How to install & run mysqldump

mysqldump is part of the mysql-client package, which means you will have to install mysql-client in order to be able to use mysqldump.

In most cases, if you run the command from a machine that has the mysql-server package, mysql-client will also be available. In order to check if you already have it, just open your terminal and type mysqldump. If you get a command not found message you have to install it, otherwise you are good to go.

How to install mysqldump on Ubuntu

sudo apt update
sudo apt install mysql-client

How to run mysqldump

In order to run mysqldump, open your terminal, type mysqldump and you will see a list of usage examples.

To dump a database named my_app_db and create a dump.sql file, run:

mysqldump -uroot -p my_app_db > dump.sql

The -u flag stands for user and -p for password. In our case the user is root and after executing the command, you will be asked to type the password for that user.

Next

In the next chapter you will see which flags are used by default when running mysqldump.