Configure MySQL Database Backup

• Overview
• How to get here in the Web Console?
• Requirements
• MySQL Backup [For Linux/FreeBSD]
• MySQL Backup [For Windows]
• MySQL Backup Configuration
• Troubleshooting Tips
• Limitations

Overview

supports backup of MySQL database(s) using the internal MySQLDump utility(mysqldump) available in the local machine. supports Full and Incremental MySQL database backups while data is online and accessible. Full backup type backs up the entire MySQL database. Incremental backup type backs up only modified extents since the previous Full backup.

uses the internal MySQLDump utility(mysqldump) to dump the database(s) and then uploads the locally dumped file to the backup server. During Full backup, the entire database(s) is dumped locally and then transfer the dumped file to the backup server. During Incremental backup, the entire database(s) is dumped locally and then transfer only the modified content since the previous Full backup to the backup server.

This section will give you information about how to configure MySQL database(s) backup using .

How to get here in the Web Console?
 In the top menu, select: "Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL"

Requirements

• Windows, Linux or FreeBSD
• MySQL 4.0 and later.

MySQL Backup [For Linux/FreeBSD]

To backup the MySQL databases, you need to install with root privileges in your Linux, FreeBSD system and you should know the user name and password for MySQL. By default, checks for 'mysql' under '/var/lib' folder in the system during the installation process. uses the internal MySQLDump utility (mysqldump) to backup MySQL Database(s) in the Linux/FreeBSD machines.

Please note that you need to install as root user to list the mysql databases for backup in the 'Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL' page.

If you have installed with root user privilege and if you have installed MySQL in your Linux/FreeBSD machine, then the MySQL databases will be listed in the Step 2 of the 'Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL' page. Then, you can configure the listed database(s) for backup.

Please note that you have to provide MySQL database username and password for the mysql backup to successfully dump the database data.

MySQL Backup [For Windows]

can be configured to backup the MySQL Database(s) available in the local machine. uses the internal MySQLDump utility (mysqldump.exe) to backup MySQL Database(s) and it uses the MySQL Exe (mysql.exe) to list the database names in the Step 2 of the 'Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL' page.

In Windows, before a MySQL backup can be configured in , you should configure the MySQL settings through "Settings->Advanced Options" and click on the "MySQL Settings" icon in the left hand side. Without correct values for MySQL settings, will not be able to list the databases to be configured for backups in "Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL" page.

If "MySQL" database(s) is not listed in the Step 2 of the 'Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL' page, then refer the MySQL Settings[For Windows] help for more details.

MySQL Backup Configuration

Step 1: Schedule Name

The first step in configuring a backup is to give a name for the backup schedule. The backup schedule name will uniquely identify the backup. While restoring your backup data, you need to choose the data to be restored using its schedule name.

Step 2: Select Database(s)

Select the databases that need to be backed up as a part of this schedule.

Step 3: Set Basic Configuration

Backup Type

Encryption

Password Protect This Backup

This option is to enable or disable encryption of the data that is being backed up. uses a well known encryption algorithm, Blowfish. If enabled, a password has to be specified which will be used for generating the encryption key. Encrypting data ensures that it cannot be read in the destination machine (backup server) where your backup is stored, and is especially relevant for sensitive information.

Password Protection

This option is to enable System Generated Encryption Key or use a Customized Encryption key for encrypting the backup data.

System Generated: The selected files and folders will be encrypted using Blowfish algorithm with a 448 bit encryption key automatically generated by before been backed up. No password will be required while restoring the data.

Custom: This will enable the user to select the custom Encryption Technique, Encryption Key Size and the Encryption Key that needs to be used for encrypting the selected files and folders. Please don't lose the customized encryption key, as the backed up data cannot be restored without this key.

Default Encryption Password: The selected files and folders will be encrypted with the Default Encryption Password as provided in the "Settings -> Advanced Options -> Default Encryption Password" page. Default Encryption Password is a convenient way to use the same password for all the backup schedules created in this client machine. It saves you from having to remember a different password for each backup set.

Encryption Technique

supports encryption using Blowfish or Triple DES. The Blowfish is a commonly used open source encryption technique which provides encryption based on the size of the encryption key length (from 64 bits to 448 bits). Higher the number of bits stronger is the encryption. Triple DES is a block cipher formed from the Data Encryption Standard (DES) cipher by using it three times, this technique is also supported by for encrypting the backup data. By default, Triple DES encryption technique is chosen.

Encryption Key Size

supports encryption using variable length (64 to 448 bits for Blowfish and 192 bits for Triple DES) keys. The key is generated using the password you provide. Basically the longer the key size you give the more difficult it is for someone to decrypt the encrypted files. For normal backup purposes the default 64 bit encryption should be good enough.

Type Password

Provide a password here to generate the encryption key. If the password is forgotten the data can never be recovered as the data cannot be decrypted without this password. So, please ensure that you keep your password in a safe place.

Retention Policies (Optional)

provides the retention feature where backups of multiple versions of a file can be maintain at the backup server. cleans up the version files in the backup server based on two major retention policies:

1. Version-Based Retention - Retains multiple version files in the backup server based on the version file count.
2. Time-Based Retention - Retains multiple version files in the backup up server based on the age of the version files.

Retention policy for backed up files

Version-Based Retention

can retain backups of multiple versions of a file based on the version retention count specified. The number of version files to be retained can be specified as any value from 0 to 99 with a default setting of 5. The backup version count can be 0 when the Intelli-Delta Backup is disabled in Advanced Options. This option is useful when you wish to store just the complete latest version of a file.

For example, if the version file retention count is specified as 5, then retains the latest five version files. These files can be restored from the backup server at any point of time. When the sixth version of the file is created, backup server automatically deletes the first version.

Note: When Intelli-Delta option is disabled for a backup schedule, will back up the entire file if the file was modified since the last backup schedule. In such a case, will retain multiple versions of the entire file as per the version retention count configure for that backup.

Time-Based Retention

can retain version files in the backup server based on the age of version files. Default setting is for 5 years, meaning the version files will be retained in the backup server for 5 years and then will be removed automatically. The maximum number of versions that can be created during the retention period can also be optionally further configured. There are two options:

• Any number of versions can be created within this retention period - This is the default setting. If enabled, retains all the versions created during the specified retention time period.

• Restrict the maximum number of versions that can be created within this retention period to 'n'. - If this option is enabled, will clean up the version files based on both; retention time period and maximum version file count. For example, if the retention time period is set to 1 month and maximum version file count is 5, will retain only the last five version files created within the last one month and versions older than one month with be deleted.

Step 4: Scheduling (Decide When To Backup)

This field has the following options from which any one can be chosen.

Run Every Few Hours

Choose the hours/minutes interval between each time must run. If is restarted in the interim, the backup will run once starts. Thereafter, automatically reschedules the next backup after the period you’ve set. For example, if you created a backup schedule at 10 am and set it to run every 1 hour, will first run the schedule at 10am and the next scheduled time will be 11am. However, if at 10.15am, is restarted, then the schedule will run once at 10.15am and the next scheduled time will now be set to 11.15am.

Additionally, you can also select the days in which this schedule should run. For example, if you do not want to run this backup schedule on Saturdays and Sundays, uncheck the checkbox against these days. If the "Select all days" checkbox is checked, then the schedule will be run on all the days of the week.

Run Daily

Choose the time at which the backup should run daily. This will execute the backup everyday at the time you have provided. Unless you’ve selected the “Run this Backup each time restarts” option in Advanced Options, will run at the stipulated time only.

Run Weekly

Choose the time and the day of the week the backup should run. will execute the backup every week on the particular day and time chosen. Note that you can select multiple days of the week if you wish to run the backup on multiple days of the week. Unless you’ve selected the “Run this Backup each time restarts” option in Advanced Options, will run at the stipulated time/day only.

Run Once Only

Choosing this option will do the backup only once immediately. The backup will then be put into ‘suspended mode’. If you wish to run this backup again, you’ll have to manually select it from the List Backup Schedules page.

Step 5: Additional Full Backups

Typically, you would do a full backup the first time you backup your data and thereafter only do incremental backups. However, like in a typical enterprise scenario, if you want to run full backups periodically and run the incremental backups in between two full backups, then you can configure the scheduling for how to run the full backups here.

For Run Every Few Hours and Run Daily backups, the Additional Full Backup settings will allow you to configure daily/weekly/monthly additional full backups. For weekly backups, only Monthly additional full backups are possible. For Run Once Only backup, you cannot configure additional full backups.

Additionally you can specify the maximum number of full backups that need to be stored in the server. For example if you configured a weekly backup and additionally if you configure a monthly full backup, then will take a full backup the first time and then weekly do an incremental backup. The next month, will do a new full backup and subsequently run the weekly incremental backup over this full backup. After 6 months you will have 6 separate full backups in the backup server along with weekly incremental versions under each of the 6 full backups. If your policy is to retain only backup data for 6 months, then you can configure "Store maximum of 6 full backups" here. On the 7th month, , after finishing the 7th full backup, will delete the first full backup along with its weekly incremental backups thus retaining always the last 6 month backups.

Advanced Options (Optional)

If you want to configure some additional advanced options - like, CPU utilization, Compression settings, etc. click on the Advanced Options button.

Advanced Backup Schedule Settings

There are four options here on how the backup should be scheduled.

Run this backup each time restarts - If you enable this option by checking the checkbox, then this backup schedule will be run every time is restarted or the machine is rebooted irrespective of the actual schedule time of this backup schedule. This is to ensure that any modified or new files created when was down are backed up as soon as possible. In case of the Continuous backup or ‘Run every…’ scheduling options, backups will run each time restarts – by default.

Run this backup immediately after saving this configuration (thereafter, Backups will be scheduled as per the schedule stipulated) - If you enable this option, then this backup schedule will be executed once immediately after you save this backup schedule – even if it's not yet ‘time’ as per the schedule. For example if you configure a daily backup at 10.00 AM but you configured the backup at 8.00 AM, then the backup schedule will be run once immediately (8.00 AM) and then as per schedule (e.g. daily at 10.00 AM).

Attempt to run this backup every 5 minutes in case of non completion because of a problem (Network error etc.) - If enabled, the user can choose to reschedule this backup every 5/10/15/20/25/30 minutes, whenever an attempted backup is incomplete because of a network error, server crash etc. The number of times the backup will be rescheduled (due to an error) can be configured to be in between 1-5 or unlimited, with the default setting as 5. This is to ensure that an incomplete backup is completed as soon as possible without waiting for the next actual schedule time. Note that this option is enabled by default.

Perform Synthetic Full Backup for files when the size of the incremental backup of a file exceeds certain % of the size of the initial full backup of the file - By default Synthetic Full Backup will be run when the size of the incremental exceeds 80% of the original backup data. A very low value will lead to too many Synthetic Full Backups been run and all those versions need to be maintained in the backup server. A very large value could lead to Synthetic Backups not running at all.

Other Backup Settings

Set CPU Utilization

For each backup schedule, you can also specify the CPU utilization level as Low, Medium or High. When you set the CPU Utilization to high, the backup will be really fast - but the backup process may affect the speed of other active applications. If CPU utilization is set to Low, the backup will take longer but will be done in a non-intrusive manner allowing you to comfortably work on the computer as the backup continues in the background. For backups which are done every day or every week in ‘off-hours’, the CPU utilization can be set to High. Actual performance is obviously a function of your individual machine and your network. We encourage you to experiment with different settings to figure what works best for you.

Set Compression

If compression is enabled, data will be compressed in the client before it is uploaded into the backup server.

Enable - Compresses the data to the maximum. It might reduce the rate at which the client can send data to the backup server but it might save significant bandwidth and time when the data is backed up to a remote server over a WAN/Internet with limited bandwidth speed. Also, this saves disk space in the backup server.

No Compression - This option is suitable (fastest) for backing up data within a local network where bandwidth is not the limitation, but occupies more space on destination machine as no compression is being done.

Intelli-Delta Backup

When a backup schedule is executed, checks if the file has changed since the last backup. If yes, then can either backup the full file all over again or it can backup only the modified content (incremental). If "Intelli-Delta Backup" is set to ENABLE, only modified content in a file is backed up. If set to DISABLE, the full file will be backed up every time the schedule runs. Needless to say, an incremental backup is faster.

Pre & Post Backup Commands (Optional)

This feature provides the ability to configure running custom actions before and after executing a backup schedule. The custom actions may include running an application or some script files.

Pre & Post Backup Commands

When is this feature useful?

If an application has exclusively locked a file and you need to close the application before can backup that file, then you can run a pre-backup command to close the application and then a post-backup command to open the application again after successfully backs up the file.

How does this feature work?

Whenever a backup schedule starts, will start the Pre Backup commands and wait till the timeout value. After completing the Pre Backup commands, will transfer the configured files & folders to the backup server. After transferring the configured files and folders, will run the Post Backup Commands. If multiple servers are configured for the backup schedule, then both the Pre and Post Backup commands will run while backing up to each of the servers.

Pre & Post Backup command settings:

You can provide maximum of 5 Pre Backup commands and maximum of 5 Post Backup commands for each backup schedule. Both the Pre and Post Backup commands are optional.

Command Name: This filed is mandatory. This is the command that should be run. The command should be provided with full path. If the command name is in the system command path, then providing full path for the command is not necessary. The command can be an executable file such as application exe, batch files, script files etc.

Example: C:\MyTools\myzip.exe. A simple zip tool which compresses the given files or folders.

Arguments: You can provide any command line arguments for the command to be executed.

Example: For the Command C:\MyTools\myzip.exe, the arguments may be 'High Zip Replace "D:\Project" myproject.zip' [without quotes]. Here, the High may denote high compression, Zip denotes zip file format, Replace denotes replacing existing files, 'D:\Project' denotes folder to compress and 'myproject.zip' denotes the target compressed file name.

Working Path: This field specifies the directory path from which the Command has to be run. If this field is left empty, then the command will be executed from the working path [ Home]

Example: 'D:\Project'. The command will be executed from the directory D:\Project.

Timeout: This filed is used to specify a timeout value, in seconds, for the command to finish execution. will wait for so many seconds for the pre and post command to finish running. If the command still runs beyond the timeout period, then will abruptly terminate the command and will continue with the backup schedule.

Please note that if you provide -1 value, then the command will run till completion and will wait till the command completes. If command never completes, then may just infinitely wait without proceeding with the backup schedule.

Example: 60. For the myzip.exe command, the myzip.exe command will compress the given project folder up to 60 seconds. If the myzip.exe completes before the timeout period, say 15 seconds, then will immediately continue the next Pre Backup Command [if configured] or continue with the backup schedule.

So, the example command will look like below:
Command Name : C:\MyTools\myzip.exe
Arguments : High Zip Replace
Working Path : D:\Project
Time out : 60

The whole command will be run up to 60 seconds as below:
C:\MyTools\myzip.exe High Zip Replace "D:\Project"

Saving the configured backup

Once all the MySQL Server database(s) to be backed up are chosen and the configuration options are set, you simply need to click on the "Configure/Save Backup" button to activate the backup as per the schedule- on to the configured backup servers.

Troubleshooting Tips

	Database names are not listed in the Step 2 of the 'Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL' page(for windows).
Cause 1: If MySQL Settings for is not configured. Solution : Configure MySQL settings from "Settings->Advanced Options" menu "MySQL Settings" icon in the left hand side and then check if MySQL database(s) are listed in the "Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL" page (for windows). Cause 2 : If MySQL service is not started in the machine. Solution : Start the MySQL service and then check if MySQL database(s) are listed in the "Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL" page (for windows). Cause 3 : When the last time MySQL Settings was saved for mysql server instance port, MySQL Exe path field value was not modified/edited, or may be an older version (MySQL 4) exe path value was entered for the newer version (MySQL 5) port. Solution : Enter the correct MySQL(version) Exe path value for the mysql server instance port selected. Cause 4 : mysqldatabase.lst file present in the "<INSTALLATION_HOME>/plugins/MySQLServer/" folder does not have the database list. Solution : Check the MySQL version running in the machine (4.x or 5.x). only supports listing MySQL 4.x and 5.x database(s) for backup.

	Database names are listed in the Step 2 of the 'Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL' page, but backup dump is not created.
Cause : Configured username and password in the MySQL settings page may not have access to the database(s) configured for the backup schedule. Solution : Check if the user name and password entered in the MySQL settings have appropriate permissions to take a backup dump of the database(s).

	MySQL Server backups failed after recovering client configurations from backup server through Client Disaster Recovery option.(for Windows)
Cause : MySQL Server details(UserName, Password, PortNumber) are not available in client machine. Solution : In this case, save the MySQL Server details in MySQL Settings[For Windows] page before retrieving client configuration through Disaster Recovery option.

Limitations

1. Databases listed in the "Backup -> Plugin Backups -> MySQL" page(For Windows) will be for the the last saved MySQL Server instance port in the MySQL Settings.
2. MySQL Settings edited/modified will not affect the mysql database backup schedules configured previously and changes will take effect only for the new mysql database backup schedules created.
3. Backup Report/View Backup/Edit Backup UI pages does not provide the details like MySQL Server name, port etc.