Incremental MySQL backup to Amazon S3 - mysql

Looking at this now. Any script recommendation will do. Using Rails app too.
The difference with current scripts around is it's a full backup, my MySQL database files are like 120MB+ for now, which will increase overtime. So I wonder if there is any incremental method around.

This recent thread on mysql.com discusses it.
Basically, you have to set the server up to do binary logging and set a threshold for each log to whatever size increment you prefer for backing up. Then just upload a complete backup once and start your binary logging from that point forward. Then just upload each log once it is closed and a new one is opened.
It is more complicated than that but I think that should get you started.

Related

How do I make a snapshot of my boot disk?

I've read multiple times that I can cause read/write errors if I create a snapshot. Is it possible to create a snapshot of the disk my machine is booted off of?
It depends on what you mean by "snapshot".
A snapshot is not a backup, it is a way of temporarily capturing the state of a system so you can make changes test the results and revert back to the previously known good state if the changes cause issues.
How to take a snapshot varies depending on the OS you're using, whether you're talking about a physical system or a virtual system, what virtualization platform, you're using, what image types you're using for disks within a given virtualization platform etc. etc. etc.
Once you have a snapshot, then you can make a real backup from the snapshot. You'll want to make sure that if it's a database server that you've flushed everything to disk and then write lock it for the time it takes to make the snapshot (typically seconds). For other systems you'll similarly need to address things in a way that ensures that you have a consistent state.
If you want to make a complete backup of your system drive, directly rather than via a snapshot then you want to shut down and boot off an alternate boot device like a CD or an external drive.
If you don't do that, and try to directly back up a running system then you will be leaving yourself open to all manner of potential issues. It might work some of the time, but you won't know until you try and restore it.
If you can provide more details about the system in question, then you'll get more detailed answers.
As far as moving apps and data to different drives, data is easy provided you can shut down whatever is accessing the data. If it's a database, stop the database, move the data files, tell the database server where to find its files and start it up.
For applications, it depends. Often it doesn't matter and it's fine to leave it on the system disk. It comes down to how it's being installed.
It looks like that works a little differently. The first snapshot will create an entire copy of the disk and subsequent snapshots will act like ordinary snapshots. This means it might take a bit longer to do the first snapshot.
According to :
this you ideally want to shut down the system before taking a snapshot of your boot disk. If you can't do that for whatever reason, then you want to minimize the amount of writes hitting the disk and then take the snapshot. Assuming you're using a journaling filesystem (ext3, ext4, xfs etc.) it should be able to recover without issue.
You an use the GCE APIs. Use the Disks:insert API to create the Persistence disk. you have some code examples on how to start an instance using Python, but Google has libraries for other programming languages like Java, PHP and other

Change session storage from file to MySQL in MediaWiki

I am in the process of moving our companies MediaWiki from a single server to a clustered environment. The existing file based session storage was fine with the single server, but clearly not for the cluster.
To address this I'm looking to use one of our existing MySQL database servers to handle session management but the only article I've come across is for a new MediaWiki installation.
I set $wgSessionHandler in LocalSettings.php but that had no effect.
Anyone have advice/experience with this?
This might not be the answer you're looking for, but I was just facing this issue myself.
After trying to Do The Right Thing™ for some hours, I finally gave in and just put the sessions on shared storage.
So, if you can afford to, performance wise, and have some shared storage available or can easily create some, I can only recommend just pointing PHP's session.save_path to shared storage and save yourself the trouble.
It's the easy way out. ;-)

Best way to migrate servers without losing any data and with no downtime(?)

This is a methodology question from a freelancer, with a corollary on MySQL.. Is there a way to migrate from an old dedicated server to a new one without losing any data in-between - and with no downtime? In the past, I've had to lose MySQL data between the time when the new server goes up (i.e., all files transferred, system up and ready), and when I take the old server down (data still transferred to old until new one takes over). There is also a short period where both are down for DNS, etc., to refresh.
Is there a way for MySQL/root to easily transfer all data that was updated/inserted between a certain time frame?
I'd make a sorry page, put it up on the old server, transfer all data to the new one and then switch DNS. Though there will be a downtime.
What I like to do is close the site and starting to move DB to other server using these commands: 2, then move all files (php ..etc) to the other server (if you have some store data or change files every hour, like image upload). and point the old server to the new DB server while the DNS is changing to all to the new server.
The longest downtime is from DNS switch - can take several hours and even days till all clients caches are expired.
To avoid it:
set up application on new server to access DB on old one, or just proxy http requests with nginx to the old one, depending on what is more acceptable.
then goes DNS switch, some clients go to ld server, some to new, here you can wait for 24+ hours to make sure all requests go to new server
While DNS switches - rehearse mysql transition.
make a 'sorry/maintanance page', there're plenty of guides how to do that usung rewrites. You'll need it anyway
measure how fast you can dump-transfer-restore db, if time is acceptable - this is the simplest, but remember to give some margin
if previous is too slow - you can try binlog method suggested in previos answer
minimal downtime can be achieved by making new server a mysql slave to the old one, under the hood it is just downloads binlog from master on-the-fly and you will save time on transferring the whole log, most probably during minimal load slave will be just several seconds behind master and catch up very quickly once app is taken down, see how to force slave to catch up.
Write a script, that does all transition for you - enables maintenance mode, locks master db, waits till slave catches up, makes slave a new master, replaces app config with new db, disables maintenance, switches app etc. This way you save time on typing commands youself, test on staging environment to avoid possible errors (also remember to set larger mysql timeout, just in case slave is a lot behind)
here goes the transition itself, by running script from previous step
Also if you use file uploads to a local filesystem - these need to be synced too and on lots of files this is more pain than with db, because even rsync scan for changes can take a lot of time.
Check out the MySQL binary log.
Sure. Enable bin logging on the source server. After that is started, make a DB dump and transfer it to the new server and import it. Then, when you're ready to make the switch, change DNS (let the change propagate while you're working), then take the site down on both servers. Copy the binlogs to the new server and run them again starting at the date/time of the dump.

How to bring files in a filesystem in/out MySQL DB?

The application that I am working on generates files dynamically with use. This makes backup and syncronization between staging,development and production a real big challenge. One way that we might get smooth solution (if feasable) is to have a script that at the moment of backing up the database can backup the dynamically generated files inside the database and in restore time can bring those file out of the database and in the filesystem again.
I am wondering if there are any available (pay or free) application that could be use as scripts to make this happen.
Basically if I have
/usr/share/appname/server/dynamicdir
/usr/share/appname/server/otherdir/etc/resource.file
Then taking the examples above and with the script put them on the mysql database.
Please let me know if you need more information.
Do you mean that the application is storing a files as blobs in the MySQL database, and/or creating lots of temporary tables? Or that you just want temporary files - themselves unrelated to a database - to be stored in MySQL as a backup?
I'm not sure that trying to use MySQL as an net-new intermediary for backups of files is a good idea. If the app already uses it, thats one thing, if not, MySQL isn't the right tool here.
Anyway. If you are interested in capturing a filesystem at point-in-time, the answer is to utilize LVM snapshots. You would likely have to rebuild your server to get your filesystems onto LVM, and have enough free storage there for as many snapshots as you think you'd need.
I would recommend having a new mount point just for this apps temporary files. If your MySQL tables are using InnoDB, a simple script to run mysqldump --single-transaction in the background, and then the lvm snapshot process, you could get these synced up to less then a second.
the should be trivial to accomplish using PHP, perl, python, etc. are you looking for someone to write this for you?

Full complete MySQL database replication? Ideas? What do people do?

Currently I have two Linux servers running MySQL, one sitting on a rack right next to me under a 10 Mbit/s upload pipe (main server) and another some couple of miles away on a 3 Mbit/s upload pipe (mirror).
I want to be able to replicate data on both servers continuously, but have run into several roadblocks. One of them being, under MySQL master/slave configurations, every now and then, some statements drop (!), meaning; some people logging on to the mirror URL don't see data that I know is on the main server and vice versa. Let's say this happens on a meaningful block of data once every month, so I can live with it and assume it's a "lost packet" issue (i.e., god knows, but we'll compensate).
The other most important (and annoying) recurring issue is that, when for some reason we do a major upload or update (or reboot) on one end and have to sever the link, then LOAD DATA FROM MASTER doesn't work and I have to manually dump on one end and upload on the other, quite a task nowadays moving some .5 TB worth of data.
Is there software for this? I know MySQL (the "corporation") offers this as a VERY expensive service (full database replication). What do people out there do? The way it's structured, we run an automatic failover where if one server is not up, then the main URL just resolves to the other server.
We at Percona offer free tools to detect discrepancies between master and server, and to get them back in sync by re-applying minimal changes.
pt-table-checksum
pt-table-sync
GoldenGate is a very good solution, but probably as expensive as the MySQL replicator.
It basically tails the journal, and applies changes based on what's committed. They support bi-directional replication (a hard task), and replication between heterogenous systems.
Since they work by processing the journal file, they can do large-scale distributed replication without affecting performance on the source machine(s).
I have never seen dropped statements but there is a bug where network problems could cause relay log corruption. Make sure you dont run mysql without this fix.
Documented in the 5.0.56, 5.1.24, and 6.0.5 changelogs as follows:
Network timeouts between the master and the slave could result
in corruption of the relay log.
http://bugs.mysql.com/bug.php?id=26489