invoke mysqldump via php3 web page

[Anon]

(I spent several hours today reading mysql manual, php3 manual and man cron (unix). Cannot find what I need and I am new to some of this stuff, so if the obvious was in front of me, I failed to understand syntax or terminology)

I have an admin web page wherein the site owner can make changes to several mysql databases. After changes are made, I want the site owner to be able to click a link to automatically make a backup of her mysql data. I need to keep several backups of these databases (do not overwrite existing backup data), so I need to append a mysqldump-ed text file with a date. Additionally, the site owner runs several databases. I know I can run all of this manually via Telnet but there must be a way to allow the site owner to do it herself via a web page link.

All I can find in the php manual are: exec() and system() which I understand to run a command outside of php???

PROBLEM: Here is the line I want to be clickable on a web page for my site owner:

mysqldump -l --flush-logs --add-locks --add-drop-table $db > $includepath/$db.$date

QUESTION: How can I script this in php3 so that it will call the mysqldump command on my unix server?

[Anon]

I wrote a function that my help...
Write access will be required on one of the directorys...

     function dumpdb($dbname,$dumptype="") {
       global $mysqldbuser, $mysqldbpasswd;
            $_time = date("H:i:s");
            $_date = date("Y-m-d");
            $_admtool = "/usr/local/bin/mysqldump";
            $dumpdir = "." . "/dbdumps/"; 
            if($dumptype == "withdata") {
            $par = "--opt -u$mysqldbuser -p$mysqldbpasswd $dbname";
            } else {
            $par = "--opt -d -u$mysqldbuser -p$mysqldbpasswd $dbname";
            }
            $command = "$_admtool $par";
            echo "Database dump for $dbname";
            echo "<BR>";
            echo "$_date :: $_time";
            echo "<P>";     
            exec ($command, $dd, $result);
            $indexLimit = count($dd);
            $csvfile="db_" . $dbname . date("Ymd") . ".dump";
            $myfile = fopen($dumpdir . $csvfile,"w");
            for($index=0; $index < $indexLimit; $index++) {
            $_dumpdata = (" $dd[$index]\n ");

            // echo (" $_dumpdata<BR>\n ");
            fputs($myfile,$_dumpdata);

            }
            fclose($myfile);
            echo "<a href=dbdumps/$csvfile>DUMP</a> File Created\n";

    }       

Function WILL need to be modify..

Hope this helps
CT

[Anon]

Why not just run your exec() command piped to a file? Does that work?

$par = "--opt -d -u$mysqldbuser -p$mysqldbpasswd $dbname > $cvsfile";

Then you won't have to open the file and do the loop to write the data...

John Holmes...

[Anon]

Thank you for your input. It helped me realize that I was in fact on the right track!

Today I discovered that mysqldump was not being found by my script, I think because /usr/local/bin/mysqldump is outside my \"root\" server area, and my php-scripted web page defaults the root as being /usr/home/myusername/ (hope this makes sense as I am new to much of this).

So I copied mysqldump over to my server area, renamed mysqldump as \"mysqldumpforcron\" (because I don\'t know if other things will default to, or be effected by, the copy I made) and the following one line in php which I was originally trying to get to work, actually works just fine now!:

mysqldumpforcron -l --flush-logs --add-locks --add-drop-table $db > $includepath/$db.$date

Now I can use this line in my php3 script to allow the site owner to automatically make a backup of her databases (via webpage text link using exec command), and use it to write some cronjobs.

Thanks! I hope I will be okay now. If you think I should post my entire script for you to evaluate, holler.

ada