Consider using the MySQL Shell dump utilities[1], which provide parallel dumping with multiple threads, file compression, and progress information display, as well as cloud features such as Oracle Cloud Infrastructure Object Storage streaming, and MySQL HeatWave Service compatibility checks and modifications. Dumps can be easily imported into a MySQL Server instance or a MySQL HeatWave Service DB System using the MySQL Shell load dump utilities[2]. Installation instructions for MySQL Shell can be found here[3].

A dump made using PowerShell on Windows with output redirection creates a file that has UTF-16 encoding:

mysqldump [options] > dump.sql

However, UTF-16 is not permitted as a connection character set (see the section called “Impermissible Client Character Sets”), so the dump file cannot be loaded correctly. To work around this issue, use the --result-file option, which creates the output in ASCII format:

mysqldump [options] --result-file=dump.sql

mysqldump [options] db_name [tbl_name ...]
mysqldump [options] --databases db_name ...
mysqldump [options] --all-databases

On a computer having multiple network interfaces, use this option to select which interface to use for connecting to the MySQL server.

Compress all information sent between the client and the server if possible. See Section 6.2.8, “Connection Compression Control”.

This option is deprecated. Expect it to be removed in a future version of MySQL. See the section called “Configuring Legacy Connection Compression”.

The permitted compression algorithms for connections to the server. The available algorithms are the same as for the protocol_compression_algorithms system variable. The default value is uncompressed.

For more information, see Section 6.2.8, “Connection Compression Control”.

A hint about which client-side authentication plugin to use. See Section 8.2.17, “Pluggable Authentication”.

Enable the mysql_clear_password cleartext authentication plugin. (See Section 8.4.1.4, “Client-Side Cleartext Pluggable Authentication”.)

Request from the server the public key required for RSA key pair-based password exchange. This option applies to clients that authenticate with the caching_sha2_password authentication plugin. For that plugin, the server does not send the public key unless requested. This option is ignored for accounts that do not authenticate with that plugin. It is also ignored if RSA-based password exchange is not used, as is the case when the client connects to the server using a secure connection.

If --server-public-key-path=file_name is given and specifies a valid public key file, it takes precedence over --get-server-public-key.

For information about the caching_sha2_password plugin, see Section 8.4.1.2, “Caching SHA-2 Pluggable Authentication”.

Dump data from the MySQL server on the given host. The default host is localhost.

Read options from the named login path in the .mylogin.cnf login path file. A “login path” is an option group containing options that specify which MySQL server to connect to and which account to authenticate as. To create or modify a login path file, use the mysql_config_editor utility. See mysql_config_editor(1).

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Skips reading options from the login path file.

See --login-path for related information.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

The password of the MySQL account used for connecting to the server. The password value is optional. If not given, mysqldump prompts for one. If given, there must be no space between --password= or -p and the password following it. If no password option is specified, the default is to send no password.

Specifying a password on the command line should be considered insecure. To avoid giving the password on the command line, use an option file. See Section 8.1.2.1, “End-User Guidelines for Password Security”.

To explicitly specify that there is no password and that mysqldump should not prompt for one, use the --skip-password option.

Specifying a password on the command line should be considered insecure. To avoid giving the password on the command line, use an option file. See Section 8.1.2.1, “End-User Guidelines for Password Security”.

To explicitly specify that there is no password and that mysqldump should not prompt for one, use the --skip-password1 option.

--password1 and --password are synonymous, as are --skip-password1 and --skip-password.

On Windows, connect to the server using a named pipe. This option applies only if the server was started with the named_pipe system variable enabled to support named-pipe connections. In addition, the user making the connection must be a member of the Windows group specified by the named_pipe_full_access_group system variable.

On Windows, the authentication_kerberos_client authentication plugin supports this plugin option. It provides two possible values that the client user can set at runtime: SSPI and GSSAPI.

The default value for the client-side plugin option uses Security Support Provider Interface (SSPI), which is capable of acquiring credentials from the Windows in-memory cache. Alternatively, the client user can select a mode that supports Generic Security Service Application Program Interface (GSSAPI) through the MIT Kerberos library on Windows. GSSAPI is capable of acquiring cached credentials previously generated by using the kinit command.

For more information, see Commands for Windows Clients in GSSAPI Mode.

The directory in which to look for plugins. Specify this option if the --default-auth option is used to specify an authentication plugin but mysqldump does not find it. See Section 8.2.17, “Pluggable Authentication”.

For TCP/IP connections, the port number to use.

The transport protocol to use for connecting to the server. It is useful when the other connection parameters normally result in use of a protocol other than the one you want. For details on the permissible values, see Section 6.2.7, “Connection Transport Protocols”.

The path name to a file in PEM format containing a client-side copy of the public key required by the server for RSA key pair-based password exchange. This option applies to clients that authenticate with the sha256_password or caching_sha2_password authentication plugin. This option is ignored for accounts that do not authenticate with one of those plugins. It is also ignored if RSA-based password exchange is not used, as is the case when the client connects to the server using a secure connection.

If --server-public-key-path=file_name is given and specifies a valid public key file, it takes precedence over --get-server-public-key.

For sha256_password, this option applies only if MySQL was built using OpenSSL.

For information about the sha256_password and caching_sha2_password plugins, see Section 8.4.1.3, “SHA-256 Pluggable Authentication”, and Section 8.4.1.2, “Caching SHA-2 Pluggable Authentication”.

For connections to localhost, the Unix socket file to use, or, on Windows, the name of the named pipe to use.

On Windows, this option applies only if the server was started with the named_pipe system variable enabled to support named-pipe connections. In addition, the user making the connection must be a member of the Windows group specified by the named_pipe_full_access_group system variable.

Controls whether to enable FIPS mode on the client side. The --ssl-fips-mode option differs from other --ssl-xxx options in that it is not used to establish encrypted connections, but rather to affect which cryptographic operations to permit. See Section 8.8, “FIPS Support”.

These --ssl-fips-mode values are permitted:

The permissible ciphersuites for encrypted connections that use TLSv1.3. The value is a list of one or more colon-separated ciphersuite names. The ciphersuites that can be named for this option depend on the SSL library used to compile MySQL. For details, see Section 8.3.2, “Encrypted Connection TLS Protocols and Ciphers”.

When specified, the name is passed to the libmysqlclient C API library using the MYSQL_OPT_TLS_SNI_SERVERNAME option of mysql_options(). The server name is not case-sensitive. To show which server name the client specified for the current session, if any, check the Tls_sni_server_name status variable.

Server Name Indication (SNI) is an extension to the TLS protocol (OpenSSL must be compiled using TLS extensions for this option to function). The MySQL implementation of SNI represents the client-side only.

The permissible TLS protocols for encrypted connections. The value is a list of one or more comma-separated protocol names. The protocols that can be named for this option depend on the SSL library used to compile MySQL. For details, see Section 8.3.2, “Encrypted Connection TLS Protocols and Ciphers”.

The user name of the MySQL account to use for connecting to the server.

If you are using the Rewriter plugin, you should grant this user the SKIP_QUERY_REWRITE privilege.

The compression level to use for connections to the server that use the zstd compression algorithm. The permitted levels are from 1 to 22, with larger values indicating increasing levels of compression. The default zstd compression level is 3. The compression level setting has no effect on connections that do not use zstd compression.

For more information, see Section 6.2.8, “Connection Compression Control”.

Read this option file after the global option file but (on Unix) before the user option file. If the file does not exist or is otherwise inaccessible, an error occurs. If file_name is not an absolute path name, it is interpreted relative to the current directory.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Use only the given option file. If the file does not exist or is otherwise inaccessible, an error occurs. If file_name is not an absolute path name, it is interpreted relative to the current directory.

Exception: Even with --defaults-file, client programs read .mylogin.cnf.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Read not only the usual option groups, but also groups with the usual names and a suffix of str. For example, mysqldump normally reads the [client] and [mysqldump] groups. If this option is given as --defaults-group-suffix=_other, mysqldump also reads the [client_other] and [mysqldump_other] groups.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Do not read any option files. If program startup fails due to reading unknown options from an option file, --no-defaults can be used to prevent them from being read.

The exception is that the .mylogin.cnf file is read in all cases, if it exists. This permits passwords to be specified in a safer way than on the command line even when --no-defaults is used. To create .mylogin.cnf, use the mysql_config_editor utility. See mysql_config_editor(1).

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Print the program name and all options that it gets from option files.

For additional information about this and other option-file options, see Section 6.2.2.3, “Command-Line Options that Affect Option-File Handling”.

Write a DROP DATABASE statement before each CREATE DATABASE statement. This option is typically used in conjunction with the --all-databases or --databases option because no CREATE DATABASE statements are written unless one of those options is specified.

Write a DROP TABLE statement before each CREATE TABLE statement.

Write a DROP TRIGGER statement before each CREATE TRIGGER statement.

Adds to a table dump all SQL statements needed to create any tablespaces used by an NDB table. This information is not otherwise included in the output from mysqldump. This option is currently relevant only to NDB Cluster tables.

Suppress the CREATE DATABASE statements that are otherwise included in the output if the --databases or --all-databases option is given.

Do not write CREATE TABLE statements that create each dumped table.

This option suppresses all CREATE LOGFILE GROUP and CREATE TABLESPACE statements in the output of mysqldump.

Write REPLACE statements rather than INSERT statements.

Permit creation of column names that are keywords. This works by prefixing each column name with the table name.

Write additional information in the dump file such as program version, server version, and host. This option is enabled by default. To suppress this additional information, use --skip-comments.

Write a debugging log. A typical debug_options string is d:t:o,file_name. The default value is d:t:o,/tmp/mysqldump.trace.

This option is available only if MySQL was built using WITH_DEBUG. MySQL release binaries provided by Oracle are not built using this option.

Print some debugging information when the program exits.

This option is available only if MySQL was built using WITH_DEBUG. MySQL release binaries provided by Oracle are not built using this option.

Print debugging information and memory and CPU usage statistics when the program exits.

This option is available only if MySQL was built using WITH_DEBUG. MySQL release binaries provided by Oracle are not built using this option.

If the --comments option is given, mysqldump produces a comment at the end of the dump of the following form:

-- Dump completed on DATE

However, the date causes dump files taken at different times to appear to be different, even if the data are otherwise identical. --dump-date and --skip-dump-date control whether the date is added to the comment. The default is --dump-date (include the date in the comment). --skip-dump-date suppresses date printing.

Ignore all errors; continue even if an SQL error occurs during a table dump.

One use for this option is to cause mysqldump to continue executing even when it encounters a view that has become invalid because the definition refers to a table that has been dropped. Without --force, mysqldump exits with an error message. With --force, mysqldump prints the error message, but it also writes an SQL comment containing the view definition to the dump output and continues executing.

If the --ignore-error option is also given to ignore specific errors, --force takes precedence.

Log warnings and errors by appending them to the named file. The default is to do no logging.

See the description for the --comments option.

Verbose mode. Print more information about what the program does.

Display a help message and exit.

Display version information and exit.

The directory where character sets are installed. See Section 12.15, “Character Set Configuration”.

Use charset_name as the default character set. See Section 12.15, “Character Set Configuration”. If no character set is specified, mysqldump uses utf8mb4.

Turns off the --set-charset setting, the same as specifying --skip-set-charset.

Write SET NAMES default_character_set to the output. This option is enabled by default. To suppress the SET NAMES statement, use --skip-set-charset.

For a replica dump produced with the --dump-replica option, this option adds a STOP REPLICA statement before the statement with the binary log coordinates, and a START REPLICA statement at the end of the output.

This is a deprecated alias for --apply-replica-statements.

On a replication source server, delete the binary logs by sending a PURGE BINARY LOGS statement to the server after performing the dump operation. The options require the RELOAD privilege as well as privileges sufficient to execute that statement. This option automatically enables --source-data.

This is a deprecated alias for --delete-source-logs.

This option is similar to --source-data, except that it's used to dump a replica server to produce a dump file that can be used to set up another server as a replica that has the same source as the dumped server. The option causes the dump output to include a CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO statement that indicates the binary log coordinates (file name and position) of the dumped replica's source. The CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO statement reads the values of Relay_Master_Log_File and Exec_Master_Log_Pos from the SHOW REPLICA STATUS output and uses them for SOURCE_LOG_FILE and SOURCE_LOG_POS respectively. These are the replication source server coordinates from which the replica starts replicating.

--dump-replica causes mysqldump to stop the replication SQL thread before the dump and restart it again after.

--dump-replica sends a SHOW REPLICA STATUS statement to the server to obtain information, so they require privileges sufficient to execute that statement.

--apply-replica-statements and --include-source-host-port options can be used in conjunction with --dump-replica.

This is a deprecated alias for --dump-replica.

Adds the SOURCE_HOST and SOURCE_PORT options for the host name and TCP/IP port number of the replica's source, to the CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO statement in a replica dump produced with the --dump-replica option.

This is a deprecated alias for --include-source-host-port.

This is a deprecated alias for --source-data.

Determines the level of terminology used for statements relating to replicas and events, making it possible to create dumps compatible with older versions of MySQL that do not accept the newer terminology. This option can take any one of the following values, with effects described as listed here:

This option affects the output from --events, --dump-replica, --source-data, --apply-replica-statements, and --include-source-host-port.

Used to dump a replication source server to produce a dump file that can be used to set up another server as a replica of the source. The options cause the dump output to include a CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO statement that indicates the binary log coordinates (file name and position) of the dumped server. These are the replication source server coordinates from which the replica should start replicating after you load the dump file into the replica.

If the option value is 2, the CHANGE REPLICATION SOURCE TO statement is written as an SQL comment, and thus is informative only; it has no effect when the dump file is reloaded. If the option value is 1, the statement is not written as a comment and takes effect when the dump file is reloaded. If no option value is specified, the default value is 1.

--source-data sends a SHOW BINARY LOG STATUS statement to the server to obtain information, so they require privileges sufficient to execute that statement. This option also requires the RELOAD privilege and the binary log must be enabled.

--source-data automatically turns off --lock-tables. They also turn on --lock-all-tables, unless --single-transaction also is specified, in which case, a global read lock is acquired only for a short time at the beginning of the dump (see the description for --single-transaction). In all cases, any action on logs happens at the exact moment of the dump.

It is also possible to set up a replica by dumping an existing replica of the source, using the --dump-replica option, which overrides --source-data causing it to be ignored.

This option is for servers that use GTID-based replication (gtid_mode=ON). It controls the inclusion of a SET @@GLOBAL.gtid_purged statement in the dump output, which updates the value of gtid_purged on a server where the dump file is reloaded, to add the GTID set from the source server's gtid_executed system variable. gtid_purged holds the GTIDs of all transactions that have been applied on the server, but do not exist on any binary log file on the server. mysqldump therefore adds the GTIDs for the transactions that were executed on the source server, so that the target server records these transactions as applied, although it does not have them in its binary logs. --set-gtid-purged also controls the inclusion of a SET @@SESSION.sql_log_bin=0 statement, which disables binary logging while the dump file is being reloaded. This statement prevents new GTIDs from being generated and assigned to the transactions in the dump file as they are executed, so that the original GTIDs for the transactions are used.

If you do not set the --set-gtid-purged option, the default is that a SET @@GLOBAL.gtid_purged statement is included in the dump output if GTIDs are enabled on the server you are backing up, and the set of GTIDs in the global value of the gtid_executed system variable is not empty. A SET @@SESSION.sql_log_bin=0 statement is also included if GTIDs are enabled on the server.

You can either replace the value of gtid_purged with a specified GTID set, or add a plus sign (+) to the statement to append a specified GTID set to the GTID set that is already held by gtid_purged. The SET @@GLOBAL.gtid_purged statement recorded by mysqldump includes a plus sign (+) in a version-specific comment, such that MySQL adds the GTID set from the dump file to the existing gtid_purged value.

It is important to note that the value that is included by mysqldump for the SET @@GLOBAL.gtid_purged statement includes the GTIDs of all transactions in the gtid_executed set on the server, even those that changed suppressed parts of the database, or other databases on the server that were not included in a partial dump. This can mean that after the gtid_purged value has been updated on the server where the dump file is replayed, GTIDs are present that do not relate to any data on the target server. If you do not replay any further dump files on the target server, the extraneous GTIDs do not cause any problems with the future operation of the server, but they make it harder to compare or reconcile GTID sets on different servers in the replication topology. If you do replay a further dump file on the target server that contains the same GTIDs (for example, another partial dump from the same origin server), any SET @@GLOBAL.gtid_purged statement in the second dump file fails. In this case, either remove the statement manually before replaying the dump file, or output the dump file without the statement.

If the SET @@GLOBAL.gtid_purged statement would not have the desired result on your target server, you can exclude the statement from the output, or include it but comment it out so that it is not actioned automatically. You can also include the statement but manually edit it in the dump file to achieve the desired result.

The possible values for the --set-gtid-purged option are as follows:

AUTO

OFF

ON

COMMENTED

Produce more compact output. This option enables the --skip-add-drop-table, --skip-add-locks, --skip-comments, --skip-disable-keys, and --skip-set-charset options.

Produce output that is more compatible with other database systems or with older MySQL servers. The only permitted value for this option is ansi, which has the same meaning as the corresponding option for setting the server SQL mode. See Section 7.1.11, “Server SQL Modes”.

Use complete INSERT statements that include column names.

Include all MySQL-specific table options in the CREATE TABLE statements.

These options are used with the --tab option and have the same meaning as the corresponding FIELDS clauses for LOAD DATA. See Section 15.2.9, “LOAD DATA Statement”.

Dump binary columns using hexadecimal notation (for example, 'abc' becomes 0x616263). The affected data types are BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB types, BIT, all spatial data types, and other non-binary data types when used with the binary character set.

The --hex-blob option is ignored when the --tab is used.

This option is used with the --tab option and has the same meaning as the corresponding LINES clause for LOAD DATA. See Section 15.2.9, “LOAD DATA Statement”.

Quote identifiers (such as database, table, and column names) within ` characters. If the ANSI_QUOTES SQL mode is enabled, identifiers are quoted within " characters. This option is enabled by default. It can be disabled with --skip-quote-names, but this option should be given after any option such as --compatible that may enable --quote-names.

Direct output to the named file. The result file is created and its previous contents overwritten, even if an error occurs while generating the dump.

This option should be used on Windows to prevent newline \n characters from being converted to \r\n carriage return/newline sequences.

Excludes the SECONDARY ENGINE clause from CREATE TABLE statements. It does so by enabling the show_create_table_skip_secondary_engine system variable for the duration of the dump operation. Alternatively, you can enable the show_create_table_skip_secondary_engine system variable prior to using mysqldump.

Produce tab-separated text-format data files. For each dumped table, mysqldump creates a tbl_name.sql file that contains the CREATE TABLE statement that creates the table, and the server writes a tbl_name.txt file that contains its data. The option value is the directory in which to write the files.

Column values are converted to the character set specified by the --default-character-set option.

This option enables TIMESTAMP columns to be dumped and reloaded between servers in different time zones. mysqldump sets its connection time zone to UTC and adds SET TIME_ZONE='+00:00' to the dump file. Without this option, TIMESTAMP columns are dumped and reloaded in the time zones local to the source and destination servers, which can cause the values to change if the servers are in different time zones. --tz-utc also protects against changes due to daylight saving time. --tz-utc is enabled by default. To disable it, use --skip-tz-utc.

Write dump output as well-formed XML.

NULL, 'NULL', and Empty Values: For a column named column_name, the NULL value, an empty string, and the string value 'NULL' are distinguished from one another in the output generated by this option as follows.

The output from the mysql client when run using the --xml option also follows the preceding rules. (See the section called “MYSQL CLIENT OPTIONS”.)

XML output from mysqldump includes the XML namespace, as shown here:

$> mysqldump --xml -u root world City
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<mysqldump xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<database name="world">
<table_structure name="City">
<field Field="ID" Type="int(11)" Null="NO" Key="PRI" Extra="auto_increment" />
<field Field="Name" Type="char(35)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="" Extra="" />
<field Field="CountryCode" Type="char(3)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="" Extra="" />
<field Field="District" Type="char(20)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="" Extra="" />
<field Field="Population" Type="int(11)" Null="NO" Key="" Default="0" Extra="" />
<key Table="City" Non_unique="0" Key_name="PRIMARY" Seq_in_index="1" Column_name="ID"
Collation="A" Cardinality="4079" Null="" Index_type="BTREE" Comment="" />
<options Name="City" Engine="MyISAM" Version="10" Row_format="Fixed" Rows="4079"
Avg_row_length="67" Data_length="273293" Max_data_length="18858823439613951"
Index_length="43008" Data_free="0" Auto_increment="4080"
Create_time="2007-03-31 01:47:01" Update_time="2007-03-31 01:47:02"
Collation="latin1_swedish_ci" Create_options="" Comment="" />
</table_structure>
<table_data name="City">
<row>
<field name="ID">1</field>
<field name="Name">Kabul</field>
<field name="CountryCode">AFG</field>
<field name="District">Kabol</field>
<field name="Population">1780000</field>
</row>
...
<row>
<field name="ID">4079</field>
<field name="Name">Rafah</field>
<field name="CountryCode">PSE</field>
<field name="District">Rafah</field>
<field name="Population">92020</field>
</row>
</table_data>
</database>
</mysqldump>

Dump all tables in all databases. This is the same as using the --databases option and naming all the databases on the command line.

Dump several databases. Normally, mysqldump treats the first name argument on the command line as a database name and following names as table names. With this option, it treats all name arguments as database names. CREATE DATABASE and USE statements are included in the output before each new database.

This option may be used to dump the performance_schema database, which normally is not dumped even with the --all-databases option. (Also use the --skip-lock-tables option.)

Include Event Scheduler events for the dumped databases in the output. This option requires the EVENT privileges for those databases.

The output generated by using --events contains CREATE EVENT statements to create the events.

Ignore the specified errors. The option value is a list of comma-separated error numbers specifying the errors to ignore during mysqldump execution. If the --force option is also given to ignore all errors, --force takes precedence.

Do not dump the given table, which must be specified using both the database and table names. To ignore multiple tables, use this option multiple times. This option also can be used to ignore views.

Skips table views in the dump file.

Single SQL statement to execute after connecting to the MySQL server. The definition resets existing statements defined by it or init-command-add.

Add an additional SQL statement to execute after connecting or reconnecting to the MySQL server. It's usable without --init-command but has no effect if used before it because init-command resets the list of commands to call.

Do not write any table row information (that is, do not dump table contents). This is useful if you want to dump only the CREATE TABLE statement for the table (for example, to create an empty copy of the table by loading the dump file).

Include stored routines (procedures and functions) for the dumped databases in the output. This option requires the global SELECT privilege.

The output generated by using --routines contains CREATE PROCEDURE and CREATE FUNCTION statements to create the routines.

This option causes generated invisible primary keys to be excluded from the output. For more information, see Section 15.1.20.11, “Generated Invisible Primary Keys”.

Override the --databases or -B option. mysqldump regards all name arguments following the option as table names.

Include triggers for each dumped table in the output. This option is enabled by default; disable it with --skip-triggers.

To be able to dump a table's triggers, you must have the TRIGGER privilege for the table.

Multiple triggers are permitted. mysqldump dumps triggers in activation order so that when the dump file is reloaded, triggers are created in the same activation order. However, if a mysqldump dump file contains multiple triggers for a table that have the same trigger event and action time, an error occurs for attempts to load the dump file into an older server that does not support multiple triggers. (For a workaround, see Downgrade Notes[4]; you can convert triggers to be compatible with older servers.)

Dump only rows selected by the given WHERE condition. Quotes around the condition are mandatory if it contains spaces or other characters that are special to your command interpreter.

Examples:

--where="user='jimf'"
-w"userid>1"
-w"userid<1"

Add ANALYZE TABLE statements to the output to generate histogram statistics for dumped tables when the dump file is reloaded. This option is disabled by default because histogram generation for large tables can take a long time.

For each table, surround the INSERT statements with /*!40000 ALTER TABLE tbl_name DISABLE KEYS */; and /*!40000 ALTER TABLE tbl_name ENABLE KEYS */; statements. This makes loading the dump file faster because the indexes are created after all rows are inserted. This option is effective only for nonunique indexes of MyISAM tables.

Write INSERT statements using multiple-row syntax that includes several VALUES lists. This results in a smaller dump file and speeds up inserts when the file is reloaded.

Write INSERT IGNORE statements rather than INSERT statements.

The maximum size of the buffer for client/server communication. The default is 24MB, the maximum is 1GB.

Set the session value of the long_query_time system variable. Use this option if you want to increase the time allowed for mysqldump's queries before they are logged to the slow query log file. mysqldump performs a full table scan, which means its queries can often exceed a global long_query_time setting that is useful for regular queries. The default global setting is 10 seconds.

You can use --mysqld-long-query-time to specify a session value from 0 (meaning that every query from mysqldump is logged to the slow query log) to 31536000, which is 365 days in seconds. For mysqldump’s option, you can only specify whole seconds. When you do not specify this option, the server’s global setting applies to mysqldump’s queries.

The initial size of the buffer for client/server communication. When creating multiple-row INSERT statements (as with the --extended-insert or --opt option), mysqldump creates rows up to --net-buffer-length bytes long. If you increase this variable, ensure that the MySQL server net_buffer_length system variable has a value at least this large.

Enable large tables to be dumped by setting --max-allowed-packet to its maximum value and network read and write timeouts to a large value. This option is enabled by default. To disable it, use --skip-network-timeout.

This option, enabled by default, is shorthand for the combination of --add-drop-table --add-locks --create-options --disable-keys --extended-insert --lock-tables --quick --set-charset. It gives a fast dump operation and produces a dump file that can be reloaded into a MySQL server quickly.

Because the --opt option is enabled by default, you only specify its converse, the --skip-opt to turn off several default settings. See the discussion of mysqldump option groups for information about selectively enabling or disabling a subset of the options affected by --opt.

This option is useful for dumping large tables. It forces mysqldump to retrieve rows for a table from the server a row at a time rather than retrieving the entire row set and buffering it in memory before writing it out.

See the description for the --opt option.

Surround each table dump with LOCK TABLES and UNLOCK TABLES statements. This results in faster inserts when the dump file is reloaded. See Section 10.2.5.1, “Optimizing INSERT Statements”.

Flush the MySQL server log files before starting the dump. This option requires the RELOAD privilege. If you use this option in combination with the --all-databases option, the logs are flushed for each database dumped. The exception is when using --lock-all-tables, --source-data, or --single-transaction. In these cases, the logs are flushed only once, corresponding to the moment that all tables are locked by FLUSH TABLES WITH READ LOCK. If you want your dump and the log flush to happen at exactly the same moment, you should use --flush-logs together with --lock-all-tables, --source-data, or --single-transaction.

Add a FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement to the dump output after dumping the mysql database. This option should be used any time the dump contains the mysql database and any other database that depends on the data in the mysql database for proper restoration.

Because the dump file contains a FLUSH PRIVILEGES statement, reloading the file requires privileges sufficient to execute that statement.

Lock all tables across all databases. This is achieved by acquiring a global read lock for the duration of the whole dump. This option automatically turns off --single-transaction and --lock-tables.

For each dumped database, lock all tables to be dumped before dumping them. The tables are locked with READ LOCAL to permit concurrent inserts in the case of MyISAM tables. For transactional tables such as InnoDB, --single-transaction is a much better option than --lock-tables because it does not need to lock the tables at all.

Because --lock-tables locks tables for each database separately, this option does not guarantee that the tables in the dump file are logically consistent between databases. Tables in different databases may be dumped in completely different states.

Some options, such as --opt, automatically enable --lock-tables. If you want to override this, use --skip-lock-tables at the end of the option list.

Enclose the INSERT statements for each dumped table within SET autocommit = 0 and COMMIT statements.

Dump each table's rows sorted by its primary key, or by its first unique index, if such an index exists. This is useful when dumping a MyISAM table to be loaded into an InnoDB table, but makes the dump operation take considerably longer.

On Windows, the shared-memory name to use for connections made using shared memory to a local server. The default value is MYSQL. The shared-memory name is case-sensitive.

This option applies only if the server was started with the shared_memory system variable enabled to support shared-memory connections.

This option sets the transaction isolation mode to REPEATABLE READ and sends a START TRANSACTION SQL statement to the server before dumping data. It is useful only with transactional tables such as InnoDB, because then it dumps the consistent state of the database at the time when START TRANSACTION was issued without blocking any applications.

The RELOAD or FLUSH_TABLES privilege is required with --single-transaction if both gtid_mode=ON and --set-gtid=purged=ON|AUTO.

When using this option, you should keep in mind that only InnoDB tables are dumped in a consistent state. For example, any MyISAM or MEMORY tables dumped while using this option may still change state.

While a --single-transaction dump is in process, to ensure a valid dump file (correct table contents and binary log coordinates), no other connection should use the following statements: ALTER TABLE, CREATE TABLE, DROP TABLE, RENAME TABLE, TRUNCATE TABLE. A consistent read is not isolated from those statements, so use of them on a table to be dumped can cause the SELECT that is performed by mysqldump to retrieve the table contents to obtain incorrect contents or fail.

The --single-transaction option and the --lock-tables option are mutually exclusive because LOCK TABLES causes any pending transactions to be committed implicitly.

To dump large tables, combine the --single-transaction option with the --quick option.

mysqldump db_name > backup-file.sql

mysql db_name < backup-file.sql

mysql -e "source /path-to-backup/backup-file.sql" db_name

mysqldump --opt db_name | mysql --host=remote_host -C db_name

mysqldump --databases db_name1 [db_name2 ...] > my_databases.sql

mysqldump --all-databases > all_databases.sql

mysqldump --all-databases --source-data --single-transaction > all_databases.sql

mysqldump --all-databases --source-data=2 > all_databases.sql

mysqldump --all-databases --flush-logs --source-data=2 > all_databases.sql