DB Back Up

[GSXR]

I want to back my DB`s up the correct way but I`m a bit of a tool so I have some questions........

Goal is to figure out backing up using Cron.

This one is just a small forum that I use for as a personal online catolouge for my real job.......The main forum has a DB of about 1Gig, hence I want to get it right.

Ive figured this much out..I`m using SSH with Putty.

mysqldump --opt -Q -u dbusername -p databasename > backupname.sql

That backs the DB up to the root diectory, right?

I`m figuring that....
mysqldump --opt -Q -u dbusername -p databasename > /path/to/backupname.sql

will take it to a specfic directory.....say.....backups.

My problem is I don't know what /path/to/............means

Can someone tell me what that means
I think possibly /path=site name and /to means the directory you want to put it in......namely backups

Like I said the goal is to Cron the backups daily but if I don`t understand this part properly I`m no hope to achieve that

Can someone point me in the right direction.

[GSXR]

Got it.
PATH=HOME/TO=LOGIN NAME/then create directory called whatever/xxxx.sql

[Floris]

Inside the shell you login to your home dir, like: /
inside that you have your public_html, for example: /public_html

From the shell when you type: pwd

You get the full path, like: /home/login/public_html/

If you make a new dir called, backups like this: mkdir backups
then change dir into it: cd backups
and type: pwd

You will get something like: /home/login/backups/

You can now use this in the export query.

[GSXR]

Thanks for that Floris....

I Dis did the cron......The DB backup ended in in the directory I wanted it to but it was 0Kb ......just a blank file called xxxxxx.sql.......any clues?

[Hayk]

Any clue is to try again

As you wrote:

mysqldump --opt -Q -u dbusername -p databasename > backupname.sql

[Floris]

You have to do that different, without password, it will just idle on 'waiting for pass' or 'tried a enter as a pass and didn't work'.

so do it like this, with -p and without a space add the pass , like .. if pass was qwerty123 then do -pqwerty123

[GSXR]

Got the data base cron working.

This worked

mysqldump --opt -Q -u xxxxxx_xxxxxx --password=xxxxxx xxxxxxxx> /home/backup/xxxxxx.sql

Hopefully someone as frustrated as me finds this thread an is encouraged not to give up. If I can do this, anyone can.

Thanks Floris, Thanks Hayk.