backup

SSH into your server if you are working remotely. Create an empty database

mysql -u username -p -e 'CREATE DATABASE database

Now use the following command from your ssh session

mysql -u username -p database < path/to/backup.sql

Backing-up your sql databases can be done effectively with the mysqldump facility. You will need to login as the MySQL server root administrator. The following command will backup ALL your databases.

mysqldump -u myusername -pmypassword -A > backup.sql

To dump a single database

mysqldump -u myusername -pmypassword databasename > backup.sql

Having been notified by go-daddy that all my vhost servers were going to need to be rebuilt ( what a major PAIN!), I decided the time had come to move to a dedicated server. Part of this process was to create a back-up archive of the important parts of the server. To archive all my web data I simply create a tar archive of my vhosts directory.