Database Backup Script

Shell script to backup database. Explained line by line.

This script can be implemented to take database backups regularly (hourly/daily/weekly/monthly) using cron jobs. This script is useful for database administrators, Linux administrators, web hosting providers to automate their database backup task.

Script

#!/bin/sh
#Author: Akash Mehta
#Database backup script

#Script Start

#Initialises now variable with current date and time.
now="$(date +'%d_%m_%Y_%H_%M_%S')"

#Initializes the backup file name and makes a gunzip.
filename="db_backup_$now".gz

#Path to make the backup file (that is the filename).
backupfolder="/var/www/backups"
fullpathbackupfile="$backupfolder/$filename"

#To create a logfile in backup folder with log file name containing creation date, month and year.
logfile="$backupfolder/"backup_log_"$(date +'%Y_%m')".txt

#Logs mysqldump started in the log file.
echo "mysqldump started at $(date +'%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S')" >> "$logfile"

#Shell command for creating backup/dump.
#Replace mydbuser, mypass, mydatabase values accordingly.
mysqldump --user=mydbuser --password=mypass --default-character-set=utf8 mydatabase | gzip > "$fullpathbackupfile"

#Logs mysqldump finished in the log file.
echo "mysqldump finished at $(date +'%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S')" >> "$logfile"

#Changes ownership permissions of backupfile and logfile to myuser. Replace myuser value accordingly.
chown myuser "$fullpathbackupfile"
chown myuser "$logfile"
echo "file permission changed" >> "$logfile"

#Deletes old backups. Keeps latest 8 backups.
find "$backupfolder" -name db_backup_* -mtime +8 -exec rm {} \;
echo "old files deleted" >> "$logfile"

#Logs operation finished with date and time to the logfile.
echo "operation finished at $(date +'%d-%m-%Y %H:%M:%S')" >> "$logfile"
echo "**********" >> "$logfile"
exit 0
#Script End