Create and restore MySQL/MariaDB backups

NOTE: We are in the process of modifying the configuration for many Bitnami stacks. On account of these changes, the file paths and commands stated in this guide may change depending on whether your Bitnami stack uses MySQL or MariaDB. To identify which database server is used in your stack, run the command below:

 $ test -d /opt/bitnami/mariadb && echo "MariaDB" || echo "MySQL"

The output of the command indicates which database server (MySQL or MariaDB) is used by the installation, and will allow you to identify which guides to follow in our documentation for common database-related operations.

Backup

To back up just the application database, create a dump file using the mysqldump tool. In this example, the database is named bitnami_app; replace this with the name of the database you wish to export.

$ mysqldump -u root -p bitnami_app > backup.sql

To back up all the databases, use this command instead:

$ mysqldump -A -u root -p > backup.sql

This operation could take some time depending on the database sizes.

NOTE: The steps previously described will only back up the data contained inside your databases. There may be other files that you should take into account when performing a full backup, such as files that may have been uploaded to your application. Refer to your application’s documentation for more details.

Restore

Once you have the backup file, you can restore the data with a command like the one below:

$ mysql -u root -p < backup.sql

To restore the data to a specific database, include the database name in the command, as shown below. For example, to import the data to a database named bitnami_app, use this command:

$ mysql -u root -p -D bitnami_app < backup.sql