First off, I suck at anything related to databases, I'd even go so far as to say I hate databases, and I in turn am generally hated by them 
So, with that out of the way, I have a couple of databases that I need to backup on a daily basis.
Most of the tables ar MyISAM, but some are InnoDB, and from what I've gathered, the latter can cause some problems if not done properly.
I made a very unfancy script using mysqldump, but I find various posts and such that I've Googled to be unclear and somewhat contradictory with regards to how you can backup those tables.
Would a command line such as "mysqldump --opt -A --password=xxx |bzip2 -c > whatever.sql.bz2" be sufficient to backup those tables, or do I actually have to take down the entire databases?
No big worries if it's the latter, this isn't some production critical database or anything, just a bunch of forums and stuff, and pretty much everyone who uses them are in the same timezone, +/- an hour or two, so taking it down for a little while isn't a problem at all.
If there's an easy way to do it without taking it down though, that's of course preferable
Basically, for me personally, the easiest way is the best way
So, with that out of the way, I have a couple of databases that I need to backup on a daily basis.
Most of the tables ar MyISAM, but some are InnoDB, and from what I've gathered, the latter can cause some problems if not done properly.
I made a very unfancy script using mysqldump, but I find various posts and such that I've Googled to be unclear and somewhat contradictory with regards to how you can backup those tables.
Would a command line such as "mysqldump --opt -A --password=xxx |bzip2 -c > whatever.sql.bz2" be sufficient to backup those tables, or do I actually have to take down the entire databases?
No big worries if it's the latter, this isn't some production critical database or anything, just a bunch of forums and stuff, and pretty much everyone who uses them are in the same timezone, +/- an hour or two, so taking it down for a little while isn't a problem at all.
If there's an easy way to do it without taking it down though, that's of course preferable
Basically, for me personally, the easiest way is the best way
