How to Schedule a Backup of All MySQL Databases on Ubuntu 16.04

By Tony Mackay

7 Nov 2017

This tutorial will show you how to create a shell script that will backup all of your MySQL databases and how to schedule the backup to run daily.

Step 1: Create the Backup Script

Create a folder to store your backup script in. I suggest /scripts for this example:

sudo mkdir /scripts

Create a file called mysql-backup.sh inside the scripts folder:

sudo vim /scripts/mysql-backup.sh

Add the following code to the file and save it:

#!/bin/bash
#----------------------------------------
# OPTIONS
#----------------------------------------
USER='root'       # MySQL User
PASSWORD='webdev' # MySQL Password
DAYS_TO_KEEP=0    # 0 to keep forever
GZIP=1            # 1 = Compress
BACKUP_PATH='/backups/mysql'
#----------------------------------------

# Create the backup folder
if [ ! -d $BACKUP_PATH ]; then
  mkdir -p $BACKUP_PATH
fi

# Get list of database names
databases=`mysql -u $USER -p$PASSWORD -e "SHOW DATABASES;" | tr -d "|" | grep -v Database`

for db in $databases; do

  if [ $db == 'information_schema' ] || [ $db == 'performance_schema' ] || [ $db == 'mysql' ] || [ $db == 'sys' ]; then
    echo "Skipping database: $db"
    continue
  fi
  
  date=$(date -I)
  if [ "$GZIP" -eq 0 ] ; then
    echo "Backing up database: $db without compression"      
    mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASSWORD --databases $db > $BACKUP_PATH/$date-$db.sql
  else
    echo "Backing up database: $db with compression"
    mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASSWORD --databases $db | gzip -c > $BACKUP_PATH/$date-$db.gz
  fi
done

# Delete old backups
if [ "$DAYS_TO_KEEP" -gt 0 ] ; then
  echo "Deleting backups older than $DAYS_TO_KEEP days"
  find $BACKUP_PATH/* -mtime +$DAYS_TO_KEEP -exec rm {} \;
fi

You will notice 5 configurable options at the beginning of this script. The main ones you will need to edit are the USER and PASSWORD. This should be changed to a MySQL user and password that has permissions to list and backup databases.

Once you have modified the options, make the script executable with the following command:

sudo chmod +x mysql-backup.sh

You can now test the backup script by running:

sudo ./mysql-backup.sh

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Step 2: Create the Crontab Scheduled Task

Now we will schedule the backup script to be run daily. We will do this by adding a call to the mysql-backup.sh script to the root crontab.

Run the following command to open the root crontab file:

sudo crontab -e

Now add to the last line of the file the following:

@daily sh /scripts/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1

Save the file and then wait for the script to run. You can check for errors in /var/log/mysql-backup.log. Once you are happy it is working, you can remove the >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 from the crontab file.