MySQL Enterprise Backup User's Guide (Version 3.11.1)
This section lists some common questions about MySQL Enterprise Backup, with answers and pointers to further information.
Questions
12.1:
Does MySQL Enterprise Backup work with MySQL Server version
x
.y
.z
?
12.2:
What is the big ibdata
file that is in
all the backups?
12.3: Can I back up non-InnoDB data with MySQL Enterprise Backup?
12.4: What happens if “apply” step is interrupted?
12.5:
Why is the option --defaults-file
not
recognized?
12.6: Can I back up a database on one OS platform and restore it on another one using MySQL Enterprise Backup?
Questions and Answers
12.1:
Does MySQL Enterprise Backup work with MySQL Server version
x
.y
.z
?
See Section B.2, “Compatibility with MySQL Versions” for details of compatibility between different releases of MySQL Enterprise Backup and MySQL Server.
12.2:
What is the big ibdata
file that is in
all the backups?
You might find your backup data taking more space than
expected because of a large file with a name such as
ibdata1
. This file represents the InnoDB
system
tablespace, which grows but never shrinks, and is
included in every full and incremental backup. To reduce the
space taken up by this file in your backup data:
After doing a full
backup, do a succession of
incremental
backups, which take up less space. The
ibdata1
file in the incremental
backups is typically much smaller, containing only the
portions of the system tablespace that changed since the
full backup.
Set the configuration option
innodb_file_per_table=1
before creating your biggest or most active InnoDB tables.
Those tables are split off from the system tablespaces
into separate .ibd
files, which are
more flexible in terms of freeing disk space when dropped
or truncated, and can be individually included or excluded
from backups.
If your system tablespace is very large because you
created a high volume of InnoDB data before turning on the
innodb_file_per_table
setting, you might use mysqldump to
dump the entire instance, then turn on
innodb_file_per_table
before
re-creating it, so that all the table data is kept outside
the system tablespace.
12.3: Can I back up non-InnoDB data with MySQL Enterprise Backup?
While MySQL Enterprise Backup can back up non-InnoDB data
(like MYISAM tables), the MySQL server to be backed up must
support InnoDB (i.e., the backup process will fail if the
server was started up with the
--innodb=OFF
or
--skip-innodb
option), and the server must contain at least one InnoDB
table.
12.4: What happens if “apply” step is interrupted?
If the mysqlbackup command is interrupted
during the apply-log
or
apply-incremental-backup
stage,
the backup data is OK. The file operations performed by those
options can be performed multiple times without harming the
consistency of the backup data. Just run the same
mysqlbackup command again, and when it
completes successfully, all the necessary changes are present
in the backup data.
12.5:
Why is the option --defaults-file
not
recognized?
When you specify the
--defaults-file
option, it
must be the first option after the name of the command.
Otherwise, the error message makes it look as if the option
name is not recognized.
12.6: Can I back up a database on one OS platform and restore it on another one using MySQL Enterprise Backup?
See Section B.1, “Cross-Platform Compatibility” for details.