem. However, I'm not sure about MySQL - my question is, if the files stored on disc are safe, can they be reloaded into a new MySQL setup if necessary, or should I be exporting them into some other format for backup?

This is on Debian Etch btw.

Thanks, null

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Thanks for the reply Beansprout I've had a play and came up with this:

mysqldump --all-databases --user root --password=password > /home/user/mysqlbackup.sql

I then made an entry in cron by running crontab -e, to run that command at 1am daily - just before the filesystem backup runs. Does this all look good or have I made mistakes? (Still very new to Linux).

Thanks, null

 

[Mr. Brightside]

Just edited my crontab to include the gzipping. I tried it out aswell and it did indeed make a big difference - 83mB uncompressed to 19mB compressed.

Thanks, null