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Backing Up Your Database

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It is strongly recommended that you backup your database at regular intervals and before an upgrade.

Restoring your database from backup is then possible if something goes wrong.

Using phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is the name of the program used to manipulate your database.

Information below has been tried and tested using phpMyAdmin versions 2.5.3, 2.5.7-pl1, and 2.6.1-pl3 running on Unix.

Backup Process with phpMyAdmin

Log into phpMyAdmin on your server

From the main login screen, select 'Databases'

Now click the name of your database - or your WordPress database if you have several databases.

The next screen will show you all the tables inside your WordPress database.
Ignore those, and click the 'Export' tab on the top set of tabs.

Look at the left box at the top of the Export section. All the tables in the database you selected are in that box.

If you have other programs that use the database, then choose only those tables that correspond to your wordpress install. They will be the ones with that start with "wp_" or whatever 'table_prefix' you specified in your 'wp-config.php' file.
If you only have your WordPress blog installed, leave it as is (or click 'Select All' if you changed the selection)
Ensure that SQL is checked!

The SQL section

'Structure'
'Add DROP TABLE'
'Add AUTO_INCREMENT' and
'Enclose table and field names with backquotes'

The DATA section

Tick the 'Save as file' option, and leave the template name as is.

Now click 'Go' and you should be prompted for a file to download. Save the file to your computer.
Depending on the database size, this may take a few moments.

You have now backed up your database.

If you wanted, you could download a backup in each of the compression formats. Your choice. For example: None and "zipped":

Remember

Using Straight MySQL Commands

phpMyAdmin can not handle large databases so using straight MySQL code will help.

1. Change your directory to the directory you want to dump things to:

user@linux:~> cd files/blog

2. Use mysqldump to dump all database tables. To dump only certain tables from the database, give their names at the place shown by (tablename tablename tablename), and omit the parentheses ( ) in any case. (For help, try: man mysqldump.):

user@linux:~/files/blog> mysqldump --add-drop-table -h mysqlhostserver
 -u mysqlusername -p databasename (tablename tablename tablename) | bzip2
 -c > blog.bak.sql.bz2

Enter password: (enter your mysql password)
user@linux~/files/blog>

Example:
mysqldump --add-drop-table -h db01.example.net -u dbocodex -p dbwp | bzip2 -c > blog.bak.sql.bz2

Enter password: my-password
user@linux~/files/blog>

The bzip2 -c after the | (pipe) means the backup is compressed on the fly, and the > blog.bak.sql.bz2 sends the bzip output to a file named blog.bak.sql.bz2. It does in one line the same thing that these two commands do:

mysqldump --add-drop-table -h db01.example.net -u dbocodex -p dbwp > blog.bak.sql
bzip2 blog.bak.sql

Using MySQL Administrator

MySQL Administrator is a program for performing administrative operations, such as configuring your MySQL server, monitoring its status and performance, starting and stopping it, managing users and connections, performing backups, restoring backups and a number of other administrative tasks. You can perform most of those tasks using a command line interface such as that provided by mysqladmin or mysql, but MySQL Administrator is advantageous in the following respects:

Its graphical user interface makes it more intuitive to use.

It provides a better overview of the settings that are crucial for the performance, reliability, and security of your MySQL servers.

It displays performance indicators graphically, thus making it easier to determine and tune server settings.

It is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS X, and allows a remote client to backup the database across platforms. As long as you have access to the MySQL databases on the remote server, you can backup your data to wherever you have write access.

There is no limit to the size of the database to be backed up as there is with phpMyAdmin.

MySQL Administrator is designed to work with MySQL servers versions 4.0 and above.

Getting MySQL Admin

MySQL Admin may be downloaded from the MySQL.Com site. Installation binaries and documentation may also be found there.

Backing Up the Database

This assumes you have already installed MySQL Admin and set it up so that you can login to the MySQL Database Server either locally or remotely. Refer to the documentation that comes with the installation package of MySQL Admin for your platform for installation instructions.

1. Open the MySQL Admin client and login as you had previously set up to do.

2. From the icon menu on the left hand side of the client window select Backup.

3. If you have not already created a Backup Project, do this now by clicking on the "New Project" button at the lower part of the window and type in a name for the Backup Project where prompted.

4. Select one or more databases that you want to Backup (in the MySQL Admin client these are called a "Schema" (pl. "Schemata")). Add them to the Backup Content window on the right using the right-pointing arrow button.

5. When you have selected the Schema(ta), you can save the Backup Project. Or you may simply choose to Backup Now using the button on the lower right of the window.

6. A dialogue will come up asking you where to put the Backup. Enter the pathname or browse to the location using the dialogue.

7. Assuming all is correct (and you have write permissions in the directory to which you are writing the Backup), the backup will complete shortly.

Restoring From a Backup

1. Open the MySQL Admin client and login as you had previously set up to do.

2. From the icon menu on the left hand side of the client window select Restore.

3. Click the "Open Backup File" button on the lower right of the window.

4. Type in or browse to the Schema(ta) backup file and select. Click "Open".

5. The Target Schema(ta) will most likely be the "Original Location", or you may choose an alternate location using the drop-down menu.

6. Click the "Start Restore" button on the lower right of the window. The database restore will commence.

Using WordPress Database Backup Plugin

Austin Matzko maintains a WordPress plugin originally created by Skippy called WordPress Database Backup. It was bundled with WordPress 2.0 but is no longer included with WordPress 2.1.

Install the Plugin

If you do download the plugin, follow the directions in the wp-db-backup.txt file to install the plugin correctly.

Activate the Plugin

Make sure the wp-content folder is writeable by your server (change its CHMOD)
Go to your Administration > Plugins > Plugins Panel and activate the plug-in

Backing up

Navigate to Administration > Manage > Backup Panel
Select any tables, in addition to the core WordPress tables, that should be backed-up. Select the Backup Options; the backup can be saved on the server, downloaded, or emailed. Finally, click on the Backup button to actually perform the backup. If you have installed the WP-Cron plugin, you can schedule daily backups.

Restoring the Data

The file created is a standard SQL file. If you want information about how to upload that file, look at Restoring Your Database From Backup.

Using CocoaMySQL

CocoaMySQL is a free MySQL client for Mac OS X.

Open your database from CocoaMySQL and choose File → Export → MySQL file…, and check these options:

Add drop table
Add create table
Add table content

Resources and Backup Plugins