SQL

2 min read · Operations

MySQL backups

Dumping and restoring, in containers and on the host.

From a container

Read the password from the container’s own environment rather than typing it — a password on the command line lands in shell history and ps output.

# Uses the container's MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD
docker exec mysql_db sh -c 'mysqldump -u root -p"$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" dbName' \
  > /mnt/bucket/mysql/latest.sql

# Gzipped
docker exec mysql_db sh -c 'mysqldump -u root -p"$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" dbName | gzip' \
  > /mnt/bucket/mysql/latest.sql.gz

For cron, MYSQL_PWD avoids the password-in-argv warning:

docker exec mysql_db sh -c 'MYSQL_PWD="$MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD" mysqldump -u root dbName | gzip' \
  > /mnt/bucket/mysql/latest.sql.gz

On the host

mysqldump -u root -p zaideih  | gzip > /mnt/keep/storage/zaideih/mysql/latest.sql.gz
mysqldump -u root -p myordbok | gzip > /mnt/keep/storage/myordbok/mysql/latest.sql.gz

Restore

gunzip < backup.sql.gz | mysql -u <user> -p <database>

# With a progress bar, worth it on large dumps
pv backup.sql.gz | gunzip | mysql -u <user> -p <database>

Dumps are synced to R2 — see Storage and buckets.

Held snapshots

Database Taken Source Path
MyOrdbok 2026.04.13 GCE storage/myordbok/mysql/gce-final.sql.gz
Zaideih 2026.04.13 GCE storage/zaideih/mysql/gce-final.sql.gz