Backup and Download Your TNG Data in One Step

Please read first

Using TNG's backup (open Administration -> Utilities), the backup files are stored on your website. To get them on your computer, you must download the files in a second step.

To do backup and download in one step:

You need the mysqldump.exe program. It is part of the MySQL suite:   Documentation –   Download.

• open your command line and run
   
  mysqldump -h YOURMYSQLHOST -u YOURMYSQLUSER -p -B YOURDATABASE >the_backup.txt
   
• The program asks for your mysql password, reads the data from your MySQL database and writes the backup to the specified text file on your computers harddisc (change the file name and/or file path as you like). The execution time for the backup depends from your network connection (...be patient...).
   
• Put the completed call into a batch file/shell script. If you are sure that no other people have access to your computer, you can store the password within the batch file; use:
   
  mysqldump -h YOURMYSQLHOST -u YOURMYSQLUSER -p YOURPASSWORD -B YOURDATABASE >the_backup.txt
   
  ((Replace the words written in capital letters against the appropriate values.))
   
• To save disc space, you can move the backup file into a ZIP archive: zip the_backup.zip the_backup.txt (your ZIP program may have different parameters; read the documentation).
   

Restoring your data:

You need the mysql.exe program. It is part of the MySQL suite:   Documentation (Download: see above).

• Run mysql -h YOURMYSQLHOST -u YOURMYSQLUSER -p <the_backup.txt
   

Note the difference between ">" and "<":
">" means: 'Hi program, write your output into the following file.' "<" means: 'Hi program, take your input from the following file'. Speaking more technical, the ">" and "<" signs indicate the direction of data flow.

ATTENTION: starting the restore process, the contents of your database will be replaced by the contents of your backup file – without further warning!!! Be careful!

Other backup/restore tools

• If you are not familiar with command line usage, try MySQL Administrator (  Download) which has a very nice GUI.
•   MySQLDumper is a PHP script backup package.

Additional notes

• You can't mix TNG's backup files and the backup files produced with mysqldump – the file formats are different. (Open the files with your favourite text editor and compare the contents.)
• You can't restore a backup from TNG v5 into TNG v6 because the table structures are different!