mysqldump backup vs vBulletin backup

[dkcp]

I'm trying to do backups more often these days and was wondering why two backups, one done via SSH using mysqldump and one via admincp, can differ so much in size? Do they use different levels of compressions?

Thanks

[pieman666]

I don't think either process uses compression by default. If the vb one is smaller then it could be that it is not performing a full back up but timing out before the end which is warned about whenever backups are discussed....

[dkcp]

I didn't think either of them used compression either but it was such a huge difference. A backup via the admincp (all tables of course) comes out to ~28 MB. If I do a mysqldump via SSH per the instructions in the manual it comes out ~16 MB.

[pieman666]

open the files up and check the last line in each (I am assuming they backup in the same order). Also check to see that the lines end in a sensible place, in my case the backup finished in the middle of the PM messages halfway through a line showing that it had failed.

You may need a prog for looking at large files. I used LTFViewer to view my 70+Mb files. www.swiftgear.com

[dkcp]

Will do when I get the chance. It would be nice though to get an official response on this.

[Steve Machol]

Yes, the mysqldump with --opt will always be smaller. It is also more reliable.

[dkcp]

Thank you. Good to know. Now I just need to automate my backups and I can sleep well

[silkroad]

Here is the simple little script we run out of our crontab file to do nightly backups at 3:30AM compressing the logfiles:

#! /bin/sh
/usr/local/mysql/bin/mysqldump --opt -C -uUSER -pYOUR_PASSWORD FORUM_NAME > /usr/local/backups/our_forums_backup.sql
/bin/gzip -q -9 /usr/local/backups/our_forums_backup.sql;
/bin/mv  /usr/local/backups/our_forums_backup.sql.gz /usr/local/backups/our_forums_backup.sql.gz.$$;