How to Quickly Backup Your Koha Database
Regular backups of Koha are a must, in case your installation fails or your hardware crashes. While you should have an automated backup procedure in place, sometimes (before a major upgrade for example) you may need to make a quick one-time backup. So here’s how to quickly backup your Koha database.

How to Quickly Backup Your Koha Database

Regular backups of Koha are a must, in case your installation fails or your hardware crashes. While you should have an automated backup procedure in place, sometimes (before a major upgrade for example) you may need to make a quick one-time backup. So here’s how to quickly backup your Koha database.
Open your terminal and execute the following command:
mysqldump -u [username] -p [name_of_koha_db] | gzip -c > [backupname].gz
Where
- [username] is the username for your mysql or koha database user.
- [name_of_koha_db] is the name of your koha database (you can find this by logging into your mysql database – use the command mysql -u root -p – and type show databases; to list all your databases).
- | gzip -c compresses the .sql file in gzip format (saving storage space).
- backupname]can be whatever you want to name your database. It could be helpful to include the name of the database and the date/time on which you ran the dump for future reference.
Confirm that the command ran successfully by using the “ls” command in the terminal. You should see a file called [backupname].gz in your folder. This contains all your records, items, and more. You can then use this to restore your Koha database or import it into a new installation should you need it.
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