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Tools: I Lost a Client's Database on a $5 VPS. Here's the 12-Line Script That Would Have Saved It. (2026)

2026-05-20 0 views admin
Tools: I Lost a Client's Database on a $5 VPS. Here's the 12-Line Script That Would Have Saved It. (2026)

The Script

What Each Piece Does

Stop Hardcoding Passwords

Schedule It

Variations I Actually Use

The Part Nobody Mentions It was a WordPress site on a $5 DigitalOcean droplet. Client's small business. Nothing fancy. I had SSH access. I had root. I had every tool I needed to set up automated backups. I just... didn't. Because it was a small site. Because I'd "get to it later." Because the database was only 40MB and what could go wrong? What went wrong was a botched plugin update that corrupted the wp_options table. No backup. No snapshot. No dump. Just a client on the phone asking why their site shows a white screen and me trying to explain that their content might be gone. I rebuilt it from a cached Google version and a Wayback Machine scrape. Took two days. Billed zero. That was the last time I ran a database without automated backups. This is what I use now. Every server, every database, no exceptions. That's it. mysqldump → gzip → timestamp → auto-cleanup. Runs in under a second on most databases. mysqldump -u"$DB_USER" -p"$DB_PASS" "$DB_NAME" — dumps every table, every row, every schema definition into a single SQL file. This is the standard MySQL backup tool and it's been reliable for decades. | gzip — pipes the dump straight into compression without ever writing an uncompressed file to disk. A 200MB database compresses to maybe 15MB. On a cheap VPS with limited storage, this matters. date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S' — timestamps every backup file. You get filenames like mydb_2026-05-20_03-00-01.sql.gz. When something breaks, you can see exactly which point in time each backup represents. find ... -mtime +"$KEEP_DAYS" -delete — the line most people forget. Without this, your backup folder grows forever. -mtime +7 means "modified more than 7 days ago." Adjust KEEP_DAYS based on how much disk you have. The script above works, but DB_PASS="your_password" sitting in a plain text file is a liability. In production, use a ~/.my.cnf file instead: Then chmod 600 ~/.my.cnf and remove the -u and -p flags from the mysqldump command entirely. MySQL reads credentials from that file automatically. Nobody sees the password in ps aux output, nobody finds it in your bash history. Open crontab -e and add: That runs the backup every night at 3 AM and logs the output. If you want it every 6 hours instead: If you're not comfortable with cron syntax, I built a free cron job builder that generates the line for you — click the schedule you want, copy the output. Back up ALL databases on the server: Copy the backup to a remote server (so it survives a full disk failure): Send yourself an email when the backup runs (or fails): Pair this with my email alert script and you'll get a notification either way. Test your restores. A backup you've never restored is a backup that might not work. Once a month, spin up a test database and run: If that command works, your backups are real. If it doesn't, you've been collecting dead files. The full script with the line-by-line breakdown, the ~/.my.cnf setup walkthrough, and three more variations is at: bashsnippets.xyz/snippets/mysql-database-backup.html If you're running a database on a VPS without automated backups, take 90 seconds and set this up today. Future you will be grateful. Templates let you quickly answer FAQs or store snippets for re-use. Hide child comments as well For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse

Command

Copy

#!/bin/bash CHECK="✓" CROSS="✗" # --- Configuration --- DB_USER="root" DB_PASS="your_password" # Or use ~/.my.cnf for security DB_NAME="your_database" # Change to your DB name BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/mysql" KEEP_DAYS=7 # Delete backups older than this DATE=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S') FILENAME="${DB_NAME}_${DATE}.sql.gz" # --- Create backup directory if it doesn't exist --- mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR" # --- Run the backup --- echo "Backing up database: $DB_NAME..." if mysqldump -u"$DB_USER" -p"$DB_PASS" "$DB_NAME" | gzip > "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}"; then echo "$CHECK Backup created: ${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" echo "$CHECK Size: $(du -sh "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" | cut -f1)" else echo "$CROSS Backup FAILED for $DB_NAME — check credentials and database name" exit 1 fi # --- Delete old backups --- echo "Removing backups older than $KEEP_DAYS days..." find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "*.sql.gz" -mtime +"$KEEP_DAYS" -delete echo "$CHECK Cleanup complete" # --- Show current backups --- echo "Current backups:" ls -lh "$BACKUP_DIR"/*.sql.gz 2>/dev/null || echo "No backups found" #!/bin/bash CHECK="✓" CROSS="✗" # --- Configuration --- DB_USER="root" DB_PASS="your_password" # Or use ~/.my.cnf for security DB_NAME="your_database" # Change to your DB name BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/mysql" KEEP_DAYS=7 # Delete backups older than this DATE=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S') FILENAME="${DB_NAME}_${DATE}.sql.gz" # --- Create backup directory if it doesn't exist --- mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR" # --- Run the backup --- echo "Backing up database: $DB_NAME..." if mysqldump -u"$DB_USER" -p"$DB_PASS" "$DB_NAME" | gzip > "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}"; then echo "$CHECK Backup created: ${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" echo "$CHECK Size: $(du -sh "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" | cut -f1)" else echo "$CROSS Backup FAILED for $DB_NAME — check credentials and database name" exit 1 fi # --- Delete old backups --- echo "Removing backups older than $KEEP_DAYS days..." find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "*.sql.gz" -mtime +"$KEEP_DAYS" -delete echo "$CHECK Cleanup complete" # --- Show current backups --- echo "Current backups:" ls -lh "$BACKUP_DIR"/*.sql.gz 2>/dev/null || echo "No backups found" #!/bin/bash CHECK="✓" CROSS="✗" # --- Configuration --- DB_USER="root" DB_PASS="your_password" # Or use ~/.my.cnf for security DB_NAME="your_database" # Change to your DB name BACKUP_DIR="/var/backups/mysql" KEEP_DAYS=7 # Delete backups older than this DATE=$(date '+%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S') FILENAME="${DB_NAME}_${DATE}.sql.gz" # --- Create backup directory if it doesn't exist --- mkdir -p "$BACKUP_DIR" # --- Run the backup --- echo "Backing up database: $DB_NAME..." if mysqldump -u"$DB_USER" -p"$DB_PASS" "$DB_NAME" | gzip > "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}"; then echo "$CHECK Backup created: ${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" echo "$CHECK Size: $(du -sh "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" | cut -f1)" else echo "$CROSS Backup FAILED for $DB_NAME — check credentials and database name" exit 1 fi # --- Delete old backups --- echo "Removing backups older than $KEEP_DAYS days..." find "$BACKUP_DIR" -name "*.sql.gz" -mtime +"$KEEP_DAYS" -delete echo "$CHECK Cleanup complete" # --- Show current backups --- echo "Current backups:" ls -lh "$BACKUP_DIR"/*.sql.gz 2>/dev/null || echo "No backups found" [client] user=root password=yourpassword [client] user=root password=yourpassword [client] user=root password=yourpassword 0 3 * * * /home/user/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 0 3 * * * /home/user/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 0 3 * * * /home/user/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 0 */6 * * * /home/user/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 0 */6 * * * /home/user/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 0 */6 * * * /home/user/mysql-backup.sh >> /var/log/mysql-backup.log 2>&1 mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > "${BACKUP_DIR}/all_dbs_${DATE}.sql.gz" mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > "${BACKUP_DIR}/all_dbs_${DATE}.sql.gz" mysqldump --all-databases | gzip > "${BACKUP_DIR}/all_dbs_${DATE}.sql.gz" scp "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" backupuser@remote-server:/backups/ scp "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" backupuser@remote-server:/backups/ scp "${BACKUP_DIR}/${FILENAME}" backupuser@remote-server:/backups/ gunzip < your_backup.sql.gz | mysql -u root -p test_database gunzip < your_backup.sql.gz | mysql -u root -p test_database gunzip < your_backup.sql.gz | mysql -u root -p test_database

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