4.1.2 Grant MySQL Privileges to Backup Administrator

For most backup operations, the mysqlbackup command connects to the MySQL server using the credentials supplied with the --user and --password options. The specified user needs certain privileges. You can either create a new user with a minimal set of privileges, or use an administrative account such as root.

The minimum privileges for the MySQL user with which mysqlbackup connects to the server are:

RELOAD on all databases and tables.
CREATE, INSERT, DROP, and UPDATE on the tables mysql.backup_progress and mysql.backup_history, and also SELECT and ALTER on mysql.backup_history.
SUPER, to enable and disable logging, and to optimize locking in order to minimize disruption to database processing.
REPLICATION CLIENT, to retrieve the binary log position, which is stored with the backup.

To set these privileges for a MySQL user (mysqlbackup in this example) connecting from localhost, issue statements like the following from the mysql client program:

GRANT RELOAD ON *.* TO 'mysqlbackup'@'localhost';
GRANT CREATE, INSERT, DROP, UPDATE ON mysql.backup_progress TO 'mysqlbackup'@'localhost';
GRANT CREATE, INSERT, SELECT, ALTER, DROP, UPDATE ON mysql.backup_history 
    TO 'mysqlbackup'@'localhost';
GRANT REPLICATION CLIENT ON *.* TO 'mysqlbackup'@'localhost';
GRANT SUPER ON *.* TO 'mysqlbackup'@'localhost';

The following additional privileges are required for using transportable tablespaces (TTS) to back up and restore InnoDB tables:

LOCK TABLES and SELECT for backing up tables.
CREATE for restoring tables.
DROP for dropping tables if the restore fails for some reasons.
FILE for restoring tables in external tablespaces outside of the server's data director.

To set these privileges, issue a statement like the following from the mysql client program:

GRANT LOCK TABLES, SELECT, CREATE, DROP, FILE ON *.* TO 'mysqlbackup'@'localhost';